Chapter 7

_M_. No: e'en my solitude is not mine now, And if I be alone is ofttimes doubt. Alas! far more than eyesight have I lost; For manly courage drifteth after it-- E'en as a splintered spar would drift away From some dismasted wreck. Hear, I complain-- Like a weak ailing woman I complain.

_J_. For the first time.

_M_. I cannot bear the dark.

_J_. My brother! you do bear it--bear it well-- Have borne it twelve long months, and not complained Comfort your heart with music: all the air Is warm with sunbeams where the organ stands. You like to feel them on you. Come and play.

_M_. My fate, my fate is lonely!

_J_. So it is-- I know it is.

_M_. And pity breaks my heart.

_J_. Does it, dear Merton?

_M_. Yes, I say it does. What! do you think I am so dull of ear That I can mark no changes in the tones That reach me? Once I liked not girlish pride And that coy quiet, chary of reply, That held me distant: now the sweetest lips Open to entertain me--fairest hands Are proffered me to guide.

_J_. That is not well?

_M_. No: give me coldness, pride, or still disdain, Gentle withdrawal. Give me anything But this--a fearless, sweet, confiding ease, Whereof I may expect, I may exact, Considerate care, and have it--gentle speech, And have it. Give me anything but this! For they who give it, give it in the faith That I will not misdeem them, and forget My doom so far as to perceive thereby Hope of a wife. They make this thought too plain; They wound me--O they cut me to the heart! When have I said to any one of them, "I am a blind and desolate man;--come here, I pray you--be as eyes to me?" When said, Even to her whose pitying voice is sweet To my dark ruined heart, as must be hands That clasp a lifelong captive's through the grate, And who will ever lend her delicate aid To guide me, dark encumbrance that I am!-- When have I said to her, "Comforting voice, Belonging to a face unknown, I pray Be my wife's voice?"

_J_. Never, my brother--no, You never have!

_M_. What could she think of me If I forgot myself so far? or what Could she reply?

_J_. You ask not as men ask Who care for an opinion, else perhaps, Although I am not sure--although, perhaps, I have no right to give one--I should say She would reply, "I will"

* * * * *

_Afterthought_.

Man dwells apart, though not alone, He walks among his peers unread; The best of thoughts which he hath known. For lack of listeners are not said.

Yet dreaming on earth's clustered isles, He saith "They dwell not lone like men, Forgetful that their sunflecked smiles Flash far beyond each other's ken."

He looks on God's eternal suns That sprinkle the celestial blue, And saith, "Ah! happy shining ones, I would that men were grouped like you!"

Yet this is sure, the loveliest star That clustered with its peers we see, Only because from us so far Doth near its fellows seem to be.

SONGS OF SEVEN.

SEVEN TIMES ONE. EXULTATION.

There's no dew left on the daisies and clover, There's no rain left in heaven: I've said my "seven times" over and over, Seven times one are seven.

I am old, so old, I can write a letter; My birthday lessons are done; The lambs play always, they know no better; They are only one times one.

O moon! in the night I have seen you sailing And shining so round and low; You were bright! ah bright! but your light is failing-- You are nothing now but a bow.

You moon, have you done something wrong in heaven That God has hidden your face? I hope if you have you will soon be forgiven, And shine again in your place.

O velvet bee, you're a dusty fellow, You've powdered your legs with gold! O brave marsh marybuds, rich and yellow, Give me your money to hold!

O columbine, open your folded wrapper, Where two twin turtle-doves dwell! O cuckoo pint, toll me the purple clapper That hangs in your clear green bell!

And show me your nest with the young ones in it; I will not steal them away; I am old! you may trust me, linnet, linnet-- I am seven times one to-day.

SEVEN TIMES TWO. ROMANCE.

You bells in the steeple, ring, ring out your changes, How many soever they be, And let the brown meadow-lark's note as he ranges Come over, come over to me.

Yet bird's clearest carol by fall or by swelling No magical sense conveys, And bells have forgotten their old art of telling The fortune of future days.

"Turn again, turn again," once they rang cheerily, While a boy listened alone; Made his heart yearn again, musing so wearily All by himself on a stone.

