Chapter 593

'"'Twas Ensign Baynes of our parish."--Ah, ah, Miss Charlworth, the one Our Tom fought for a young lady? Come, now we've got into the fun! - "I shouldered him: he primed his pistol, and I trailed my musket, prepared." Why, that's a fine pick-a-back for ye, to make twenty Russians look scared! "They came--never mind how many: we couldn't have run very well, We fought back to back: 'face to face, our last time!' he said, smiling, and fell.

XXII

'"Then I strove wild for his body: the beggars saw glittering rings, Which I vowed to send to his mother. I got some hard knocks and sharp stings, But felt them no more than angel, or devil, except in the wind. I know that I swore at a Russian for showing his teeth, and he grinned The harder: quick, as from heaven, a man on a horse rode between, And fired, and swung his bright sabre: I can't write you more of the scene.

XXIII

'"But half in his arms, and half at his stirrup, he bore me right forth, And pitched me among my old comrades: before I could tell south from north, He caught my hand up, and kissed it! Don't ever let any man speak A word against Frenchmen, I near him! I can't find his name, tho' I seek. But French, and a General, surely he was, and, God bless him! thro' him I've learnt to love a whole nation."' The ancient man paused, winking dim.

XXIV

A curious look, half woeful, was seen on his face as he turned His eyes upon each of his children, like one who but faintly discerned His old self in an old mirror. Then gathering sense in his fist, He sounded it hard on his knee-cap. 'Your hand, Tom, the French fellow kissed! He kissed my boy's old pounder! I say he's a gentleman!' Straight The letter he tossed to one daughter; bade her the remainder relate.

XXV

Tom properly stated his praises in facts, but the lady preferred To deck the narration with brackets, and drop her additional word. What nobler Christian natures these women could boast, who, 'twas known, Once spat at the name of their nephew, and now made his praises their own! The letter at last was finished, the hearers breathed freely, and sign Was given, 'Tom's health!'--Quoth the farmer: 'Eh, Miss? are you weak in the spine?'

XXVI

For Mary had sunk, and her body was shaking, as if in a fit. Tom's letter she held, and her thumb-nail the month when the letter was writ Fast-dinted, while she hung sobbing: 'O, see, Sir, the letter is old! O, do not be too happy!'--'If I understand you, I'm bowled!' Said Grandfather Bridgeman, 'and down go my wickets!--not happy! when here, Here's Tom like to marry his General's daughter--or widow--I'll swear!

XXVII

'I wager he knows how to strut, too! It's all on the cards that the Queen Will ask him to Buckingham Palace, to say what he's done and he's seen. Victoria's fond of her soldiers: and she's got a nose for a fight. If Tom tells a cleverish story--there is such a thing as a knight! And don't he look roguish and handsome!--To see a girl snivelling there - By George, Miss, it's clear that you're jealous'--'I love him!' she answered his stare.

XXVIII

'Yes! now!' breathed the voice of a woman.--'Ah! now!' quiver'd low the reply. 'And "now"'s just a bit too late, so it's no use your piping your eye,' The farmer added bluffly: 'Old Lawyer Charlworth was rich; You followed his instructions in kicking Tom into the ditch. If you're such a dutiful daughter, that doesn't prove Tom is a fool. Forgive and forget's my motto! and here's my grog growing cool!'

XXIX

'But, Sir,' Mary faintly repeated: 'for four long weeks I have failed To come and cast on you my burden; such grief for you always prevailed! My heart has so bled for you!' The old man burst on her speech: 'You've chosen a likely time, Miss! a pretty occasion to preach!' And was it not outrageous, that now, of all times, one should come With incomprehensible pity! Far better had Mary been dumb.

XXX

But when again she stammered in this bewildering way, The farmer no longer could bear it, and begged her to go, or to stay, But not to be whimpering nonsense at such a time. Pricked by a goad, 'Twas you who sent him to glory:- you've come here to reap what you sowed. Is that it?' he asked; and the silence the elders preserved plainly said, On Mary's heaving bosom this begging-petition was read.

