Chapter 3
All hope and doubt, all fears are vain: The dreams I nursed of honouring her are past, And will not comfort me again. I see a lurid sunlight throw its last Wild gleam athwart the land whose shadows lengthen fast.
It does not seem so dreadful now The horror stands out naked, stark, and still: I am quite calm, and wonder how My terror played such mad pranks with my will. The North winds fiercely blow, I do not feel them chill.
All things must die: somewhere I read What wise and solemn men pronounce of joy; No sooner born, they say, than dead: The strife of being, but a whirling toy Humming a weary moan spun by capricious boy.
Has my soul reached a starry height Majestically calm? No monster, drear And shapeless, glares me faint at night; I am not in the sunshine checked for fear That monstrous shapeless thing is somewhere crouching near?
No; woe is me! far otherwise: The naked horror numbs me to the bone; In stupor calm its cold blank eyes Set hard at mine. I do not fall or groan, Our island Gorgon's face had changed me into stone.
XII. STORM.
Now thickening round the shrunken baseless sky, Sullen vapours crawl Climbing to masses, tumbled heavily Grim in giant sprawl, That smother up domed heaven's scud-fleckered height And form like mortal armies ranged for fight.
This lighted gloom spreads ghastly on the land; Sheep do crowd; and herds Collecting, bellow pitifully bland. Quiet are the birds In ghostly trees that shiver not a sound: And leaves decayed drop straight unto the ground.
Drearily solemn runs a monotone, Heard through breathless hush, Swollen torrents hissing far in lavish moan, Foamed with headlong rush, Sob on protesting, toward annihilation, Their solitary dismal lamentation.
This gloom has sucked all interest from the scene, Now changed wrathful grey: Familiar things, that staring plain had been, Fade in mists away: At ambush, watching from its stormy lair, Some danger hovering loads the stagnant air.
It serves to little purpose I may know That electric law Whereby the jagged glare and thunder-blow Latent impulse draw; No less my danger. Ha! that lightning flash Proclaims in fire the coming thunder-crash.
But what care I though deluges down pour Beating earth to mire, Though heaven shattering with the thunder's roar Scorcheth now in fire, Though every planet molten from its place Should trickle lost through everlasting space;
For this blank prospect, void of all but dread, Void as any tomb, My soul has left; and by a lonely bed, In a girl's sick room, Hangs there expectant of her parting breath, The silent voice of doom, the stroke of death.
PART THE SECOND.
I. MY LADY IN DEATH.
All is but coloured show. I look Into the green light shed By leaves above my head, And feel its inmost worth forsook My being, when she died. This heart, now hot and dried, Halts, as the parched course where a brook Mid flowers was wont to flow, Because her life is now No more than stories in a printed book.
Grass thickens proudly o'er that breast, Clay-cold and sadly still, My happy face felt thrill. How much her dear, dear mouth expressed! And now are closed and set Lips which my own have met! Her eyelids by the damp earth pressed! Damp earth weighs on her eyes; Damp earth shuts out the skies. My Lady rests her heavy, heavy rest.
To see her high perfection sweep The favoured earth, as she With welcoming palms met me! How can I but recall and weep? Her hands' light charm was such, Care vanished at their touch. Her feet spared little things that creep; "For stars are not," she'd say, "More wonderful than they." And now she sleeps her heavy, heavy sleep.
Immortal hope shone on that brow, Above whose waning forms Go softly real worms. Surely it was a cruel blow Which cut my Darling's life Sharply, as with a knife; I hate my own that lets me grow As grows a bitter root From which rank poisons shoot Upon the grave where she is lying low.
Ah, hapless fate! Could it be just, That her young life should play Its easy, natural way; Then, with an unexpected thrust, Be hence thus rudely sent; Even as her feelings blent With those around, whose love would trust Her willing power to bless, For all their happiness? Alone she moulders into common dust.
Small birds twitter and peck the weeds That wave above this bed Where my dear Love lies dead: They flutter and burst the globed seeds, And beat the downy pride Of dandelions, wide: From speargrass, bowed with watery beads, The wet uniting, drips In sparkles off the tips: In mallow bloom the wild bee drops and feeds.
