Chapter 20

All day within the dreamy house, The doors upon their hinges creaked; The blue fly sung in the pane; the mouse Behind the moldering wainscot shrieked, Or from the crevice peered about. Old faces glimmered through the doors, Old footsteps trod the upper floors, Old voices called her from without. She only said, "My life is dreary, He cometh not," she said; She said, "I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead!"

The sparrow's chirrup on the roof, The slow clock ticking, and the sound Which to the wooing wind aloof The poplar made, did all confound Her sense; but most she loathed the hour When the thick-moted sunbeam lay Athwart the chambers, and the day Was sloping toward his western bower. Then, said she, "I am very dreary, He will not come," she said; She wept, "I am aweary, aweary, O God, that I were dead!"

Alfred Tennyson [1809-1892]

"ASK ME NO MORE" From "The Princess"

Ask me no more: the moon may draw the sea; The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape, With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape; But O too fond, when have I answered thee? Ask me no more.

Ask me no more: what answer should I give? I love not hollow cheek or faded eye: Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die! Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live; Ask me no more.

Ask me no more: thy fate and mine are sealed; I strove against the stream and all in vain; Let the great river take me to the main. No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield; Ask me no more.

Alfred Tennyson [1809-1892]

A WOMAN'S LAST WORD

Let's contend no more, Love, Strive nor weep: All be as before, Love, - Only sleep!

What so wild as words are? I and thou In debate, as birds are, Hawk on bough!

See the creature stalking While we speak! Hush and hide the talking, Cheek on cheek!

What so false as truth is, False to thee? Where the serpent's tooth is Shun the tree -

Where the apple reddens Never pry - Lest we lose our Edens, Eve and I!

Be a god and hold me With a charm! Be a man and fold me With thine arm!

Teach me, only teach, Love! As I ought I will speak thy speech, Love, Think thy thought -

Meet, if thou require it, Both demands, Laying flesh and spirit In thy hands.

That shall be to-morrow Not to-night: I must bury sorrow Out of sight:

- Must a little weep, Love. (Foolish me!) And so fall asleep, Love Loved by thee.

Robert Browning [1812-1889]

THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER

I said - Then, dearest, since 'tis so, Since now at length my fate I know, Since nothing all my love avails, Since all, my life seemed meant for, fails, Since this was written and needs must be - My whole heart rises up to bless Your name in pride and thankfulness! Take back the hope you gave, - I claim Only a memory of the same, - And this beside, if you will not blame; Your leave for one more last ride with me.

My mistress bent that brow of hers; Those deep dark eyes where pride demurs When pity would be softening through, Fixed me a breathing-while or two With life or death in the balance: right! The blood replenished me again; My last thought was at least not vain: I and my mistress, side by side Shall be together, breathe and ride, So, one day more am I deified. Who knows but the world may end to-night?

Hush! if you saw some western cloud All billowy-bosomed, over-bowed By many benedictions - sun's And moon's and evening-star's at once - And so, you, looking and loving best, Conscious grew, your passion drew Cloud, sunset, moonrise, star-shine too, Down on you, near and yet more near, Till flesh must fade for heaven was here! - Thus leant she and lingered-joy and fear! Thus lay she a moment on my breast.

Then we began to ride. My soul Smoothed itself out, a long-cramped scroll Freshening and fluttering in the wind. Past hopes already lay behind. What need to strive with a life awry? Had I said that, had I done this, So might I gain, so might I miss. Might she have loved me? just as well She might have hated, who can tell! Where had I been now if the worst befell? And here we are riding, she and I.

Fail I alone, in words and deeds? Why, all men strive, and who succeeds? We rode; it seemed my spirit flew, Saw other regions, cities new, As the world rushed by on either side. I thought, - All labor, yet no less Bear up beneath their unsuccess. Look at the end of work, contrast The petty done, the undone vast, This present of theirs with the hopeful past! I hoped she would love me; here we ride.

What hand and brain went ever paired? What heart alike conceived and dared? What act proved all its thought had been? What will but felt the fleshly screen? We ride and I see her bosom heave. There's many a crown for who can reach. Ten lines, a statesman's life in each! The flag stuck on a heap of bones, A soldier's doing! what atones? They scratch his name on the Abbey-stones. My riding is better, by their leave.