XXXI

And that it was scarcely a bargain that she who had driven him wild Should share now the fruits of his valour, the women expressed, as they smiled. The family pride of the Bridgemans was comforted; still, with contempt, They looked on a monied damsel of modesty quite so exempt. 'O give me force to tell them!' cried Mary, and even as she spoke, A shout and a hush of the children: a vision on all of them broke.

XXXII

Wheeled, pale, in a chair, and shattered, the wreck of their hero was seen; The ghost of Tom drawn slow o'er the orchard's shadowy green. Could this be the martial darling they joyed in a moment ago? 'He knows it?' to Mary Tom murmured, and closed his weak lids at her 'No.' 'Beloved!' she said, falling by him, 'I have been a coward: I thought You lay in the foreign country, and some strange good might be wrought.

XXXIII

'Each day I have come to tell him, and failed, with my hand on the gate. I bore the dreadful knowledge, and crushed my heart with its weight. The letter brought by your comrade--he has but just read it aloud! It only reached him this morning!' Her head on his shoulder she bowed. Then Tom with pity's tenderest lordliness patted her arm, And eyed the old white-head fondly, with something of doubt and alarm.

XXXIV

O, take to your fancy a sculptor whose fresh marble offspring appears Before him, shiningly perfect, the laurel-crown'd issue of years: Is heaven offended? for lightning behold from its bosom escape, And those are mocking fragments that made the harmonious shape! He cannot love the ruins, till, feeling that ruins alone Are left, he loves them threefold. So passed the old grandfather's moan.

XXXV

John's text for a sermon on Slaughter he heard, and he did not protest. All rigid as April snowdrifts, he stood, hard and feeble; his chest Just showing the swell of the fire as it melted him. Smiting a rib, 'Heigh! what have we been about, Tom! Was this all a terrible fib?' He cried, and the letter forth-trembled. Tom told what the cannon had done. Few present but ached to see falling those aged tears on his heart's son!

XXXVI

Up lanes of the quiet village, and where the mill-waters rush red Thro' browning summer meadows to catch the sun's crimsoning head, You meet an old man and a maiden who has the soft ways of a wife With one whom they wheel, alternate; whose delicate flush of new life Is prized like the early primrose. Then shake his right hand, in the chair - The old man fails never to tell you: 'You've got the French General's there!'

THE PROMISE IN DISTURBANCE

How low when angels fall their black descent, Our primal thunder tells: known is the pain Of music, that nigh throning wisdom went, And one false note cast wailful to the insane. Now seems the language heard of Love as rain To make a mire where fruitfulness was meant. The golden harp gives out a jangled strain, Too like revolt from heaven's Omnipotent. But listen in the thought; so may there come Conception of a newly-added chord, Commanding space beyond where ear has home. In labour of the trouble at its fount, Leads Life to an intelligible Lord The rebel discords up the sacred mount.

MODERN LOVE

I

By this he knew she wept with waking eyes: That, at his hand's light quiver by her head, The strange low sobs that shook their common bed Were called into her with a sharp surprise, And strangled mute, like little gaping snakes, Dreadfully venomous to him. She lay Stone-still, and the long darkness flowed away With muffled pulses. Then, as midnight makes Her giant heart of Memory and Tears Drink the pale drug of silence, and so beat Sleep's heavy measure, they from head to feet Were moveless, looking through their dead black years, By vain regret scrawled over the blank wall. Like sculptured effigies they might be seen Upon their marriage-tomb, the sword between; Each wishing for the sword that severs all.