No more she hears, where vines adorn Her window, on the boughs Birds chirrup an arouse: Flies, buzzing, strengthening with the morn, She will not hear again At random strike the pane: No more against the newly shorn Grass edges will her gown In playful waves be thrown, As she walks forth to view what flowers are born.
Nor ponder more those dark green rings Stained quaintly on the lea, To picture elfin glee; While through the grass a faint air sings, And swarms of insects revel Along the sultry level: No more will watch their brilliant wings, Now lightly dip, now soar, Then sink, and rise once more. My Lady's death makes dear these trivial things.
One noon, within an oak's broad shade, Lost in delightful talk, We rested from our walk. Beyond the shadow, large and staid, Cows chewed with drowsy eye Their cud complacently: Elegant deer walked o'er the glade, Or stood with wide bright eyes Gazing a short surprise; And up the fern slope nimble conies played.
As rooks cawed labouring through the heat; Each wing-flap seemed to make Their weary bodies ache; And swallows, though so wildly fleet, Made breathless pauses there At something in the air. All disappeared: our pulses beat Distincter throbs, and each Turned and kissed without speech, She trembling from her mouth down to her feet.
Then, as I felt her bosom heave, And listened to the din Of joyous life within, Could I but in my heaven believe, Assured by that repose Within my heart, and those Warm arms around my neck! While eve In shadowy silence came And quenched the Western flame, That lingered round her as if loth to leave.
Then told I in a whispered tone Of that approaching time, When merry peal and chime Of marriage ringing should make known, In crashes through the air Exultingly we were By solemn rite each other's own: And she, confiding, meek, Against mine pressed her cheek, And gave response in happy tears alone.
No heed of time took we, because Those clanging bells had quite Absorbed us in delight. A happiness so perfect awes The failing pulse and breath, Like the mute doom of death: Then, in an instantaneous pause Flashed on my vacant eye A swift Eternity; And starting, as if clutched by demon-claws,
Awakened from a dizzy swoon, I felt appalling fears With ringings in my ears, And wondered why the glaring moon Swung round the dome of night With such stupendous might. Next came, like the sweet air of June, A treacherous calm suspense That bred a loathly sense, Some nameless ill would overwhelm us soon.
She passed like summer flowers away. Her aspect and her voice Will never more rejoice, For she lies hushed in cold decay. Broken the golden bowl Which held her hallowed soul: It was an idle boast to say "Our souls are as the same," And stings me now to shame: Her spirit went, and mine did not obey.
The black truth, with a fiery dart, Went hurtling through my thought, When I beheld her brought Whence she with life did not depart. Her beauty by degrees Sank, sharpened from disease: The heavy sinking at her heart Sucked hollows in her cheek, And made her eyelids weak, Though oft they opened wide with sudden start.
The Deathly Power in silence drew My Lady's life away. I watched, dumb for dismay, The shock of thrills that quivered through Her wasted frame, and shook The meaning in her look, As near, more near, the moment grew. O horrible suspense! O giddy impotence! I saw her features lax, and change their hue.
Her gaze, grown large with fate, was cast Where my mute agonies Made sadder her sad eyes: Her breath caught with short plucks and fast, Then one hot choking strain; She never breathed again. I had the look which was her last: Her love, when breath was gone, One moment lingering shone, Then slowly closed, and hope for ever passed.
A dreadful tremour ran through space When first the mournful toll Rang for My Lady's soul. The shining world was hell; her grace Only the flattering gleam And mockery of a dream: Oblivion struck me like a mace, And as a tree that's hewn I dropped, in a dead swoon, And lay a long time cold upon my face.
Earth had one quarter turned before My miserable fate Pressed down with its whole weight. My sense came back; and shivering o'er I felt a pain to bear The sun's keen cruel glare, Which shone not warm as heretofore; And never more its rays Will satisfy my gaze: No more; no more; O, never any more.
