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And all that day a wan keen face
Whitened and sharpened in its place;
With eyes a-gaze as if to spring,
With still locked hands that fain would cling,
With chastened breath, and ears that heard
The falling of the lightest sherd,
Gerard bent watching,—all his soul
Turned guardian of an empty bowl,
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Whence there exhaled a thin, white steam,—
The dying breath of Gerard's dream.
With risks and science manifold,
To this he had reduced the gold,—
And waited at this final hour
The further triumph of his power.
He waited while a breath went up
That would have dimmed a crystal cup,
The pupils of his hollow eyes
Contracting on the wished-for prize.
A moment more, and he will beat
Brute matter from its last retreat,—
Unhouse it wholly. Will it take
Some form unknown, or will it break
The stagnant silence with a word
By man in mortal shape unheard
Till now? The spirit of the gold
Thus driven from its latest hold—
Will it appear to him, reveal
A soul wherewith a man may deal,
Fall down to him and make appeal:
To him who holds, or blind, or seeing,
The secret of its homeless being?
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The breath had failed,
The day had paled,
And Gerard in his white despair,
Still watched the place, now cold and bare,—
The ruthless spot
Where IT was not.
Night slowly falls; from Gerard's soul
The mists of proud delusion roll;
IT lingers mocking here and there,
IT comes, he breathes it in the air,
IT may his body's loss repair:—
But the freed captive, mute through all,
Will come no more at human call.
Still while thick darkness wrapped him round,
With silence whole of any sound,
And Gerard, fallen in the strife,
Lay all unconscious of his life,
The spirit's unknown tongue might break
Its patient silence for his sake:
Sharpening some inner sense to feel
A truth no tongue might yet reveal;
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Some secret from the deep to bring,—
A germ of light for some day-spring
Remote from him, and yet by him
Fore-felt,—a phantom hovering dim
Athwart the pathless night the soul
Has still to traverse to its goal.
So might the dreamer, dreaming, hold
Communion with his vanished gold.
And Valery sought him in the night
And found him lying stark and white,
Where, through the lattice of the vine,
The moonbeams shake and hardly shine.
She was a woman strong and bold,
But night is drear, and night is cold;
And, as she raised him up and drew
Him near her heart, she shivered too.
What battle had he lonely waged,
In what forbidden arts engaged,
That she should find him stark and white,
Stricken and beaten in the fight,
Thus lying in the dead of night?
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She was a woman strong and bold,
And closer still her arms enfold
The weakly form the powers defied
Could punish for its heart of pride.
She traced a circle all around,
She made four crosses on the ground;
Her heart might quake, but still she drew
The circle and the crosses true.
When on his brow she makes the sign,
The moonbeams shake no more, but shine
Clear on her hand, and on her face,
That seems to exorcise the place.
“Jesu, forgive him—hold him free
From hatred of Thy cross and Thee!
What strength has he wherewith to rob
Thee of Thy glory?”—then a sob
Took all her breath and closed her prayer.
A presence newly stirred the air;—
She looked, and saw the goldsmith there.
Alack, the goldsmith's brow was dark,
A gloomy fire that had no spark
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Burned in his eye; his helpful hand
Seemed lifted with a stern command.
He carried Gerard up the stair,
He fetched him water, gave him air;
Then left him sleeping on his bed,
With not a word betwixt them said.
For days and days his hammer rung
Out loud and fierce; but what it sung
None could have told. Its angry beat
Seemed now to strike out only heat.
So daily as the goldsmith wrought,
His words of speech were few or nought;
While all he made his tongue withhold
Was poured out hotly on the gold.
And Gerard, like a wounded knight,
Valiant, if worsted in the fight,
Bided his time till strength came back,
To conquer on another tack.
Which-while the patient woman-heart
That lodged them both, was rent apart,—
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Held in slow torture with the strain
That forced the rift betwixt the twain.
And ancient Margery, muttering low,
Went up and down, and to and fro,
And wandering in her restless woe,
Splashed holy water on each floor,
And signed a cross on every door.