Poor bells! I forgive you; your good days are over, And mine, they are yet to be; No listening, no longing shall aught, aught discover: You leave the story to me.

The foxglove shoots out of the green matted heather, And hangeth her hoods of snow; She was idle, and slept till the sunshiny weather: O, children take long to grow.

I wish, and I wish that the spring would go faster, Nor long summer bide so late; And I could grow on like the foxglove and aster, For some things are ill to wait.

I wait for the day when dear hearts shall discover, While dear hands are laid on my head; "The child is a woman, the book may close over, For all the lessons are said."

I wait for my story--the birds cannot sing it, Not one, as he sits on the tree; The bells cannot ring it, but long years, O bring it! Such as I wish it to be.

SEVEN TIMES THREE. LOVE.

I leaned out of window, I smelt the white clover, Dark, dark was the garden, I saw not the gate; "Now, if there be footsteps, he comes, my one lover-- Hush, nightingale, hush! O, sweet nightingale, wait Till I listen and hear If a step draweth near, For my love he is late!

"The skies in the darkness stoop nearer and nearer, A cluster of stars hangs like fruit in the tree, The fall of the water comes sweeter, comes clearer: To what art thou listening, and what dost thou see? Let the star-clusters glow, Let the sweet waters flow, And cross quickly to me.

"You night-moths that hover where honey brims over From sycamore blossoms, or settle or sleep; You glowworms, shine out, and the pathway discover To him that comes darkling along the rough steep. Ah, my sailor, make haste, For the time runs to waste, And my love lieth deep--

"Too deep for swift telling: and yet my one lover I've conned thee an answer, it waits thee to-night."

By the sycamore passed he, and through the white clover, Then all the sweet speech I had fashioned took flight: But I'll love him more, more Than e'er wife loved before, Be the days dark or bright.

SEVEN TIMES FOUR. MATERNITY.

Heigh ho! daisies and buttercups, Fair yellow daffodils, stately and tall! When the wind wakes how they rock in the grasses, And dance with the cuckoo-buds slender and small! Here's two bonny boys, and here's mother's own lasses, Eager to gather them all.

Heigh ho! daisies and buttercups! Mother shall thread them a daisy chain; Sing them a song of the pretty hedge-sparrow, That loved her brown little ones, loved them full fain; Sing, "Heart, thou art wide though the house be but narrow"-- Sing once, and sing it again.

Heigh ho! daisies and buttercups, Sweet wagging cowslips, they bend and they bow; A ship sails afar over warm ocean waters, And haply one musing doth stand at her prow. O bonny brown sons, and O sweet little daughters, Maybe he thinks on you now!

Heigh ho! daisies and buttercups, Fair yellow daffodils, stately and tall-- A sunshiny world full of laughter and leisure, And fresh hearts unconscious of sorrow and thrall! Send down on their pleasure smiles passing its measure, God that is over us all!

SEVEN TIMES FIVE. WIDOWHOOD.

I sleep and rest, my heart makes moan Before I am well awake; "Let me bleed! O let me alone, Since I must not break!"

For children wake, though fathers sleep With a stone at foot and at head: O sleepless God, forever keep, Keep both living and dead!

I lift mine eyes, and what to see But a world happy and fair! I have not wished it to mourn with me-- Comfort is not there.

O what anear but golden brooms, And a waste of reedy rills! O what afar but the fine glooms On the rare blue hills!

I shall not die, but live forlore-- How bitter it is to part! O to meet thee, my love, once more! O my heart, my heart!

No more to hear, no more to see! O that an echo might wake And waft one note of thy psalm to me Ere my heart-strings break!

I should know it how faint soe'er, And with angel voices blent; O once to feel thy spirit anear, I could be content!

Or once between the gates of gold, While an angel entering trod, But once--thee sitting to behold On the hills of God!

SEVEN TIMES SIX. GIVING IN MARRIAGE.

To bear, to nurse, to rear, To watch, and then to lose: To see my bright ones disappear, Drawn up like morning dews-- To bear, to nurse, to rear, To watch, and then to lose: This have I done when God drew near Among his own to choose.

To hear, to heed, to wed, And with thy lord depart In tears that he, as soon as shed, Will let no longer smart.-- To hear, to heed, to wed, This while thou didst I smiled, For now it was not God who said, "Mother, give ME thy child."

