Page images
PDF
EPUB

On her pallid cheek and forehead came a color and a light, As I have seen the rosy red flushing in the northern

night.

And she turned,

of sighs,

her bosom shaken with a sudden storm

All the spirit deeply dawning in the dark of hazel eyes,

Saying, "I have hid my feelings, fearing they should do me wrong";

Saying, "Dost thou love me, cousin?" weeping, "I have loved thee long."

Love took up the glass of Time, and turned it in his glowing hands;

Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands.

Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might;

Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, passed in music out of sight.

Many a morning on the moorland did we hear the copses

ring,

And her whisper thronged my pulses with the fulness of the Spring.

Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately

ships,

And our spirits rushed together at the touching of the lips.

O my cousin, shallow-hearted! O my Amy, mine no

more!

O the dreary, dreary moorland! O the barren, barren

shore!

Falser than all fancy fathoms, falser than all songs have

sung,

Puppet to a father's threat, and servile to a shrewish tongue!

Is it well to wish thee happy?—having known me,—to

decline

On a range of lower feelings and a narrower heart than mine!

Yet it shall be thou shalt lower to his level day by day, What is fine within thee growing coarse to sympathize with clay.

As the husband is, the wife is: thou art mated with a clown, And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down.

He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force,

Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse.

What is this? his eyes are heavy: think not they are glazed with wine.

Go to him it is thy duty: kiss him: take his hand in

thine.

t

It

weary,

may be that his brain is overwrought: lord is my Soothe him with thy finer fancies, touch him with thy

lighter thought.

He will answer to the purpose, easy things to understand,Better thou wert dead before me, though I slew thee with my hand!

Better thou and I were lying, hidden from the heart's disgrace,

Rolled in one another's arms, and silent in a last embrace.

Cursed be the social wants that sin against the strength of youth!

Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the living truth!

Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest Nature's rule!

Cursed be the gold that gilds the straitened forehead of the fool!

Well 't is well that I should bluster! - Hadst thou less unworthy proved

Would to God for I had loved thee more than ever wife was loved.

Am I mad, that I should cherish that which bears but bitter fruit?

I will pluck it from my bosom, though my heart be at the root.

Never, though my mortal summers to such length of years

should come

As the many-wintered crow that leads the clanging rookery home.

Where is comfort? in division of the records of the mind? Can I part her from herself, and love her, as I knew her, kind?

I remember one that perished: sweetly did she speak and move:

Such a one do I remember, whom to look at was to love.

Can I think of her as dead, and love her for the love she bore?

[blocks in formation]

she never loved me truly love is love forevermore.

Comfort? comfort scorned of devils! this is truth the poet sings,

That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things.

Drug thy memories, lest thou learn it, lest thy heart be put to proof,

In the dead unhappy night, and when the rain is on the roof.

Like a dog, he hunts in dreams, and thou art staring at

the wall,

Where the dying night-lamp flickers, and the shadows rise and fall.

Then a hand shall pass before thee, pointing to his drunken sleep,

To thy widowed marriage-pillows, to the tears that thou wilt weep.

Thou shalt hear the "Never, never," whispered by the phantom years,

And a song from out the distance in the ringing of thine

ears;

And an eye shall vex thee, looking ancient kindness on thy pain.

Turn thee, turn thee on thy pillow: get thee to thy rest again.

Nay, but Nature brings thee solace; for a tender voice will cry.

'Tis a purer life than thine; a lip to drain thy trouble dry.

Baby lips will laugh me down: my latest rival brings thee rest.

Baby fingers, waxen touches, press me from the mother's breast.

O, the child too clothes the father with a dearness not his due.

Half is thine and half is his: it will be worthy of the two.

O, I see thee old and formal, fitted to thy petty part, With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter's heart.

« PreviousContinue »