II

It ended, and the morrow brought the task. Her eyes were guilty gates, that let him in By shutting all too zealous for their sin: Each sucked a secret, and each wore a mask. But, oh, the bitter taste her beauty had! He sickened as at breath of poison-flowers: A languid humour stole among the hours, And if their smiles encountered, he went mad, And raged deep inward, till the light was brown Before his vision, and the world, forgot, Looked wicked as some old dull murder-spot. A star with lurid beams, she seemed to crown The pit of infamy: and then again He fainted on his vengefulness, and strove To ape the magnanimity of love, And smote himself, a shuddering heap of pain.

III

This was the woman; what now of the man? But pass him. If he comes beneath a heel, He shall be crushed until he cannot feel, Or, being callous, haply till he can. But he is nothing:- nothing? Only mark The rich light striking out from her on him! Ha! what a sense it is when her eyes swim Across the man she singles, leaving dark All else! Lord God, who mad'st the thing so fair, See that I am drawn to her even now! It cannot be such harm on her cool brow To put a kiss? Yet if I meet him there! But she is mine! Ah, no! I know too well I claim a star whose light is overcast: I claim a phantom-woman in the Past. The hour has struck, though I heard not the bell!

IV

All other joys of life he strove to warm, And magnify, and catch them to his lip: But they had suffered shipwreck with the ship, And gazed upon him sallow from the storm. Or if Delusion came, 'twas but to show The coming minute mock the one that went. Cold as a mountain in its star-pitched tent, Stood high Philosophy, less friend than foe: Whom self-caged Passion, from its prison-bars, Is always watching with a wondering hate. Not till the fire is dying in the grate, Look we for any kinship with the stars. Oh, wisdom never comes when it is gold, And the great price we pay for it full worth: We have it only when we are half earth. Little avails that coinage to the old!

V

A message from her set his brain aflame. A world of household matters filled her mind, Wherein he saw hypocrisy designed: She treated him as something that is tame, And but at other provocation bites. Familiar was her shoulder in the glass, Through that dark rain: yet it may come to pass That a changed eye finds such familiar sights More keenly tempting than new loveliness. The 'What has been' a moment seemed his own: The splendours, mysteries, dearer because known, Nor less divine: Love's inmost sacredness Called to him, 'Come!'--In his restraining start, Eyes nurtured to be looked at scarce could see A wave of the great waves of Destiny Convulsed at a checked impulse of the heart.

VI

It chanced his lips did meet her forehead cool. She had no blush, but slanted down her eye. Shamed nature, then, confesses love can die: And most she punishes the tender fool Who will believe what honours her the most! Dead! is it dead? She has a pulse, and flow Of tears, the price of blood-drops, as I know, For whom the midnight sobs around Love's ghost, Since then I heard her, and so will sob on. The love is here; it has but changed its aim. O bitter barren woman! what's the name? The name, the name, the new name thou hast won? Behold me striking the world's coward stroke! That will I not do, though the sting is dire. - Beneath the surface this, while by the fire They sat, she laughing at a quiet joke.

VII

She issues radiant from her dressing-room, Like one prepared to scale an upper sphere: - By stirring up a lower, much I fear! How deftly that oiled barber lays his bloom! That long-shanked dapper Cupid with frisked curls Can make known women torturingly fair; The gold-eyed serpent dwelling in rich hair Awakes beneath his magic whisks and twirls. His art can take the eyes from out my head, Until I see with eyes of other men; While deeper knowledge crouches in its den, And sends a spark up:- is it true we are wed? Yea! filthiness of body is most vile, But faithlessness of heart I do hold worse. The former, it were not so great a curse To read on the steel-mirror of her smile.

VIII

Yet it was plain she struggled, and that salt Of righteous feeling made her pitiful. Poor twisting worm, so queenly beautiful! Where came the cleft between us? whose the fault? My tears are on thee, that have rarely dropped As balm for any bitter wound of mine: My breast will open for thee at a sign! But, no: we are two reed-pipes, coarsely stopped: The God once filled them with his mellow breath; And they were music till he flung them down, Used! used! Hear now the discord-loving clown Puff his gross spirit in them, worse than death! I do not know myself without thee more: In this unholy battle I grow base: If the same soul be under the same face, Speak, and a taste of that old time restore!