O fond, O fool, and blind, To God I gave with tears; But when a man like grace would find, My soul put by her fears-- O fond, O fool, and blind, God guards in happier spheres; That man will guard where he did bind Is hope for unknown years.

To hear, to heed, to wed, Fair lot that maidens choose, Thy mother's tenderest words are said, Thy face no more she views; Thy mother's lot, my dear, She doth in nought accuse; Her lot to bear, to nurse, to rear, To love--and then to lose.

SEVEN TIMES SEVEN. LONGING FOR HOME.

I.

A song of a boat:-- There was once a boat on a billow: Lightly she rocked to her port remote, And the foam was white in her wake like snow, And her frail mast bowed when the breeze would blow And bent like a wand of willow.

II.

I shaded mine eyes one day when a boat Went curtseying over the billow, I marked her course till a dancing mote She faded out on the moonlit foam, And I stayed behind in the dear loved home; And my thoughts all day were about the boat, And my dreams upon the pillow.

III.

I pray you hear my song of a boat, For it is but short:-- My boat, you shall find none fairer afloat, In river or port. Long I looked out for the lad she bore, On the open desolate sea, And I think he sailed to the heavenly shore, For he came not back to me-- Ah me!

IV.

A song of a nest:-- There was once a nest in a hollow: Down in the mosses and knot-grass pressed, Soft and warm, and full to the brim-- Vetches leaned over it purple and dim, With buttercup buds to follow.

V.

I pray you hear my song of a nest, For it is not long:-- You shall never light, in a summer quest The bushes among-- Shall never light on a prouder sitter, A fairer nestful, nor ever know A softer sound than their tender twitter That wind-like did come and go.

VI.

I had a nestful once of my own, Ah happy, happy I! Right dearly I loved them: but when they were grown They spread out their wings to fly-- O, one after one they flew away Far up to the heavenly blue, To the better country, the upper day, And--I wish I was going too.

VII.

I pray you, what is the nest to me, My empty nest? And what is the shore where I stood to see My boat sail down to the west? Can I call that home where I anchor yet, Though my good man has sailed? Can I call that home where my nest was set, Now all its hope hath failed? Nay, but the port where my sailor went, And the land where my nestlings be: There is the home where my thoughts are sent, The only home for me-- Ah me!

A COTTAGE IN A CHINE.

We reached the place by night, And heard the waves breaking: They came to meet us with candles alight To show the path we were taking. A myrtle, trained on the gate, was white With tufted flowers down shaking.

With head beneath her wing, A little wren was sleeping-- So near, I had found it an easy thing To steal her for my keeping From the myrtle-bough that with easy swing Across the path was sweeping.

Down rocky steps rough-hewed, Where cup-mosses flowered, And under the trees, all twisted and rude, Wherewith the dell was dowered, They led us, where deep in its solitude Lay the cottage, leaf-embowered.

The thatch was all bespread With climbing passion-flowers; They were wet, and glistened with raindrops, shed That day in genial showers. "Was never a sweeter nest," we said, "Than this little nest of ours."

We laid us down to sleep: But as for me--waking, I marked the plunge of the muffled deep On its sandy reaches breaking; For heart-joyance doth sometimes keep From slumber, like heart-aching.

And I was glad that night, With no reason ready, To give my own heart for its deep delight, That flowed like some tidal eddy, Or shone like a star that was rising bright With comforting radiance steady.

But on a sudden--hark! Music struck asunder Those meshes of bliss, and I wept in the dark, So sweet was the unseen wonder; So swiftly it touched, as if struck at a mark, The trouble that joy kept under.

I rose--the moon outshone: I saw the sea heaving, And a little vessel sailing alone, The small crisp wavelet cleaving; 'Twas she as she sailed to her port unknown-- Was that track of sweetness leaving.

We know they music made In heaven, ere man's creation; But when God threw it down to us that strayed It dropt with lamentation, And ever since doth its sweetness shade With sighs for its first station.

Its joy suggests regret-- Its most for more is yearning; And it brings to the soul that its voice hath met, No rest that cadence learning, But a conscious part in the sighs that fret Its nature for returning.