“O weak and tempted one,” she sighed;
“And holy Wilfred!” still she cried;
“And Gestus, thou, the crucified,
Who rose in glory, being shriven
Of Christus' self—a thief forgiven—
Pray for his soul, that in its pride
For knowledge held from man has striven,—
Has turned a thief more black than thou,
And snatched the crown from Jesus' brow.”
And rising warely in the night
She blew the smouldering embers bright,
And melted wax and moulded it
As such poor cunning might befit,
Into the semblance of a man.
“Christus! Maria! be your ban
Upon this image that I make
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In Gerard's likeness, and will take
To-morrow ere the world shall wake,
And set, or be it wet or fine,
With seven tall candles on thy shrine.”
And so she went at peep of day
To Saviour's shrine to kneel and pray,
That He who spares the smoking flax
Would sate His fury on the wax.
The sins that bar the gates of heaven
From erring mortals, number seven.
And cruel as the grave is lust,
Baser than hell is broken trust;
But blacker is the sin of pride
Than all the deadly seven beside.
And deadliest is the pride that dares
To filch a secret unawares,
Which God and holy mother Church
Have holden from their children's search.
And thus it was the faithful came
To cross themselves at Gerard's name;
And tongues which once in passing near
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Were ready with a ribald jeer,
Now couched at rest in pious fear.
And men who met him at the fall
Of eve, would let him take the wall,
And women, nimbly facing round,
Leave him lone master of the ground;
While children at their wildest play
Would drop their toys and steal away.
And on the house there fell a weight
Of silence, so that any word
Spoken to lift it, only stirred
The gloom it could not dissipate.
And prying glances would, when found
In covert question, seek the ground,
And corner whisperings sudden cease,
Or settle in laborious peace,
What time the master's voice, or face,
Or presence came to clear the place.
For seven long days the goldsmith broke
His wrath in lifting stroke on stroke;
But daily thinking on his oath,
His heart waxed gentler towards them both;—
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Though love is fire as fierce as hate;
And jealousy is stern as fate;
Still a man's will at work through all
Must save him, or must break his fall.
And so for seven long days he wrought
To strike out truer shapes of thought;
And on the seventh day at eve
He seemed his purpose to achieve;
And on the eighth he spoke his mind,—
His words were clear, his purpose kind,—
They ended, “Brother, pray you cease
These arts which mar our household peace.”
The ocean that has churned the storm
May lie at ease when all is done,—
A burnished mirror, spreading warm,
And smooth, beneath the changeless sun;
But turbid waters that have caught
A trick of trouble at their source,
And still are pressed and overwrought
With stony griefs throughout their course,
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Will fret and murmur, unallayed
By balmy sun, or cooling shade.
So Gerard, stricken at the source
Of life, retorted sharp and hoarse;
And rising, stood with eye more haught
Than had his brothers,—they who fought
The “Standard of the King” to shield
From heathens on a bloody field.
“The light your voice would fain suppress
Is nature's truth,—no more, no less;—
The ‘arts which mar your household peace,’
Are strivings for the soul's release;
To ignorance and fabled fears
In durance she has lain long years.”
Quoth he; “You bondsmen fain would bind
Your own gross fetters on the wind;
You herd with churls who fear the light,
With jealous guardians of the night,
And side with knaves who skulk and pry;
You live on other planes than I;—
Your thoughts are broad,—they are not high—
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I think I hold them not too cheap
If I should say they are not deep.”
The hero-blood so proudly flowed
In Gerard's veins, its poor abode
Seemed lifted from its own disgrace
To meet the goldsmith face to face,
And make the man of might forget
That such unequal forces met.
He too held blood of fighting men
Within, to surge up hotly when,
As now, the steel of cutting words
Drew sparks more keen than angry swords.
And so he thrust again; “The truth
You seek, is centred in a youth,—
Gerard de Tyldesley, by your leave;—
Vain-glorious, and of stomach high,
He lacks the seer's—the single eye—
Which can discover or achieve.
