Lucile By Owen Meredith [i.e. E. R. B. Lytton] |
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 | Lucile |  |
VIII.
For a while she was mute.
Then she answer'd, ‘We are our own fates. Our own deeds
‘Are our doomsmen. Man's life was made not for men's creeds,
‘But men's actions. And, Duc de Luvois, I might say
‘That all life attests, that “the will makes the way.”
‘I might say, in a world full of lips that lack bread
‘And of souls that lack light, there are mouths to be fed,
‘There are wounds to be heal'd, there is work to be done,
‘And life can withhold love and duty from none.
‘Is the land of our birth less the land of our birth,
‘Or its claim the less strong, or its cause the less worth
‘Our upholding, because the white lily no more
‘Is as sacred as all that it bloom'd for of yore?
‘Yet be that as it may be; I cannot perchance
‘Judge this matter. I am but a woman, and France
‘Has for me simpler duties. Large hope, though, Eugène
‘De Luvois, should be yours. There is purpose in pain,
‘Otherwise it were devilish. I trust in my soul
‘That the great master hand which sweeps over the whole
‘Of this deep harp of life, if at moments it stretch
‘To shrill tension some one wailing nerve, means to fetch
‘Its response the truest, most stringent, and smart,
‘Its pathos the purest, from out the wrung heart,
‘Whose faculties, flaccid it may be, if less
‘Sharply strung, sharply smitten, had fail'd to express
‘Just the one note the great final harmony needs.
‘And what best proves there's life in a heart?—that it bleeds!
‘Grant a cause to remove, grant an end to attain,
‘Grant both to be just, and what mercy in pain!
‘Cease the sin with the sorrow! See morning begin!
‘Pain must burn itself out if not fuell'd by sin.
‘There is hope in yon hill-tops, and love in yon light.
‘Let hate and despondency die with the night!’
Then she answer'd, ‘We are our own fates. Our own deeds
‘Are our doomsmen. Man's life was made not for men's creeds,
‘But men's actions. And, Duc de Luvois, I might say
‘That all life attests, that “the will makes the way.”
‘I might say, in a world full of lips that lack bread
‘And of souls that lack light, there are mouths to be fed,
‘There are wounds to be heal'd, there is work to be done,
‘And life can withhold love and duty from none.
‘Is the land of our birth less the land of our birth,
‘Or its claim the less strong, or its cause the less worth
‘Our upholding, because the white lily no more
‘Is as sacred as all that it bloom'd for of yore?
‘Yet be that as it may be; I cannot perchance
‘Judge this matter. I am but a woman, and France
‘Has for me simpler duties. Large hope, though, Eugène
‘De Luvois, should be yours. There is purpose in pain,
‘Otherwise it were devilish. I trust in my soul
‘That the great master hand which sweeps over the whole
‘Of this deep harp of life, if at moments it stretch
‘To shrill tension some one wailing nerve, means to fetch
‘Its response the truest, most stringent, and smart,
‘Its pathos the purest, from out the wrung heart,
291
‘Sharply strung, sharply smitten, had fail'd to express
‘Just the one note the great final harmony needs.
‘And what best proves there's life in a heart?—that it bleeds!
‘Grant a cause to remove, grant an end to attain,
‘Grant both to be just, and what mercy in pain!
‘Cease the sin with the sorrow! See morning begin!
‘Pain must burn itself out if not fuell'd by sin.
‘There is hope in yon hill-tops, and love in yon light.
‘Let hate and despondency die with the night!’
He was moved by her words. As some poor wretch confined
In cells loud with meaningless laughter, whose mind
Wanders trackless amidst its own ruins, may hear
A voice heard long since, silenced many a year,
And now, 'mid mad ravings recaptured again,
Singing thro' the caged lattice a once well-known strain,
Which brings back his boyhood upon it, until
The mind's ruin'd crevices graciously fill
With music and memory, and, as it were,
The long-troubled spirit grows slowly aware
Of the mockery round it, and shrinks from each thing
It once sought,—the poor idiot who pass'd for a king,
Hard by, with his squalid straw crown, now confess'd
A madman more painfully mad than the rest,—
So the sound of her voice, as it there wander'd o'er
His echoing heart, seem'd in part to restore
The forces of thought: he recaptured the whole
Of his life by the light which, in passing, her soul
Reflected on his: he appear'd to awake
From a dream, and perceived he had dream'd a mistake:
His spirit was soften'd, yet troubled in him:
He felt his lips falter, his eyesight grow dim.
But he murmur'd...
In cells loud with meaningless laughter, whose mind
Wanders trackless amidst its own ruins, may hear
A voice heard long since, silenced many a year,
And now, 'mid mad ravings recaptured again,
Singing thro' the caged lattice a once well-known strain,
Which brings back his boyhood upon it, until
The mind's ruin'd crevices graciously fill
With music and memory, and, as it were,
The long-troubled spirit grows slowly aware
Of the mockery round it, and shrinks from each thing
It once sought,—the poor idiot who pass'd for a king,
Hard by, with his squalid straw crown, now confess'd
A madman more painfully mad than the rest,—
So the sound of her voice, as it there wander'd o'er
His echoing heart, seem'd in part to restore
292
Of his life by the light which, in passing, her soul
Reflected on his: he appear'd to awake
From a dream, and perceived he had dream'd a mistake:
His spirit was soften'd, yet troubled in him:
He felt his lips falter, his eyesight grow dim.
But he murmur'd...
‘Lucile, not for me that sun's light
‘Which reveals—not restores—the wild havoc of night.
‘There are some creatures born for the night, not the day.
‘Brokenhearted the nightingale hides in the spray,
‘And the owl's moody mind in his own hollow tower
‘Dwells muffled. Be darkness henceforward my dower.
‘Light, be sure, in that darkness there dwells, by which eyes
‘Grown familiar with ruins may yet recognise
‘Enough desolation.’
‘Which reveals—not restores—the wild havoc of night.
‘There are some creatures born for the night, not the day.
‘Brokenhearted the nightingale hides in the spray,
‘And the owl's moody mind in his own hollow tower
‘Dwells muffled. Be darkness henceforward my dower.
‘Light, be sure, in that darkness there dwells, by which eyes
‘Grown familiar with ruins may yet recognise
‘Enough desolation.’
‘Take comfort,’ she said,
‘Above all,—that in mercy, this night, I was led
‘To save you, in saving another! Oh yet,
‘Thank heaven that you have not quite barter'd regret
‘For remorse, nor the sad self-redemptions of grief
‘For a self-retribution beyond all relief!’
‘Above all,—that in mercy, this night, I was led
‘To save you, in saving another! Oh yet,
‘Thank heaven that you have not quite barter'd regret
‘For remorse, nor the sad self-redemptions of grief
‘For a self-retribution beyond all relief!’
| Lucile | |