IX

He felt the wild beast in him betweenwhiles So masterfully rude, that he would grieve To see the helpless delicate thing receive His guardianship through certain dark defiles. Had he not teeth to rend, and hunger too? But still he spared her. Once: 'Have you no fear?' He said: 'twas dusk; she in his grasp; none near. She laughed: 'No, surely; am I not with you?' And uttering that soft starry 'you,' she leaned Her gentle body near him, looking up; And from her eyes, as from a poison-cup, He drank until the flittering eyelids screened. Devilish malignant witch! and oh, young beam Of heaven's circle-glory! Here thy shape To squeeze like an intoxicating grape - I might, and yet thou goest safe, supreme.

X

But where began the change; and what's my crime? The wretch condemned, who has not been arraigned, Chafes at his sentence. Shall I, unsustained, Drag on Love's nerveless body thro' all time? I must have slept, since now I wake. Prepare, You lovers, to know Love a thing of moods: Not, like hard life, of laws. In Love's deep woods, I dreamt of loyal Life:- the offence is there! Love's jealous woods about the sun are curled; At least, the sun far brighter there did beam. - My crime is, that the puppet of a dream, I plotted to be worthy of the world. Oh, had I with my darling helped to mince The facts of life, you still had seen me go With hindward feather and with forward toe, Her much-adored delightful Fairy Prince!

XI

Out in the yellow meadows, where the bee Hums by us with the honey of the Spring, And showers of sweet notes from the larks on wing Are dropping like a noon-dew, wander we. Or is it now? or was it then? for now, As then, the larks from running rings pour showers: The golden foot of May is on the flowers, And friendly shadows dance upon her brow. What's this, when Nature swears there is no change To challenge eyesight? Now, as then, the grace Of heaven seems holding earth in its embrace. Nor eyes, nor heart, has she to feel it strange? Look, woman, in the West. There wilt thou see An amber cradle near the sun's decline: Within it, featured even in death divine, Is lying a dead infant, slain by thee.

XII

Not solely that the Future she destroys, And the fair life which in the distance lies For all men, beckoning out from dim rich skies: Nor that the passing hour's supporting joys Have lost the keen-edged flavour, which begat Distinction in old times, and still should breed Sweet Memory, and Hope,--earth's modest seed, And heaven's high-prompting: not that the world is flat Since that soft-luring creature I embraced Among the children of Illusion went: Methinks with all this loss I were content, If the mad Past, on which my foot is based, Were firm, or might be blotted: but the whole Of life is mixed: the mocking Past will stay: And if I drink oblivion of a day, So shorten I the stature of my soul.

XIII

'I play for Seasons; not Eternities!' Says Nature, laughing on her way. 'So must All those whose stake is nothing more than dust!' And lo, she wins, and of her harmonies She is full sure! Upon her dying rose She drops a look of fondness, and goes by, Scarce any retrospection in her eye; For she the laws of growth most deeply knows, Whose hands bear, here, a seed-bag--there, an urn. Pledged she herself to aught, 'twould mark her end! This lesson of our only visible friend Can we not teach our foolish hearts to learn? Yes! yes!--but, oh, our human rose is fair Surpassingly! Lose calmly Love's great bliss, When the renewed for ever of a kiss Whirls life within the shower of loosened hair!

XIV

What soul would bargain for a cure that brings Contempt the nobler agony to kill? Rather let me bear on the bitter ill, And strike this rusty bosom with new stings! It seems there is another veering fit, Since on a gold-haired lady's eyeballs pure I looked with little prospect of a cure, The while her mouth's red bow loosed shafts of wit. Just heaven! can it be true that jealousy Has decked the woman thus? and does her head Swim somewhat for possessions forfeited? Madam, you teach me many things that be. I open an old book, and there I find That 'Women still may love whom they deceive.' Such love I prize not, madam: by your leave, The game you play at is not to my mind.