II. DAY DREAM.
What art thou whispering lowly to thy babe, O wan girl-mother, with Madonna lids Downcast? Why pressest thou so close his pale Geranium cheek to thy yet whiter breast? Ah, doubtless sweet; to feel him draw the stream That fills with strength his lily limbs! And laughs Thine own heart with his deeply dimpled laughter, Answering straight thy dainty finger's touch? And understandeth he that murmurous moan, Wherewith thou hushest, patting him to rest?
What visions charm thy gaze, now resting wide In settled sweet content? Beholdest thou Thy babe, now sprung a man, walk sunhazed slopes With one lovelier than visions; lovely as The truth, O Love, when thou dost smile on me? Or seest thou him still greater grown in might, And stout of action marching on to reach That changeful coloured flag, whose waving crests The glittering heights of fame, for which men pant; Unmindful there what tempests rage and sweep; Alas; what dream has made that watery veil Hide thine eye's light from mine; even as a mist Passing between me and a harvest moon! And whence this shadowy wall that baulks my gaze? Why fadest thou, thyself, in mist, O Love? Whither hath fled thy babe--and where art thou?-- Where am I?--Is it life--a dream--or death?
Ah me; alas, this crushing wretchedness! And I a vainer fool than one who yearns Clutching at rainbows spanned across the sky! Ah, hope diseased! My spirit lured astray By siren hope drifts hard by some dark fate: And hope alternating despair has mixed My life so long with charnelled death, that I Can scarce resolve the present from my past, Nor what might once have been from what is now.
Ah, Dearest! shall I never see thy face Again: not ever; never any more? I know that fancy was but naught, and one Born of past hope: I know thy earthly form Is mouldering in its tomb; but yet, O Love, Thy spirit must dwell somewhere in this waste Of worlds, that fill the overwhelming heavens With light and motion; that could never die; And wilt thou not vouchsafe one beaming look To ease a lonely heart that beats in pain For loss of thee, and only thee, O Love? Or hast thou found in that pure life thou livest My soul was an unworthy choice for thine, And therefore takest no count of its despair? And yet, yea verily, thy love was true; I would not wrong thee with another thought: I would not enter at the gates of heaven By thinking else than that thy love was true. But I obtain no response to my cries, Making within my soul all void, and cold, And comfortless. Ay, empty, as this grate, Of life, wherefrom the fire has well nigh fled, Leaving but chasmed ugliness and ruin: And weak as faltering of these taper flames Half sunken in their sockets, by whose gleam I see, though faintly, where my books stand ranged Most mute; though sometime eloquent to me; And where my pictures hang with other forms Instinct from what I know: where friends portrayed Like ghosts loom on me from another world. Then what remains, but, like a child worn out With weeping, that I sink me down to rest, To sleep, not dream--and if I could to die?
III. MY LADY'S VOICE FROM HEAVEN.
I had been sitting by her tomb In torpor one dark night; When fitful tremours shook the doom Of cold lethargic settled gloom, That weighed upon my sight:
And while I sat, and sickly heaves Disturbed my spirit's sloth, A wind came, blown o'er distant sheaves, That hissing, tore and lashed the leaves And lashed the undergrowth:
It roared and howled, it raged about With some determined aim; And storming up the night, brought out The moon, that like a happy shout, Called forth My Lady's name,
In sudden splendour on the stone. Then, for an instant, I Snatched and heaped up my past, bestrown With hopes and kisses, struggling moan, And pangs: as suddenly,
Oppressed with overwhelming weight, Down fell the edifice; When touched, as by the hand of Fate, My gloom was gone. I felt my state So light, I sobbed for bliss.
The loud winds, spent in seeking rest, Dropped dead. My fevered brow Drank coolness from the grass it pressed; And in my desolated breast A change began to grow,
While feeling those tears slowly drain The load of grief which had A sluggish curse within me lain, Save when remembrance wrought my brain For vivid moments mad.
My tears, as treasures of a wreck That in the ocean slept, Recovered, ran without a check; And earth was my good mother's neck To which I clung and wept.
