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IV.

But right the sentiment or wrong,
It was not one to hold her long.
To her deserted Father flew
Her thoughts—his anguish when her clothes they found:
What if his Child, his grey hair's pride were drowned!
Her loss how would he brood upon and rue;
With dim eyes, in the sleepy old canoe,
With pole and hoopnet as he used to do,
Fishing perhaps the long day through;
Unconscious half, in his distress
And heedless of his ill-success.
To think of his despair her bosom bled;
Yet how could they upbraid her that she fled?
Could they, if all were known, bid her contend
Against a fate she could not help nor mend?
Was Love to be resisted? Could they blame her
If that insidious Power o'ercame her?
Because they could not see nor feel
The spell whose tyrannous control
Absorbed, entranced her mind—her soul,
Should they expect she could reject
Its might, her heart against it steel?
As well—(for as her feelings rose,
The oriental fancy, bred
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And born with her, and through all joys and woes
With metaphor and song for ever fed,
At once in quick spontaneous chaunt
Expressing all the moment's want,
Again to Nature's ways and shows
For vindication and example sped)
As well upbraid the feathery clouds of Morning,
Because the unrisen Sun is out of sight,
For not in cold impassive pallor scorning
The first faint touches of his cheering light;
As well expect their snowy fleeces,
As upward from his seahid cave he rushes,
Not to be heart-struck into burning blushes;
Or as he nigher comes and nigher
And the soft-flowing splendour still increases,
Though all his disc be hidden yet,
As well expect the basking brood
No further to drink-in the blissful flood,
But fling it eddying back, nor let
The rosy blushes rapture-kindle into golden fire!
“Ah no!” she thought, while her full bosom heaves
A sigh—“with me no more than these—Ah no,
It cannot be—it never can be so!
Him I was born, compelled to love—I know;
Him I shall love—him ever—till the day
When with thick coronals of freshest leaves
The maids and matrons to my funeral go!”—
In fresh resolve the passing pang she smothers,
And dashes, as it starts, the tear away:
Then with a half impatience and mute pain
She turns into the yielding Lake again;
Again the Lake's mild breast receives her like a Mother's!
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