What does it all mean, poet? Well, Your brains beat into rhythm, you tell What we felt only; you expressed You hold things beautiful the best, And place them in rhyme so, side by side. 'Tis something, nay 'tis much: but then, Have you yourself what's best for men? Are you - poor, sick, old ere your time - Nearer one whit your own sublime Than we who never have turned a rhyme? Sing, riding's a joy! For me, I ride.

And you, great sculptor - so, you gave A score of years to Art, her slave, And that's your Venus, whence we turn To yonder girl that fords the burn! You acquiesce, and shall I repine? What, man of music, you grown gray With notes and nothing else to say, Is this your sole praise from a friend, "Greatly his opera's strains intend, But in music we know how fashions end!" I gave my youth: but we ride, in fine.

Who knows what's fit for us? Had fate Proposed bliss here should sublimate My being - had I signed the bond - Still one must lead some life beyond, Have a bliss to die with, dim-descried. This foot once planted on the goal, This glory-garland round my soul, Could I descry such? Try and test! I sink back shuddering from the quest. Earth being so good, would heaven seem best? Now, heaven and she are beyond this ride.

And yet - she has not spoke so long! What if heaven be that, fair and strong At life's best, with our eyes upturned Whither life's flower is first discerned, We, fixed so, ever should so abide? What if we still ride on, we two, With life forever old yet new, Changed not in kind but in degree, The instant made eternity, - And heaven just prove that I and she Ride, ride together, forever ride?

Robert Browning [1812-1889]

YOUTH AND ART

It once might have been, once only: We lodged in a street together, You, a sparrow on the housetop lonely, I, a lone she-bird of his feather.

Your trade was with sticks and clay, You thumbed, thrust, patted, and polished, Then laughed, "They will see some day Smith made, and Gibson demolished."

My business was song, song, song; I chirped, cheeped, trilled, and twittered, "Kate Brown's on the boards ere long, And Grisi's existence embittered!"

I earned no more by a warble Than you by a sketch in plaster; You wanted a piece of marble, I needed a music-master.

We studied hard in our styles, Chipped each at a crust like Hindoos, For air, looked out on the tiles, For fun, watched each other's windows.

You lounged, like a boy of the South, Cap and blouse - nay, a bit of beard too; Or you got it, rubbing your mouth With fingers the clay adhered to.

And I - soon managed to find Weak points in the flower-fence facing, Was forced to put up a blind, And be safe in my corset-lacing.

No harm! It was not my fault If you never turned your eye's tail up, As I shook upon E in alt., Or ran the chromatic scale up:

For spring bade the sparrows pair, And the boys and girls gave guesses, And stalls in our street looked rare With bulrush and water-cresses.

Why did not you pinch a flower In a pellet of clay and fling it? Why did not I put a power Of thanks in a look, or sing it?

I did look; sharp as a lynx (And yet the memory rankles), When models arrived, some minx Tripped up-stairs, she and her ankles.

But I think I gave you as good! "That foreign fellow, - who can know How she pays, in a playful mood, For his tuning her that piano?"

Could you say so, and never say, "Suppose we join hands and fortunes, And I fetch her from over the way, Her, piano, and long tunes and short tunes"?

No, no: you would not be rash, Nor I rasher and something over: You've to settle yet Gibson's hash, And Grisi yet lives in clover.

But you meet the Prince at the Board, I'm queen myself at bals-pare, I've married a rich old lord, And you're dubbed knight and an R. A.

Each life unfulfilled, you see; It hangs still, patchy and scrappy: We have not sighed deep, laughed free, Starved, feasted, despaired, - been happy.

And nobody calls you a dunce, And people suppose me clever: This could but have happened once, And we missed it, lost it forever.

Robert Browning [1812-1889]

TWO IN THE CAMPAGNA

I wonder do you feel to-day As I have felt since, hand in hand, We sat down on the grass, to stray In spirit better through the land, This morn of Rome and May?

For me, I touched a thought, I know, Has tantalized me many times, (Like turns of thread the spiders throw Mocking across our path) for rhymes To catch at and let go.

Help me to hold it! First it left The yellowing fennel, run to seed There, branching from the brickwork's cleft, Some old tomb's ruin: yonder weed Took up the floating weft,

Where one small orange cup amassed Five beetles, - blind and green they grope Among the honey-meal: and last, Everywhere on the grassy slope I traced it. Hold it fast!

