Chapter 3

In the spring a livelier iris changes on the burnished dove; In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.

Then her cheek was pale and thinner than should be for one so young, And her eyes on all my motions with a mute observance hung.

And I said, "My cousin Amy, speak, and speak the truth to me; Trust me, cousin, all the current of my being sets to thee."

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,--her bosom shaken with a sudden storm of sighs; 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 water 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.

It may be my lord is weary, that his brain is over wrought,-- 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? No,--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.

"They were dangerous guides, the feelings--she herself was not exempt-- Truly, she herself had suffered"--Perish in thy self-contempt!

Overlive it--lower yet--be happy! wherefore should I care? I myself must mix with action, lest I wither by despair.

What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon days like these? Every door is barred with gold, and opens but to golden keys.

Every gate is thronged with suitors, all the markets overflow. I have but an angry fancy: what is that which I should do?

I had been content to perish, falling on the foeman's ground, When the ranks are rolled in vapor, and the winds are laid with sound.

But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that honor feels, And the nations do but murmur, snarling at each other's heels.

Can I but relive in sadness? I will turn that earlier page. Hide me from my deep emotion, O thou wondrous mother-age!

Make me feel the wild pulsation that I felt before the strife, When I heard my days before me, and the tumult of my life;

Yearning for the large excitement that the coming years would yield, Eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his father's field,

And at night along the dusky highway near and nearer drawn, Sees in heaven the light of London flaring like a dreary dawn;

And his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him then, Underneath the light he looks at, in among the throngs of men;

Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new: That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do:

For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;

Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales;

Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue;

Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm, With the standards of the peoples plunging through the thunder-storm;

Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle flags were furled In the parliament of man, the federation of the world.

There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.

So I triumphed ere my passion sweeping through me left me dry, Left me with a palsied heart, and left me with the jaundiced eye;

Eye, to which all order festers, all things here are out of joint. Science moves, but slowly, slowly, creeping on from point to point:

Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion, creeping nigher, Glares at one that nods and winks behind a slowly dying fire.

Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns.

What is that to him that reaps not harvest of his youthful joys, Though the deep heart of existence beat forever like a boy's?

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers; and I linger on the shore And the individual withers, and the world is more and more.

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and he bears a laden breast, Full of sad experience moving toward the stillness of his rest.

Hark! my merry comrades call me, sounding on the bugle horn,-- They to whom my foolish passion were a target for their scorn;

Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a mouldered string? I am shamed through all my nature to have loved so slight a thing.

Weakness to be wroth with weakness! woman's pleasure, woman's pain-- Nature made them blinder motions bounded in a shallower brain;

Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, matched with mine, Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine--

Here at least, where nature sickens, nothing. Ah for some retreat Deep in yonder shining Orient, where my life began to beat!

Where in wild Mahratta-battle fell my father, evil-starred; I was left a trampled orphan, and a selfish uncle's ward.

Or to burst all links of habit,--there to wander far away, On from island unto island at the gateways of the day,

Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies, Breadths of tropic shade and palms in cluster, knots of Paradise.

Never comes the trader, never floats an European flag,-- Slides the bird o'er lustrous woodland, swings the trailer from the crag,--

Droops the heavy-blossomed bower, hangs the heavy-fruited tree,-- Summer isles of Eden lying in dark-purple spheres of sea.

There, methinks, would be enjoyment more than in this march of mind-- In the steamship, in the railway, in the thoughts that shake mankind.

There the passions, cramped no longer, shall have scope and breathing-space; I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky race.

Iron-jointed, supple-sinewed, they shall dive, and they shall run, Catch the wild goat by the hair, and hurl their lances in the sun,

Whistle back the parrot's call, and leap the rainbows of the brooks, Not with blinded eyesight poring over miserable books--

Fool, again the dream, the fancy! but I know my words are wild, But I count the gray barbarian lower than the Christian child.

I, to herd with narrow foreheads vacant of our glorious gains, Like a beast with lower pleasures, like a beast with lower pains!