I rose at length, and felt a dense Benumbed dead weight. And now The night air hung in deep suspense! A singing hush that pressed my sense And stunned me like a blow:
Through my lids clenched the living air In gold and purple rings Danced musically round me there, The light it held throbbed with the glare And beat of rapid wings.
Mine eyes I dared not try to raise; My Lady's beamed on me In fixed serenity of gaze, And were what old sunshiny days In childhood used to be.
A gasping lapse; and I was whirled Round the faint void of space; In dizzy circles hugely hurled, I saw the constellated world With every orb embrace,
To one stupendous vortex-light, Spinning a fiery ram, Then fail, struck out by sudden night; When swung adown in headlong might, Earth's touch shook through my brain.
The dumb sound in mine ears was burst By her portentous voice; As sweet as death to one accursed, As unto one near blind for thirst A running water's noise.
Her voice in some translucent star, Remote, beyond my sight, Was singing marvellously far; And yet so strangely near to jar, As jars too strong a light.
She sang a song. She warbled low, She did not sing in words; I felt it in my spirit glow, And knew it, as with joy I know The morning shouts of birds.
But hard the task I undertake, With mortal tongue to reach The utterance of my Love, and make Her high immortal meaning break To clearness through my speech!
I can no more, with glimmering trope That into darkness runs, Reveal its depth, than they could hope, Who on in lifelong blindness grope, To sing of rising suns.
"Or e'er that life my King had lent Was lifted into rest, His message through my lips He sent, And on thy path His glory went To guide thee to the blessed.
"But thou didst turn thy face, and scorn His grace divine as nought; And set thy gaze to earth forlorn, And rage at fate, till gaunt and worn, Death mouldered in thy thought.
"Thou, blindly gross, didst toy with clay, And in the ghastly gleam Of charnel gloom didst kiss decay; And many full moons waned away, And left thee in thy dream.
"For with thy Lily's worldly dress Thou didst thine eyesight fill; And scorn to know its loveliness Were but an empty boast unless Made living by His will.
"Thou mourn'dst not most the vanished soul Which was my Lord's through thine; But more the broken pleasure-bowl, Whose golden richness shed, when whole, Its splendour in thy wine.
"And therefore living wert thou made To taste the cup of death; And therefore did the glory fade, From guidance into deadly shade That iced thy shuddering breath.
"Permitted, now I come to thee: I warn thee of thy sin; I urge thee cleanse thine eyesight free, That purified thy soul may see The way his love to win.
"His love incomprehensible Did never turn away From penitent whom harm befell; But springeth like a desert well For thirsting poor estray.
"Let him who scorneth mercy shown, Unhappy one, beware! For whoso lives in pride alone, His pride shall harden to a stone Too great for him to bear.
"And whoso, having warned been, Refuseth still to turn, Behind his shadow, shrunken mean, A poring spectre shall be seen With livid stare and girn.
"Thou troubled one, who unto me Art next my Lord's own grace, O turn to Him, and He will be A refuge from thy misery, A smile upon thy face!
"A righteous strength will nerve thine arm, And courage fill thy breast: And having bravely warred on harm, The cries of victory shall charm Thy dying eyes to rest.
"And succoured ones shall praise his name Who, toiling for them, died. And, nobly sung, his honest fame Shall beat in hearts unborn, and claim Their love and grateful pride.
"And Love will lead her sacrifice To where a shining row Stand beckoning to the heights of bliss; And she will clasp his hands and kiss Welcome upon his brow."
I knew not when the singing ceased To trance my brightened soul, Then from that long eclipse released. But looking hopeful towards the East, I saw flush pole to pole
The dawn, that had begun to show, And through dank vapour burned, As in a sick face lying low The rich incarnadine would glow, When healthy life returned.
Small drowsy chirping met the light, And dim in lowlands far Lone marsh-birds winged their misty flight; What time Her aspect on my sight Beamed from the morning star.
It waned into the warbling day; That, rising fierce and strong, Now looked the Western gloom away, And kindled such a roundelay, The world awoke with song,
And fresh delicious breezes came With scents of paradise So tingling through my knitted frame, That never since I lisped a name Knew I such joy arise.