He would refine a mine of gold
Only his image to behold
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Clear at its heart; when that was done,
He'd count the battle nobly won
With nature, and proclaim a truce;
But, lest the gold should fall to use
Less worthy, he by some weird art
Which men call black, must rend apart
Its elements, till that which stood
Among us as the type of good,—
Which might have taken shape as fair
As dream of Solomon,—waxed rare
And rarer till it lapsed in air.”
And speaking thus, each from his place
Could hear a voice, could see a face,
But neither through the fleshly sheath
Reached the high-tempered soul beneath.
Nor did the goldsmith dream how pale
Waxed Gerard, or how near to fail,
The while his voice was ringing still,
O'ermastered by his valiant will.
“I said your thoughts were broad, I find
Them straitened as might fit a hind;
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I see that if they had been deep,
You lack the courage for a leap
Sheer to the unknown heart of things;—
Your spirit it hath hands,—not wings,—
So cannot soar, but climbs and clings.
You have no faith to tempt the hell
Of failure, and survive to tell
How still in failure—all is well.”
He hardly spoke the words, but sighed
Them from his lips; was it mere pride
That sped them, or some inner light
Of vision flashed upon his sight?
Oh, goldsmith! did no accent here
Strike as a warning on thine ear?
Those boyish words, all flame and fire,
Did ye not hear them sink, expire
On lips that quivered with a throe
Half mortal weakness, and half woe?
No, no! the voice through all the years
That beats the time like falling tears,—
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The sad refain that sounds again
For each new ear, and sounds in vain,—
Words sure as death's unyielding gate,—
“Too late”—we answer still—“Too late.”
And if upon a soil unkind
Ye drop some words, ye sow the wind—
To reap, full-bearded on your path,
The whirlwind of concentred wrath.
And windy words enough had blown
Between them ere he stood alone,—
The goldsmith,—master of the field;
Nay, rather knight who had been thrown,
And worsted,—had been forced to yield
That which in honour he had kept.
Heroes in such a strait have wept.
Gerard was gone. Proud to the last,
He gathered up each misty dream,
Each dreamy hope in faith supreme,
To nurture and to see them cast
New wreaths of glory, where the past
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Had mouldered from the lonely tower
Which once had been a place of power.
Quoth he; “Such blazon was not meant
To grace your portal.” So he went.
The man who left the goldsmith's side,
Was quick with ire, and stiff with pride;
The form that snatched a moment's rest,
Held to a wildly beating breast,
Was feeble as an infant's hurled
In painful struggle on the world;
The shape that from the goldsmith's went
For good and aye, was shrunk and bent;
God give that they who would beguile
Life's weary uplands with a smile,
May never meet upon its way
A look like that which Valery sent
On Gerard's lonely path that day!
To Saviour's Church two hearts forlorn
Went forth to pray on a Christmas morn;
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'Neath the beetling houses, out of the town,
By the windy shore, o'er the windy down,
Kirtle of russet, and cloak of grey,
Blown of the breeze, dashed by the spray,
Sparsely set as with jewels of snow,
The old limbs stiffened, the young a-glow,—
Dumb by the loud-voiced sea they go.
The snow-stars on the wintry hair
Shone crystal-cold as they lighted there,
But they lost themselves in the sunny mesh
Of Valery's tangled curl and braid,
And, melting to tears on her cheek so fresh,
Struck into the track which her tears had made.
So they gained the harbour of Saviour's door,
And, as wind-worn mariners kneel on the shore,
They knelt in the aisle, leaving empty and lone
To the knight and the lady who prayed in stone,
The silent place, where the very moth
Had left for a season to fret the cloth,
Where the dust lay white
In the pallid light
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And the spider's-web forbad the way,
Where many a Tyldesley, now no more,
Had bent his pride in the days of yore,
And three sad souls on a morn of May
Had prayed vain prayers each one in his way.
The old wife holding by book and bead,
Told of her Paters and Aves a score;
Then paused in the pang of a newer need,
Started and told off a dozen more;
Craved God's grace for a heart too sore;
And maundered again in her dull despair,
Nor dreamed that her bleatings went up as prayer.