Mated with a squalid savage,--what to me were sun or clime? I, the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time,--

I, that rather held it better men should perish one by one, Than that earth should stand at gaze like Joshua's moon in Ajalon!

Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us range; Let the great world spin forever down the ringing grooves of change.

Through the shadow of the globe we sweep into the younger day: Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.

Mother-age, (for mine I knew not,) help me as when life begun,-- Rift the hills and roll the waters, flash the lightnings, weigh the sun,

O, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not set; Ancient founts of inspiration well through all my fancy yet.

Howsoever these things be, a long farewell to Locksley Hall! Now for me the woods may wither, now for me the roof-tree fall.

Comes a vapor from the margin, blackening over heath and holt, Cramming all the blast before it, in its breast a thunderbolt.

Let it fall on Locksley Hall, with rain or hail, or fire or snow; For the mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, and I go.

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON.

SONG.

"A weary lot is thine, fair maid, A weary lot is thine! To pull the thorn thy brow to braid, And press the rue for wine! A lightsome eye, a soldier's mien, A feather of the blue, A doublet of the Lincoln green-- No more of me you knew, My love! No more of me you knew.

"The morn is merry June, I trow-- The rose is budding fain; But she shall bloom in winter snow Ere we two meet again." He turned his charger as he spake, Upon the river shore; He gave his bridle-rein a shake, Said, "Adieu for evermore, My love! And adieu for evermore."

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

AULD ROBIN GRAY.

When the sheep are in the fauld and the kye a' at hame, When a' the weary world to sleep are gane, The waes o' my heart fa' in showers frae my e'e, While my gudeman lies sound by me.

Young Jamie lo'ed me weel, and sought me for his bride; But saving a crown, he had naething else beside. To mak' the crown a pound, my Jamie gaed to sea; And the crown and the pound, they were baith for me!

He hadna been awa' a week but only twa, When my mither she fell sick, and the cow was stown awa; My father brak his arm--my Jamie at the sea-- And Auld Robin Gray came a-courtin' me.

My father couldna work,--my mither couldna spin; I toiled day and night, but their bread I couldna win; And Rob maintained them baith, and, wi' tears in his e'e, Said, "Jennie for their sakes, will you marry me?"

My heart it said na, for I looked for Jamie back; But hard blew the winds, and his ship was a wrack; His ship was a wrack! Why didna Jamie dee? Or why was I spared to cry, Wae is me!

My father argued sair--my mither didna speak, But she looked in my face till my heart was like to break; They gied him my hand, but my heart was in the sea; And so Auld Robin Gray, he was gudeman to me.

I hadna been his wife, a week but only four, When, mournfu' as I sat on the stane at the door, I saw my Jamie's ghaist--I couldna think it he, Till he said, "I'm come hame, love, for to marry thee!"

O sair, sair did we greet, and mickle did we say: Ae kiss we took--nae mair--I bad him gang away. I wish that I were dead, but I'm no like to dee, And why do I live to say, Wae is me!

I gang like a ghaist, and I carena to spin; I darena think o' Jamie, for that wad be a sin. But I will do my best a gude wife aye to be, For Auld Robin Gray, he is kind unto me.

LADY ANNE BARNARD.

TO A PORTRAIT.

A pensive photograph Watches me from the shelf-- Ghost of old love, and half Ghost of myself!

How the dear waiting eyes Watch me and love me yet-- Sad home of memories, Her waiting eyes!

Ghost of old love, wronged ghost, Return: though all the pain Of all once loved, long lost, Come back again.

Forget not, but forgive! Alas, too late I cry. We are two ghosts that had their chance to live, And lost it, she and I.

ARTHUR SYMONS.

MAUD MULLER.

Maud Muller, on a summer's day, Raked the meadow sweet with hay.

Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth Of simple beauty and rustic health.

Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee The mock-bird echoed from his tree.

But, when she glanced to the far-off town, White from its hill-slope looking down,

The sweet song died, and a vague unrest And a nameless longing filled her breast,--

A wish, that she hardly dared to own, For something better than she had known.