Pure was the azure over head; Bright was the earth around; While I on resolution fed, And moved, as one called from the dead, In silence on the ground.
Toward my home I walked, elate With hope and settled plan: And reverent to the will of Fate, In every step I trod my weight, A sober-minded man.
PART THE THIRD.
I. YEARS AFTER.
Our world has spun ten circles round the light Since here she vanished. In my helpless gaze, To mark the spot, was fixed this carven stone, Raw, garish, stolidly obtrusive then, Now harmonising kindly with the rest. A spray of centipedal ivy creeps From death to birth, and reaches to her name; With kisslike touch its tender leaflets feel The letter's edge,--I scarce can think it chance.
Now scene by scene that strange old long-ago, Crowding my opened memory, presents Tumultuous, as in dreams, some dreadful state Wherein I knew not falsehood from the truth; Where hope ascending struck the star of Love, Then fell down headlong grovelling in despair; But rose at length and walked the beaten way. So dim and far these things; so worn and changed, I scarcely feel that I am he who sought And won her love. And is it true indeed, That I absorbed in tenderest intercourse Of trustful glance, and trustful clasping hands, With her went wandering by the river side; While over head melodious branches sang, Scattering the gold of sunset-dazzled flowers Breathing their perfumed sweetness from our path, That flickering went to where in purple woods The rugged church tower burned a wall of fire!
Did I, when silence awed the winter woods, And giant shadows trenched the frosty ground From bole and limb whose vault held in the night, Love to behold the full-grown magic moon Cast splendour glittering on the silver rime? Yes; mid the notes and emerald flush of spring, With swollen brooks exulting through the fields, And rainy wind that in an ocean-roar Bore down the forest tops the livelong day, Through straggling gleams, through random wafts of shade, Rejoicingly I trod the glistening paths. Yes, I it was, in dreamy golden haze, Beheld poor men hard toiling all the hours, And thought them happier than the birds that sang, That sang and trilled in gurgles of delight.
Dallying I loitered in the golden time Long after the loved nightingale had ceased To pour his passionate impulse over plains Of shivering corn, now ripened into wealth; When sunset-coloured fruit in orchard crofts Hung slowly mellowing under azure noons; And, hushed in darkened leaves, the dreaming air Swelled gently to a whispering sound, and died. With joy I wandered on from knoll to knoll And lost in marvel, drank the lisping winds, The fairy winds that lisped me all was good. Nor marked I when the clogged horizon flew In dusky vapour crowding up the skies; But woke anon when deathlike pallor thrown From wrathful drift laid the whole land in gloom; When war, enormous war, broke through the heavens, In sheets and streaking fire and thunderous clap, With shock on shock, that crushed the ripened corn, And swept the piled up midsummer to ruin. That wrenched great timbers of a thousand years, Shaking the strong foundations of the land. And when at last the terrible tempest fell, Wide heaven was emptied of the sun and stars, And void of more than all their light to me.
Like fretted me to hollow weariness When my sweet Dove of Paradise went off, Ascending, glory-guarded, into heaven. Then feeding on the past, and fondling death, I grew in livid horror: soon had grown, By foul self cankered, to a charnel ghoule, Had not Almighty God, gracious in love, Permitted her own presence once again, Mysterious as a vision, yet once more To come a shining warning and reveal Athwart my path unfathomable gulfs, And kindle hope wherewith I still might gain The hills that shine for ever to the blessed.
Much striving has been mine since those events Ruled the pulsation of my daily life: And now they are a vulgar chronicle, And gossiped over by the rudest tongues. A haunting song of old felicities Lured me, scarce consciously, down here to muse Upon my shattered dreams; safe from the roar Of interests in our grim metropolis, The beating heart of England and the world. Not seen by me, since on that wondrous night Her consolation came into my soul; Yet here again I stand beside her tomb-- And here I muse, more wise and not so sad.
Hers was a gracious and a gentle house! Rich in obliging nice observances And famed ancestral hospitality. A cool repose lay grateful through the place; And pleasant duties promptly, truly done, And every service moved by hidden springs Sped with intelligence, went smoothly round.