As I read that blotted letter, with its love so fond and true,
Again in the dim morning, I was stung with new regret;
Why had I mooned away the night, when there was that to do
Which still might heal our sorrow, and restore my darling yet?
O misery! O misery! to have been rich indeed,
And to have wasted all that wealth of love by cold distrust!
And what were I without her, but a shivering, withered reed
With the glad water at its roots all gone to summer dust?
I did not wish a wiser wife—I only wanted her?
How could she think I cared for bookish women or their praise?
If she only saw my heart, and if she only felt the stir
Of pain and shame and self-contempt I had for all my ways!
I hurried to our priestling; I was sure he had to do
With this fresh sorrow of my life; and I misjudged him not;
He was fain to make atonement where atonement was not due,
And manufactured crosses when Providence forgot.
I found him high and haughty in a saintly kind of way,
But he allowed that she had joined a pious sisterhood
Who from a distant harbour would be sailing on that day,
To nurse the wounded in the war, and do the dying good.
I waited not for more; 'twas idle to dispute with him:
He had the true ascetic heart that knows no tie, or care
Of wife or child or kindred, and was fain to sing a hymn
For “those in peril on the sea,” when I was fain to swear.
O that journey to the seaport! O the thoughts that surged on me!
O the reasons I would urge! the triumph I must surely win!—
But the anchor had been weighed, the ship was dropping out to sea,
And I only looked on crowded decks, and heard confusèd din.
I saw the ship sway o'er the bar, I saw the hurrying crowd,
And the sailors sang light-hearted, and the landsmen gave a shout;
But song and shout were in my ear lamentings low or loud,
And whether all were truth or dream, I could not well make out.
I rushed along the granite mole that stretched far out to sea,
Where angry waves were howling loud, like hungry beasts of prey;
O cruel waves whose crashing drowned the cry that came from me!
O mocking waves that heeded not, but bore my love away.
The rain came down in plashes, gusty, sputtering in my face,
And little, gushing runlets flowed down by me to the sea;
I felt their chill, but recked not, and shivering for a space
Sat on the dripping stones, and leant my face upon my knee.
What followed then I cannot tell, I cannot tell how long—
Sounds that made my blood to tingle, laughter mingled with long sighs;
And now I was athirst, and now was choking in a throng,
And ever one pale visage looked on me with yearning eyes.
O God forgive us, Hilda; and God be good to thee!
O my cold, distrustful silence, it was not the better part!
And oh what would I give to bring my love back from the sea
Whose billows, ever breaking on me, break my very heart.
Where art thou? Where, my darling? the noise of war is stilled,
The wounded sun them at the doors, or cripple through the street;
I ask them of my darling, and they tell me who were killed,
Of the soldiers in the trenches, or the sailors in the fleet.
They tell me of the sisters, but they never speak of her;
There was a Sister Bridget, whom they never name without
Rubbing a sleeve across the eye, and talking of the stir,
When they broke out of the trenches to assail the great Redoubt.
I wait and ask, and wait in vain; she passed away from me;
The last glimpse that I had was when the ship swayed o'er the bar;
And all the hope of love went down into the stormy sea,
And never tidings came from it, or from the storm of war.