The Judge rode slowly down the lane, Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane.

He drew his bridle in the shade Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid,

And ask a draught from the spring that flowed Through the meadow, across the road.

She stooped where the cool spring bubbled up, And filled for him her small tin cup,

And blushed as she gave it, looking down On her feet so bare, and her tattered gown.

"Thanks!" said the Judge, "a sweeter draught From a fairer hand was never quaffed."

He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees, Of the singing birds and the humming bees;

Then talked of the haying, and wondered whether The cloud in the west would bring foul weather.

And Maud forgot her brier-torn gown, And her graceful ankles, bare and brown,

And listened, while a pleased surprise Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes.

At last, like one who for delay Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away.

Maud Muller looked and sighed: "Ah me! That I the Judge's bride might be!

"He would dress me up in silks so fine, And praise and toast me at his wine.

"My father should wear a broadcloth coat, My brother should sail a painted boat.

"I 'd dress my mother so grand and gay, And the baby should have a new toy each day.

"And I'd feed the hungry and clothe the poor, And all should bless me who left our door."

The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill, And saw Maud Muller standing still:

"A form more fair, a face more sweet, Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet.

"And her modest answer and graceful air Show her wise and good as she is fair.

"Would she were mine, and I to-day, Like her, a harvester of hay.

"No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs, Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues,

"But low of cattle, and song of birds, And health, and quiet, and loving words."

But he thought of his sister, proud and cold, And his mother, vain of her rank and gold.

So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on, And Maud was left in the field alone.

But the lawyers smiled that afternoon, When he hummed in court an old love tune;

And the young girl mused beside the well, Till the rain on the unraked clover fell.

He wedded a wife of richest dower, Who lived for fashion, as he for power.

Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow, He watched a picture come and go;

And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes Looked out in their innocent surprise.

Oft, when the wine in his glass was red, He longed for the wayside well instead,

And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms, To dream of meadows and clover blooms;

And the proud man sighed with a secret pain, "Ah, that I were free again!

"Free as when I rode that day Where the barefoot maiden raked the hay."

She wedded a man unlearned and poor, And many children played round her door.

But care and sorrow, and child-birth pain, Left their traces on heart and brain.

And oft, when the summer sun shone hot On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot,

And she heard the little spring brook fall Over the roadside, through the wall,

In the shade of the apple-tree again She saw a rider draw his rein,

And, gazing down with a timid grace, She felt his pleased eyes read her face.

Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls Stretched away into stately halls;

The weary wheel to a spinnet turned, The tallow candle an astral burned;

And for him who sat by the chimney lug, Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and mug,

A manly form at her side she saw, And joy was duty and love was law.

Then she took up her burden of life again, Saying only, "It might have been."

Alas for maiden, alas for judge, For rich repiner and household drudge!

God pity them both! and pity us all, Who vainly the dreams of youth recall;

For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: "It might have been!"

Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies Deeply buried from human eyes;

And, in the hereafter, angels may Roll the stone from its grave away!

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

THE PALM AND THE PINE.

Beneath an Indian palm a girl Of other blood reposes; Her cheek is clear and pale as pearl Amid that wild of roses.

Beside a northern pine a boy Is leaning fancy-bound. Nor listens where with noisy joy Awaits the impatient hound.

Cool grows the sick and feverish calm, Relaxed the frosty twine.-- The pine-tree dreameth of the palm, The palm-tree of the pine.

As soon shall nature interlace Those dimly-visioned boughs, As these young lovers face to face Renew their early vows.

From the German of HEINRICH HEINE. Translation of RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES, LORD HOUGHTON.

CUMNOR HALL.

[SAID TO HAVE BEEN THE SUGGESTIVE ORIGIN OF SCOTT'S "KENILWORTH."]

The dews of summer night did fall; The moon, sweet regent of the sky, Silvered the walls of Cumnor Hall, And many an oak that grew thereby.

