University of Virginia Library

He ceased, as a wind that wails out on the night,
And moans itself mute. Through the indistinct light
A voice clear, and tender, and pure, with a tone
Of ineffable pity replied to his own.
‘And say you, and deem you, that I wreck'd your life?
‘Alas! Duc de Luvois, had I been your wife
‘By a fraud of the heart which could yield you alone
‘For the love in your nature a lie in my own,
‘Should I not, in deceiving, have injured you worse?
‘Yes, I then should have merited justly your curse,
‘For I then should have wrong'd you!’

‘Wrong'd! ah, is it so?
‘You could never have loved me?’

‘Duke!’

‘Never? oh no!’
(He broke into a fierce angry laugh, as he said)
‘Yet, lady, you knew that I loved you: you led
‘My love on to lay to its heart, hour by hour,
‘All the pale, cruel, beautiful, passionless power
‘Shut up in that cold face of yours! was this well?
‘But enough! not on you would I vent the wild hell
‘Which has grown in my heart. Oh that man, first and last
‘He tramples in triumph my life! he has cast
‘His shadow 'twixt me and the sun ... let it pass!
‘My hate yet may find him!’

She murmur'd, ‘Alas!
‘These words, at least, spare me the pain of reply.
‘Enough, Duc de Luvois! farewell. I shall try
‘To forget every word I have heard, every sight
‘That has grieved and appall'd me in this wretched night
‘Which must witness our final farewell. May you, Duke,
‘Never know greater cause your own heart to rebuke
‘Than mine thus to wrong and afflict you have had!
‘Adieu!’

‘Stay, Lucile, stay!'... he groan'd,... ‘I am mad,
‘Brutalised, blind with pain! I know not what I said.
‘I meant it not. But' (he moan'd, drooping his head)
‘I suffer, and pain is perchance all unjust;
‘'Tis the worm trodden down that yet stings in the dust.
‘Forgive me! I—have I so wrong'd you, Lucile?
‘I ... have I ... forgive me, forgive me!’

‘I feel
‘Only sad, very sad to the soul,’ she said, ‘far,
‘Far too sad for resentment.’

‘Yet stand as you are
‘One moment,’ he murmur'd. ‘I think, could I gaze
‘Thus awhile on your face, the old innocent days
‘Would come back upon me, and this scorching heart
‘Free itself in hot tears. Do not, do not depart
‘Thus, Lucile! stay one moment. I know why you shrink,
‘Why you shudder; I read in your face what you think.
‘Do not speak to me of it. And yet, if you will,
‘Whatever you say, my own lips shall be still.
‘Do not fear I should justify aught I have done.
‘I feel I have sinn'd. Yet this night you have won
‘A great battle from me. Teach, O teach me to bear
‘The defeat I have merited! Teach my despair
‘Some retributive penance to purge this foul past
‘And work out life's penal redemption at last!’

‘Only speak!’
‘Could I help you,’ she murmur'd, ‘my heart
‘Would bless heaven indeed if before we thus part
‘I could rescue from out the wild work of this night
‘One holier memory, one gleam of light
‘Out of this hour of darkness! But what can I say?
‘This deep sense of pity seems utterless!’

‘Nay,
‘I have suffer'd,’ he answer'd, ‘but yet do not think
‘That, whatever my fate, I have shrunk, or do shrink.
‘When the peasant, at nightfall, regaining the door
‘Of his hut, finds the tempest hath been there before;
‘That the thunder hath wasted the harvest he sow'd,
‘And the lightning to ashes consumed his abode;
‘The wild fact to his senses one moment may seem
‘Like a haggard, confused, and unnatural dream:
‘The vast night is sombre all round him; the earth
‘Smoulders lurid and angry; he stands on his hearth
‘And looks round for the welcome of old, and the place
‘Where his wife used to sit with the smile on her face:
‘A heap of red ashes lies strewn on the heath.
‘But in darkness of night, and with silence of death,
‘He sits down, and already reflects on the morrow.
‘So I, in the night of my life, with my sorrow!
‘Ah! but henceforth in vain shall I till that wild field.
‘It is blasted: no harvest these furrows will yield.
‘True! my life hath brought forth only evil, and there
‘The wild wind hath planted the wild weed: yet ere
‘You exclaim, “Fling the weed to the flames,” think again
‘Why the field is so barren. With all other men
‘First love, though it perish from life, only goes
‘Like the primrose that falls to make way for the rose.
‘For a man, at least most men, may love on through life:
‘Love in fame; love in knowledge; in work: earth is rife
‘With labour, and therefore with love, for a man.
‘If one love fails, another succeeds, and the plan
‘Of man's life includes love in all objects! But I?
‘All such loves from my life through its whole destiny
‘Fate excluded. The love that I gave you, alas!
‘Was the sole love that life gave to me. Let that pass!
‘It perish'd, and all perish'd with it. Ambition?
‘Wealth left nothing to add to my social condition.
‘Fame? But fame in itself presupposes some great
‘Field wherein to pursue and attain it. The State?
‘I, to cringe to an upstart? The Camp? I, to draw
‘From its sheath the old sword of the Dukes of Luvois
‘To defend usurpation? Books, then? Science, Art?
‘But, alas! I was fashion'd for action: my heart,
‘Wither'd thing though it be, I should hardly compress
‘'Twixt the leaves of a treatise on Statics: life's stress
‘Needs scope, not contraction! what rests? to wear out
‘At some dark northern court an existence, no doubt,
‘In wretched and paltry intrigues for a cause
‘As hopeless as is my own life! By the laws
‘Of a fate I can neither control nor dispute,
‘I am what I am!’