O Eve, sweet Eve! methought When sometimes comfort winning, As she watched the first children's tender sport, Sole joy born since her sinning, If a bird anear them sang, it brought The pang as at beginning.

While swam the unshed tear, Her prattlers little heeding, Would murmur, "This bird, with its carol clear. When the red clay was kneaden, And God made Adam our father dear, Sang to him thus in Eden."

The moon went in--the sky And earth and sea hiding, I laid me down, with the yearning sigh Of that strain in my heart abiding; I slept, and the barque that had sailed so nigh In my dream was ever gliding.

I slept, but waked amazed, With sudden noise frighted, And voices without, and a flash that dazed My eyes from candles lighted. "Ah! surely," methought, "by these shouts upraised Some travellers are benighted."

A voice was at my side-- "Waken, madam, waken! The long prayed-for ship at her anchor doth ride. Let the child from its rest be taken, For the captain doth weary for babe and for bride-- Waken, madam, waken!

"The home you left but late, He speeds to it light-hearted; By the wires he sent this news, and straight To you with it they started." O joy for a yearning heart too great, O union for the parted!

We rose up in the night, The morning star was shining; We carried the child in its slumber light Out by the myrtles twining: Orion over the sea hung bright, And glorious in declining.

Mother, to meet her son, Smiled first, then wept the rather; And wife, to bind up those links undone, And cherished words to gather, And to show the face of her little one, That had never seen its father.

That cottage in a chine We were not to behold it; But there may the purest of sunbeams shine, May freshest flowers enfold it, For sake of the news which our hearts must twine With the bower where we were told it!

Now oft, left lone again, Sit mother and sit daughter, And bless the good ship that sailed over the main, And the favoring winds that brought her; While still some new beauty they fable and feign For the cottage by the water.

PERSEPHONE.

(Written for THE PORTFOLIO SOCIETY, January, 1862.

Subject given--"Light and Shade.")

She stepped upon Sicilian grass, Demeter's daughter fresh and fair, A child of light, a radiant lass, And gamesome as the morning air. The daffodils were fair to see, They nodded lightly on the lea, Persephone--Persephone!

Lo! one she marked of rarer growth Than orchis or anemone; For it the maiden left them both, And parted from her company. Drawn nigh she deemed it fairer still, And stooped to gather by the rill The daffodil, the daffodil.

What ailed the meadow that it shook? What ailed the air of Sicily? She wondered by the brattling brook, And trembled with the trembling lea. "The coal-black horses rise--they rise: O mother, mother!" low she cries-- Persephone--Persephone!

"O light, light, light!" she cries, "farewell; The coal-black horses wait for me. O shade of shades, where I must dwell, Demeter, mother, far from thee! Ah, fated doom that I fulfil! Ah, fateful flower beside the rill! The daffodil, the daffodil!"

What ails her that she comes not home? Demeter seeks her far and wide, And gloomy-browed doth ceaseless roam From many a morn till eventide. "My life, immortal though it be, Is nought," she cries, "for want of thee, Persephone--Persephone!

"Meadows of Enna, let the rain No longer drop to feed your rills, Nor dew refresh the fields again, With all their nodding daffodils! Fade, fade and droop, O lilied lea, Where thou, dear heart, wert reft from me-- Persephone--Persephone!"

She reigns upon her dusky throne, Mid shades of heroes dread to see; Among the dead she breathes alone, Persephone--Persephone! Or seated on the Elysian hill She dreams of earthly daylight still, And murmurs of the daffodil.

A voice in Hades soundeth clear, The shadows mourn and fill below; It cries--"Thou Lord of Hades, hear, And let Demeter's daughter go. The tender corn upon the lea Droops in her goddess gloom when she Cries for her lost Persephone.

"From land to land she raging flies, The green fruit falleth in her wake, And harvest fields beneath her eyes To earth the grain unripened shake. Arise, and set the maiden free; Why should the world such sorrow dree By reason of Persephone?"

He takes the cleft pomegranate seeds: "Love, eat with me this parting day;" Then bids them fetch the coal-black steeds-- "Demeter's daughter, wouldst away?" The gates of Hades set her free: "She will return full soon," saith he-- "My wife, my wife Persephone."