The champaign with its endless fleece Of feathery grasses everywhere! Silence and passion, joy and peace, And everlasting wash of air - Rome's ghost since her decease.

Such life here, through such lengths of hours, Such miracles performed in play, Such primal naked forms of flowers, Such letting Nature have her way While Heaven looks from its towers!

How say you? Let us, O my dove, Let us be unashamed of soul, As earth lies bare to heaven above! How is it under our control To love or not to love?

I would that you were all to me, You that are just so much, no more. Nor yours, nor mine - nor slave nor free! Where does the fault lie? What the core Of the wound, since wound must be?

I would I could adopt your will, See with your eyes, and set my heart Beating by yours, and drink my fill At your soul's springs, - your part, my part In life, for good and ill.

No. I yearn upward, touch you close, Then stand away. I kiss your cheek, Catch your soul's warmth, - I pluck the rose And love it more than tongue can speak - Then the good minute goes.

Already how am I so far Out of that minute? Must I go Still like the thistle-ball, no bar, Onward, whenever light winds blow, Fixed by no friendly star?

Just when I seemed about to learn! Where is the thread now? Off again! The old trick! Only I discern - Infinite passion, and the pain Of finite hearts that yearn.

Robert Browning [1812-1889]

ONE WAY OF LOVE

All June I bound the rose in sheaves. Now, rose by rose, I strip the leaves And strew them where Pauline may pass. She will not turn aside? Alas! Let them lie. Suppose they die? The chance was they might take her eye.

How many a month I strove to suit These stubborn fingers to the lute! To-day I venture all I know. She will not hear my music? So! Break the string; fold music's wing: Suppose Pauline had bade me sing!

My whole life long I learned to love. This hour my utmost art I prove And speak my passion - heaven or hell? She will not give me heaven? 'Tis well! Lose who may - I still can say, Those who win heaven, blest are they!

Robert Browning [1812-1889]

"NEVER THE TIME AND THE PLACE"

Never the time and the place And the loved one all together! This path - how soft to pace! This May - what magic weather! Where is the loved one's face? In a dream that loved one's face meets mine, But the house is narrow, the place is bleak Where, outside, rain and wind combine With a furtive ear, if I strive to speak, With a hostile eye at my flushing cheek, With a malice that marks each word, each sign! O enemy sly and serpentine, Uncoil thee from the waking man! Do I hold the Past Thus firm and fast Yet doubt if the Future hold I can? This path so soft to pace shall lead Through the magic of May to herself indeed! Or narrow if needs the house must be, Outside are the storms and strangers: we - Oh, close, safe, warm sleep I and she, - I and she!

Robert Browning [1812-1889]

SONG From "The Saint's Tragedy"

Oh! that we two were Maying Down the stream of the soft spring breeze; Like children with violets playing In the shade of the whispering trees.

Oh! that we two sat dreaming On the sward of some sheep-trimmed down, Watching the white mist steaming Over river and mead and town.

Oh! that we two lay sleeping In our nest in the churchyard sod, With our limbs at rest on the quiet earth's breast, And our souls at home with God!

Charles Kingsley [1819-1875]

FOR HE HAD GREAT POSSESSIONS

Ah! marvel not if when I come to die And follow Death the way my fancies went Year after fading year, the last mad sky Finds me impenitent; For though my heart went doubting through the night, With many a backward glance at heaven's face, Yet found I many treasures of delight Within this pleasant place.

I shall not grieve because the girls were fair And kinder than the world, nor shall I weep Because with crying lips and clinging hair They stole away my sleep. For lacking this I might not yet have known How high the heart could climb, or waking seen The mountains bare their silver breasts of stone From their chaste robes of green.

Though it were all a sin, within the mirth And pain of life I found a song above Our songs, in her who scattered on the earth Her glad largesse of love; And though she held some dream that was not ours In some far place that was not for our feet, Where blew across the gladder, madder flowers A wind more bitter-sweet.

Ah! who shall hearten when the music stops, For joy of silence? While they dreamed above She showed me love upon the mountain tops And in the valleys, love. And while the wise found heaven with their charts And lore of souls, she made an earth for me More sweet than all, and from our beating hearts She called the pulsing sea.