XV

I think she sleeps: it must be sleep, when low Hangs that abandoned arm toward the floor; The face turned with it. Now make fast the door. Sleep on: it is your husband, not your foe. The Poet's black stage-lion of wronged love Frights not our modern dames:- well if he did! Now will I pour new light upon that lid, Full-sloping like the breasts beneath. 'Sweet dove, Your sleep is pure. Nay, pardon: I disturb. I do not? good!' Her waking infant-stare Grows woman to the burden my hands bear: Her own handwriting to me when no curb Was left on Passion's tongue. She trembles through; A woman's tremble--the whole instrument:- I show another letter lately sent. The words are very like: the name is new.

XVI

In our old shipwrecked days there was an hour, When in the firelight steadily aglow, Joined slackly, we beheld the red chasm grow Among the clicking coals. Our library-bower That eve was left to us: and hushed we sat As lovers to whom Time is whispering. From sudden-opened doors we heard them sing: The nodding elders mixed good wine with chat. Well knew we that Life's greatest treasure lay With us, and of it was our talk. 'Ah, yes! Love dies!' I said: I never thought it less. She yearned to me that sentence to unsay. Then when the fire domed blackening, I found Her cheek was salt against my kiss, and swift Up the sharp scale of sobs her breast did lift:- Now am I haunted by that taste! that sound!

XVII

At dinner, she is hostess, I am host. Went the feast ever cheerfuller? She keeps The Topic over intellectual deeps In buoyancy afloat. They see no ghost. With sparkling surface-eyes we ply the ball: It is in truth a most contagious game: HIDING THE SKELETON, shall be its name. Such play as this the devils might appal! But here's the greater wonder; in that we, Enamoured of an acting nought can tire, Each other, like true hypocrites, admire; Warm-lighted looks, Love's ephemerioe, Shoot gaily o'er the dishes and the wine. We waken envy of our happy lot. Fast, sweet, and golden, shows the marriage-knot. Dear guests, you now have seen Love's corpse-light shine.

XVIII

Here Jack and Tom are paired with Moll and Meg. Curved open to the river-reach is seen A country merry-making on the green. Fair space for signal shakings of the leg. That little screwy fiddler from his booth, Whence flows one nut-brown stream, commands the joints Of all who caper here at various points. I have known rustic revels in my youth: The May-fly pleasures of a mind at ease. An early goddess was a country lass: A charmed Amphion-oak she tripped the grass. What life was that I lived? The life of these? Heaven keep them happy! Nature they seem near. They must, I think, be wiser than I am; They have the secret of the bull and lamb. 'Tis true that when we trace its source, 'tis beer.

XIX

No state is enviable. To the luck alone Of some few favoured men I would put claim. I bleed, but her who wounds I will not blame. Have I not felt her heart as 'twere my own Beat thro' me? could I hurt her? heaven and hell! But I could hurt her cruelly! Can I let My Love's old time-piece to another set, Swear it can't stop, and must for ever swell? Sure, that's one way Love drifts into the mart Where goat-legged buyers throng. I see not plain:- My meaning is, it must not be again. Great God! the maddest gambler throws his heart. If any state be enviable on earth, 'Tis yon born idiot's, who, as days go by, Still rubs his hands before him, like a fly, In a queer sort of meditative mirth.

XX

I am not of those miserable males Who sniff at vice and, daring not to snap, Do therefore hope for heaven. I take the hap Of all my deeds. The wind that fills my sails Propels; but I am helmsman. Am I wrecked, I know the devil has sufficient weight To bear: I lay it not on him, or fate. Besides, he's damned. That man I do suspect A coward, who would burden the poor deuce With what ensues from his own slipperiness. I have just found a wanton-scented tress In an old desk, dusty for lack of use. Of days and nights it is demonstrative, That, like some aged star, gleam luridly. If for those times I must ask charity, Have I not any charity to give?

XXI