Low laughs the dark king on his throne-- "I gave her of pomegranate seeds." Demeter's daughter stands alone Upon the fair Eleusian meads. Her mother meets her. "Hail!" saith she; "And doth our daylight dazzle thee, My love, my child Persephone?

"What moved thee, daughter, to forsake Thy fellow-maids that fatal morn, And give thy dark lord power to take Thee living to his realm forlorn?" Her lips reply without her will, As one addressed who slumbereth still-- "The daffodil, the daffodil!"

Her eyelids droop with light oppressed, And sunny wafts that round her stir, Her cheek upon her mother's breast-- Demeter's kisses comfort her. Calm Queen of Hades, art thou she Who stepped so lightly on the lea-- Persephone, Persephone?

When, in her destined course, the moon Meets the deep shadow of this world, And laboring on doth seem to swoon Through awful wastes of dimness whirled-- Emerged at length, no trace hath she Of that dark hour of destiny, Still silvery sweet--Persephone.

The greater world may near the less, And draw it through her weltering shade, But not one biding trace impress Of all the darkness that she made; The greater soul that draweth thee Hath left his shadow plain to see On thy fair face, Persephone!

Demeter sighs, but sure 'tis well The wife should love her destiny: They part, and yet, as legends tell, She mourns her lost Persephone; While chant the maids of Enna still-- "O fateful flower beside the rill-- The daffodil, the daffodil!"

A SEA SONG.

Old Albion sat on a crag of late. And sang out--"Ahoy! ahoy! Long, life to the captain, good luck to the mate. And this to my sailor boy! Come over, come home, Through the salt sea foam, My sailor, my sailor boy.

"Here's a crown to be given away, I ween, A crown for my sailor's head, And all for the worth of a widowed queen, And the love of the noble dead; And the fear and fame Of the island's name Where my boy was born and bred.

"Content thee, content thee, let it alone, Thou marked for a choice so rare; Though treaties be treaties, never a throne Was proffered for cause as fair. Yet come to me home, Through the salt sea foam, For the Greek must ask elsewhere.

"'Tis a pity, my sailor, but who can tell? Many lands they look to me; One of these might be wanting a Prince as well, But that's as hereafter may be." She raised her white head And laughed; and she said "That's as hereafter may be."

BROTHERS, AND A SERMON.

It was a village built in a green rent, Between two cliffs that skirt the dangerous bay A reef of level rock runs out to sea, And you may lie on it and look sheer down, Just where the "Grace of Sunderland" was lost, And see the elastic banners of the dulse Rock softly, and the orange star-fish creep Across the laver, and the mackerel shoot Over and under it, like silver boats Turning at will and plying under water.

There on that reef we lay upon our breasts, My brother and I, and half the village lads, For an old fisherman had called to us With "Sirs, the syle be come." "And what are they?" My brother said. "Good lack!" the old man cried, And shook his head; "To think you gentlefolk Should ask what syle be! Look you; I can't say What syle be called in your fine dictionaries, Nor what name God Almighty calls them by When their food's ready and He sends them south: But our folk call them syle, and nought but syle, And when they're grown, why then we call them herring. I tell you, Sir, the water is as full Of them as pastures be of blades of grass; You'll draw a score out in a landing net, And none of them be longer than a pin.

"Syle! ay, indeed, we should be badly off, I reckon, and so would God Almighty's gulls," He grumbled on in his quaint piety, "And all His other birds, if He should say I will not drive my syle into the south; The fisher folk may do without my syle, And do without the shoals of fish it draws To follow and feed on it." This said, we made Our peace with him by means of two small coins, And down we ran and lay upon the reef, And saw the swimming infants, emerald green, In separate shoals, the scarcely turning ebb Bringing them in; while sleek, and not intent On chase, but taking that which came to hand, The full-fed mackerel and the gurnet swam Between; and settling on the polished sea, A thousand snow-white gulls sat lovingly In social rings, and twittered while they fed. The village dogs and ours, elate and brave, Lay looking over, barking at the fish; Fast, fast the silver creatures took the bait, And when they heaved and floundered on the rock, In beauteous misery, a sudden pat Some shaggy pup would deal, then back away, At distance eye them with sagacious doubt, And shrink half frighted from the slippery things.