So marvel not if in the days when death Shall make my body mine, I do not cry For hours and treasure lost, but with my breath Praise my mortality. For lo! this place is fair, and losing all That I have won and dreamed beneath her kiss, I would not see the light of morning fall On any world but this.

Richard Middleton [1882-1911]

WINDLE-STRAWS

She kissed me on the forehead, She spoke not any word, The silence flowed between us, And I nor spoke nor stirred.

So hopeless for my sake it was, So full of ruth, so sweet, My whole heart rose and blessed her, - Then died before her feet.

Edward Dowden [1843-1913]

JESSIE

When Jessie comes with her soft breast, And yields the golden keys, Then is it as if God caressed Twin babes upon His knees - Twin babes that, each to other pressed, Just feel the Father's arms, wherewith they both are blessed,

But when I think if we must part, And all this personal dream be fled - O then my heart! O then my useless heart! Would God that thou wert dead - A clod insensible to joys and ills - A stone remote in some bleak gully of the hills!

Thomas Edward Brown [1830-1897]

THE CHESS-BOARD

My little love, do you remember, Ere we were grown so sadly wise, Those evenings in the bleak December, Curtained warm from the snowy weather, When you and I played chess together, Checkmated by each other's eyes?

Ah! still I see your soft white hand Hovering warm o'er Queen and Knight; Brave Pawns in valiant battle stand; The double Castles guard the wings; The Bishop, bent on distant things, Moves, sliding, through the fight.

Our fingers touch; our glances meet, And falter; falls your golden hair Against my cheek; your bosom sweet Is heaving. Down the field, your Queen Rides slow, her soldiery all between, And checks me unaware.

Ah me! the little battle's done: Dispersed is all its chivalry. Full many a move, since then, have we 'Mid Life's perplexing chequers made, And many a game with Fortune played; - What is it we have won? This, this at least, - if this alone:

That never, never, never more, As in those old still nights of yore (Ere we were grown so sadly wise), Can you and I shut out the skies, Shut out the world and wintry weather, And, eyes exchanging warmth with eyes, Play chess, as then we played together!

Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton [1831-1891]

AUX ITALIENS

At Paris it was, at the Opera there; - And she looked like a queen in a book that night, With the wreath of pearl in her raven hair, And the brooch on her breast, so bright.

Of all the operas that Verdi wrote, The best, to my taste, is the Trovatore; And Mario can soothe with a tenor note The souls in Purgatory.

The moon on the tower slept soft as snow: And who was not thrilled in the strangest way, As we heard him sing, while the gas burned low, "Non ti scordar di me"?

The Emperor there, in his box of state, Looked grave, as if he had just then seen The red flag wave from the city-gate Where his eagles in bronze had been.

The Empress, too, had a tear in her eye. You'd have said that her fancy had gone back again, For one moment, under the old blue sky, To the old glad life in Spain.

Well! there in our front-row box we sat, Together, my bride-betrothed and I; My gaze was fixed on my opera-hat, And hers on the stage hard by.

And both were silent, and both were sad. Like a queen she leaned on her full white arm, With that regal, indolent air she had; So confident of her charm!

I have not a doubt she was thinking then Of her former lord, good soul that he was! Who died the richest and roundest of men, The Marquis of Carabas.

I hope that, to get to the kingdom of heaven, Through a needle's eye he had not to pass. I wish him well, for the jointure given To my lady of Carabas.

Meanwhile, I was thinking of my first love, As I had not been thinking of aught for years, Till over my eyes there began to move Something that felt like tears.

I thought of the dress that she wore last time, When we stood, 'neath the cypress-trees, together, In that lost land, in that soft clime, In the crimson evening weather;

Of that muslin dress (for the eve was hot), And her warm white neck in its golden chain, And her full, soft hair, just tied in a knot, And falling loose again;

And the jasmine-flower in her fair young breast, (O the faint, sweet smell of that jasmine-flower!) And the one bird singing alone to his nest, And the one star over the tower.

I thought of our little quarrels and strife, And the letter that brought me back my ring. And it all seemed then, in the waste of life, Such a very little thing!

For I thought of her grave below the hill, Which the sentinel cypress-tree stands over; And I thought . . . "were she only living still, How I could forgive her, and love her!"