But Valery set her fair young face
Keen with sorrow, to front the place;
And she thought as she looked on the vacant spot,
Of him who was, and of those who were not;
And she seemed to see where, five of a row,
The coffins lay in the crypt below,
With a space betwixt them for just that other:
And “Patience,” she said in her heart, “good mother!”
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Then fell upon Saviour's stones again
And poured out to heaven the heart of her pain.
“O Thou who boundest souls of men
In walls of clay, with word divine!
Who lookest through the darkest den,
And seëst where Thou canst not shine:
Thou who canst quicken with the heat
Of living love, the dullest parts
Of earth, until we see thee beat,
And feel thee glow in human hearts:
O light that smilest over all—
O sun that warmest great and small—
O Love still watching evermore
With Jesu at each sinner's door—
I—mortal woman—love but twain;
And the, O God of Love, in vain!”
“I love in vain, and worse than vain,
My love hath been a froward fate,
My love hath let in strife and pain,
My love hath op'd the door to hate:
O Lord, what sorrowful employ
For love that would be dealing joy!”
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“What hast Thou seen in me to chide,
Or is it pity, lord, or pride?
One love,—a mother's dying gift,—
Was nursed of sorrow, was it ill
If faint of heart, I sought to lift
A weight which bent him to Thy will?”
“One love broke forth,—a sudden flower
Clear through the mystery of life;
God! first I knew Thee in that hour
He held me to his heart—his wife!
I saw the flower, I judged the fruit,
I said ‘great love is at the root!’
I sought the end of life no more,
I knew Thy love was at its core;
But still mine own was glorified.
And haply I have err'd through pride.”
“He was too rich for pity,—he,—
And I too poor for lowly love;
My spirit yearned to bend the knee,
My downcast eyes to look above;
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I never questioned of the state
Of one who in himself was great;
A crown had seemed a sorry sheath
For that great brow to rise beneath;—
The prouder I that could divine
The worth that had no counter-sign.”
“Mother not straightened, no, nor cold
The heart that melts mine own with love!
But only, cast in mightier mould,
He looks beyond us, or above:
And, centred in a soul so fair,
The freëst thought would hardly care
To wander forth on idle wings,
Or fit itself to meaner things.
Sweet Christ! whatever be my state,
So hold him high,—so keep him great!”
Her folded hands fell faint and meek,
Her knees on foot-worn stones were bowed,—
Tears dried unheeded on her cheek,—
And still the woman's heart was proud.
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She pressed the stones but prayed no more,
Her lapsëd thought was fluttering o'er
That grove of paradise where glows
The lamp of flowers, the wilding rose,
Whose vermeil skreen though shyly furled
Reveals the flame that lights the world.
But when there past a mouldy breath,—
A summons as from life to death,—
Before her face,—she turned again
O'ertaken by a ghostly pain.
“Can mothers taste of heaven's peace?
From love can death afford release?
I seek thee with the ransomed dead,—
I find thee in thy narrow bed!
The hands so fain to linger still
About his brow, or work his will,
Lie idle in the crypt below
While mine I ring in helpless woe!
The heart beneath their weight opprest,
That so we thought must sink to rest,
I see it bleeding in the grave,—
Its love all-powerless to save!
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The hymns which tell of Jesus' birth
Send up their jubilant “All hail!”
But through the quires of heaven and earth
I hear but one despairing wail;
I seek to end thy work in vain,
Love cleaves my stedfast heart in twain;
Dear Christ assoil me of my oath,
Help Thou the son and mother both!”
As old and young returned from mass
The goldsmith stood to see them pass;
But he set his ear to the turn in the street
For the measured cadence of Valery's feet.
“For all the prayers you have prayed, you three,
Hath any one prayed a prayer for me?”
These words as light as the ocean froth
Seemed borne to the ear on a blast from the north.
“Sweetheart we were but twain, not three,
If I bore not thy spirit along with me;
And never,” she faltered, “O nevermore
Will the three ye wot of see Saviour's door.”
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Doubting and angered he turned man-wise,
From the pleading sorrow of Valery's eyes:—
For more than death if love is strong,
So more than death it may us wrong,
And shadows of its morning light
Are blacker than the dunnest night.
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