Now naught was heard beneath the skies, The sounds of busy life were still, Save an unhappy lady's sighs, That issued from that lonely pile.

"Leicester," she cried, "is this thy love That thou so oft hast sworn to me, To leave me in this lonely grove, Immured in shameful privity?

"No more thou com'st with lover's speed, Thy once belovèd bride to see; But be she alive, or be she dead, I fear, stern Earl, 's the same to thee.

"Not so the usage I received When happy in my father's hall; No faithless husband then me grieved, No chilling fears did me appal.

"I rose up with the cheerful morn, No lark more blithe, no flower more gay And like the bird that haunts the thorn, So merrily sung the livelong day.

"If that my beauty is but small, Among court ladies all despised, Why didst thou rend it from that hall, Where, scornful Earl, it well was prized?

"And when you first to me made suit, How fair I was, you oft would say! And proud of conquest, plucked the fruit, Then left the blossom to decay.

"Yes! now neglected and despised, The rose is pale, the lily's dead; But he, that once their charms so prized, Is sure the cause those charms are fled.

"For know, when sick'ning grief doth prey, And tender love's repaid with scorn, The sweetest beauty will decay,-- What floweret can endure the storm?

"At court, I'm told, is beauty's throne, Where every lady's passing rare, That Eastern flowers, that shame the sun, Are not so glowing, not so fair.

"Then, Earl, why didst thou leave the beds Where roses and where lilies vie, To seek a primrose, whose pale shades Must sicken when those gauds are by?

"'Mong rural beauties I was one, Among the fields wild flowers are fair; Some country swain might me have won, And thought my beauty passing rare.

"But, Leicester, (or I much am wrong,) Or 't is not beauty lures thy vows; Rather ambition's gilded crown Makes thee forget thy humble spouse.

"Then, Leicester, why, again I plead, (The injured surely may repine,)-- Why didst thou wed a country maid, When some fair princess might be thine?

"Why didst thou praise my humble charms, And, oh! then leave them to decay? Why didst thou win me to thy arms, Then leave to mourn the livelong day?

"The village maidens of the plain Salute me lowly as they go; Envious they mark my silken train, Nor think a Countess can have woe.

"The simple nymphs! they little know How far more happy 's their estate; To smile for joy than sigh for woe To be content--than to be great.

"How far less blest am I than them Daily to pine and waste with care! Like the poor plant, that, from its stem Divided, feels the chilling air.

"Nor, cruel Earl! can I enjoy The humble charms of solitude; Your minions proud my peace destroy, By sullen frowns or pratings rude.

"Last night, as sad I chanced to stray, The village death-bell smote my ear; They winked aside, and seemed to say, 'Countess, prepare, thy end is near.'

"And now, while happy peasants sleep, Here I sit lonely and forlorn; No one to soothe me as I weep, Save Philomel on yonder thorn.

"My spirits flag--my hopes decay-- Still that dread death-bell smites my ear, And many a boding seems to say, 'Countess, prepare, thy end is near!'"

Thus sore and sad that lady grieved, In Cumnor Hall so lone and drear, And many a heartfelt sigh she heaved, And let fall many a bitter tear.

And ere the dawn of day appeared, In Cumnor Hall, so lone and drear, Full many a piercing scream was heard, And many a cry of mortal fear.

The death-bell thrice was heard to ring, An aerial voice was heard to call, And thrice the raven flapped its wing Around the towers of Cumnor Hall.

The mastiff bowled at village door, The oaks were shattered on the green; Woe was the hour, for nevermore That hapless Countess e'er was seen.

And in that manor now no more Is cheerful feast and sprightly ball; For ever since that dreary hour Have spirits haunted Cumnor Hall.

The village maids, with fearful glance, Avoid the ancient moss-grown wall, Nor ever lead the merry dance, Among the groves of Cumnor Hall.

Full many a traveller oft hath sighed, And pensive wept the Countess' fall, As wandering onward they've espied The haunted towers of Cumnor Hall.

WILLIAM JULIUS MICKLE.

WALY, WALY.