And I swear, as I thought of her thus, in that hour, And of how, after all, old things were best, That I smelt the smell of that jasmine-flower Which she used to wear in her breast.

It smelt so faint, and it smelt so sweet, It made me creep, and it made me cold! Like the scent that steals from the crumbling sheet Where a mummy is half unrolled.

And I turned, and looked. She was sitting there In a dim box, over the stage; and dressed In that muslin dress with that full soft hair, And that jasmine in her breast!

I was here; and she was there; And the glittering horseshoe curved between: - From my bride-betrothed, with her raven hair, And her sumptuous scornful mien,

To my early love, with her eyes downcast, And over her primrose face the shade (In short from the Future back to the Past). There was but a step to be made.

To my early love from my future bride One moment I looked. Then I stole to the door, I traversed the passage; and down at her side I was sitting, a moment more.

My thinking of her, or the music's strain, Or something which never will be expressed, Had brought her back from the grave again, With the jasmine in her breast.

She is not dead, and she is not wed! But she loves me now, and she loved me then! And the very first word that her sweet lips said, My heart grew youthful again.

The Marchioness there, of Carabas, She is wealthy, and young, and handsome still, And but for her . . . well, we'll let that pass, She may marry whomever she will.

But I will marry my own first love, With her primrose face: for old things are best, And the flower in her bosom, I prize it above The brooch in my lady's breast.

The world is filled with folly and sin, And Love must cling where it can, I say: For Beauty is easy enough to win; But one isn't loved every day.

And I think, in the lives of most women and men, There's a moment when all would go smooth and even, If only the dead could find out when To come back, and be forgiven.

But O the smell of that jasmine-flower! And O that music! and O the way That voice rang out from the donjon tower, Non ti scordar di me, Non ti scordar di me!

Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton [1831-1891]

SONG

I saw the day's white rapture Die in the sunset's flame, But all her shining beauty Lives like a deathless name.

Our lamps of joy are wasted, Gone is Love's hallowed light; But you and I remember Through every starlit night.

Charles Hanson Towne [1877-

THE LONELY ROAD

I think thou waitest, Love, beyond the Gate - Eager, with wind-stirred ripples in thy hair; I have not found thee, and the hour is late, And harsh the weight I bear.

Far have I sought, and flung my wealth of years Like a young traveler, gay at careless inns - See how the wine-stain whitens 'neath the tears My burden wins!

And wilt thou know me, Love, with bended back, Or wilt thou scorn me, in so drear a guise? I have a wealth of sorrows in my pack, One lonely prize -

Thy dream - and dross of sin. . . . O, dim the fields - I may not find thee in so dark a land - Yet I await what hope the turning yields And beg with empty hand.

Kenneth Rand [1891-

EVENSONG

Beauty calls and gives no warning, Shadows rise and wander on the day. In the twilight, in the quiet evening, We shall rise and smile and go away. Over the flaming leaves Freezes the sky. It is the season grieves, Not you, not I. All our spring-times, all our summers, We have kept the longing warm within. Now we leave the after-comers To attain the dreams we did not win. Oh, we have wakened, Sweet, and had our birth, And that's the end of earth; And we have toiled and smiled and kept the light, And that's the end of night.

Ridgely Torrence [1875-

THE NYMPH'S SONG TO HYLAS From "The Life and Death of Jason"

I know a little garden-close Set thick with lily and red rose, Where I would wander if I might From dewy dawn to dewy night, And have one with me wandering.

And though within it no birds sing, And though no pillared house is there, And though the apple boughs are bare Of fruit and blossom, would to God, Her feet upon the green grass trod, And I beheld them as before!

There comes a murmur from the shore, And in the close two fair streams are, Drawn from the purple hills afar, Drawn down unto the restless sea; Dark hills whose heath-bloom feeds no bee, Dark shore no ship has ever seen, Tormented by the billows green, Whose murmur comes unceasingly Unto the place for which I cry.

For which I cry both day and night, For which I let slip all delight, Whereby I grow both deaf and blind, Careless to win, unskilled to find, And quick to lose what all men seek.

Yet tottering as I am, and weak, Still have I left a little breath To seek within the jaws of death An entrance to that happy place; To seek the unforgotten face Once seen, once kissed, once reft from me Anigh the murmuring of the sea.

William Morris [1834-1896]

NO AND YES