University of Virginia Library

NATALIA'S RESURRECTION

A SONNET SEQUENCE

I

Oh! woe is me for beauty idly blown!
And woe for passionate youth and joys that wait!
And woe for foolish love that is undone
By woman's fear, and fortune come too late!
And woe for empty words and hours that were
Squandered in weeping! Woe, because of Death
Who was at hand, and, while joy languished near
Fearing to enter, quickly from its sheath
Drew out his sword and laid its point unto
That virgin breast, and there in stern embrace
Did all that happiness had dared not do,
Rifling the treasures of that holy place,
And heeding not Love's shriek. Alas, poor Love!
Death will not spare what thou hast spared to prove.

II

'Twas thus with my Natalia, suppliant soul,
Who loved young Adrian to her heart's despite,
And loved him dearly, yet could not cajole
Her fears of ill nor use her woman's right
To grant his wish, but ever put away
The sweet fulfilment of each day's desire
To a new to-morrow void as yesterday.
Adrian in vain, with wild hopes high and higher,
Essayed to make her convert to his creed.
No laggard he to do, devise or dare.
But still she failed him ever at his need,
And still she gave but tears to his heart's prayer.
And days and nights went cheerless for them both,
And not a flower was gathered of love's troth.

III

Matron was she of a great Roman house,
And wed in youth to one she might not love;
Her birth, her fortune, her name luminous,
Such as all noblest virtues most behove.
How dare she trifle with ignoble things,
Or yield her fair fame to a stranger's care,
Or let her passionate desire take wings,
Or be of those unchastely debonnaire?
Yet with him she was well, and far from him
A bird shaft-stricken which no more may fly.
She deemed his smile as of the seraphim,
And in his frown she was one like to die.
For his dear sake 'twixt niggard hopes and fears
She lived in death for two long weary years.

IV

But Adrian, who was young and all athirst
For human joy, and turbulent and strong,
Grew discontent with her despairs and curst,
Nor spared he her the jibings of his tongue.
He mocked at her vain virtue and the words
She used to comfort him when sometimes she
With weak heart battling, like a troubled bird's
Which sees the nets, would ease his misery
With telling her own pain and making show
Of her soul's hunger to his hungry soul.
It only angered him, this prate of woe,
And back he thrust on her her beggar's dole
Of idle sighs. And “If I have not bread,
For pity let me be and starve,” he said.

V

Until it happened, as such things will be,
That she, who had a proud man for her spouse
None the less loving that unloved was he,
Must bear a child, the heir to his high house.
Then Adrian left her. It was idle sorrow
Longer to wait a suppliant at her door,
Weeping the promise of a lost to-morrow
Which never could be his nor valued more.
And he was tired of tears and nightly needed
To feed his manhood's strength on stronger meat,
And neither word of hers nor vow he heeded,
Who was thus proved a daughter of deceit;
And he was wrath with her and womanhood,
And with himself, and chiefly wrath with God.

VI

So he departed angry and in haste,
A bitter wanderer on the ways of life:
He cared not whither so he found a feast
Spread for his hunger which should need no strife.
He went out silent, scornful and alone,
That none might pity him. He would not make
Of his too public grief a public moan,
Nor yet feign laughter for his manhood's sake,
For now that love was lost he less had heart
To cast his pride too on the dunghill there,
And his were griefs where none could bear a part,
And his a cup of pain no lips could share.
He went his way, to Germany some said,
And some to Naples, some that he was dead.

VII

But where he fared and how, it matters not.
He and his mourning ere a month had run
Were out of mind with all and clean forgot,
Kinsman and friend and foe: save only one,
Only Natalia. She with tightened breath
Heard his name spoken in reproof's vain way
And gave her melancholy soul to death.
Foolish Natalia, who in love's full day
Had spent her grief, had nothing now to give
Of greater woe to her soul's agonies.
Living she yet had hardly dared to live.
She had wept dry the fountains of her eyes,
And never on her sorrow broke a gleam
Of that assuagement tears on others stream.

VIII

And so it was that, sitting ever thus
Dumb to all speech of those that knew her woe
And bare with her sole sorrow in the house,
And ever watching with sad eyes below
To see if any came with help for her
Whom none could help with pity or with pride
Or word of patience, ere her time was near,
She bore her yet unliving child and died.
There was great mourning for her in those days
Because of her high lineage and fair youth.
Men knowing her spoke nobly in her praise,
Or knowing not yet mourned for very ruth.
And all Rome wept for her, and far and wide
The fame was noised how of her love she died.

IX

Thus Adrian learned it. And behold, his heart,
Which he had hardened against all dismay,
And wrapped up secretly and laid apart
As something which should not be used to-day,
Woke with a pang, and tremulously wan
Started and listened. There in the new morn
Of this grey wakening, like a long drowned man
Brought back to life, he knew the world forlorn
By the dull ache which was in every limb.
The ghastly pleasures which had gorged his care
Paled as he looked at them. His dead lusts dim
Stank like lost corpses in the morning air.
And yet 'twas passing sweet, despite the pain,
To feel and move and live and love again.

X

But with full daylight finding no relief,
Though he had spent the newness of his fears
And looked with altered eyes upon his grief,
For sorrow often drowses in its tears,
And men sleep deepest on a wound, he rose
And taking horse made in all haste for Rome,
Thinking if thus he might assuage his woes
By visiting his dead Natalia's tomb
And asking of her dear new-buried lips
What secret thought had been of love and him
When the world left her in its last eclipse.
And still in passionate words he made his theme,
That she was waiting yet to hear his cry:
“O my soul's soul, I did not bid thee die.”

XI

So in his agony at noon he came,
On the third day, to where without the walls
Stood San Lorenzo with its front of flame,
Where mourners wait the accustomed funerals.
Here to a cypress having tied his steed,
He lighted down sore weary on the grass,
Seeking such comfort for his body's need
As rest could lend till the day's heat should pass
And no man stopped him, either friend or foe
Or knight or citizen or friar or priest;
Nor sought he more companionship of woe
Than the dumb presence of his jaded beast.
There, hidden in the shade where he had crept,
Adrian o'erspent with sorrow soundly slept.

XII

He slept as only under the free heaven
It is given to sleep, a slumber shadowless
As the broad river to whose banks at even
That spirit comes which brings forgetfulness,
A silence undisturbed by the world's tread,
Which sees not, hears not, feels not, yet is girt
With sound and light and sense; which seeming dead
Drinks in Earth's life in cure of every hurt
And so takes consolation. Dreams anon
Come for the soul's refreshment, apparitions
Begot of heaven's beauty and the sun,
No meaningless expectance of sad visions
But tales prophetic of new days more fair
And to be numbered with the things that are,

XIII

A heritage for ever. Such a sleep
Came upon Adrian and such a dream,
As in the shade he lay a weary heap.
For, while he rested, still it seemed to him
He rode towards the city of his love,
Only in mirth not sadness. And, behold,
In his soothed bosom Hope, a brooding dove,
Had made again her nest, and manifold
Fair pleasures round him seemed to perch and sing
Like wild birds in the branches overhead,
And his heart leaped in joy with everything,
As in the days ere yet his joys were dead,
Until he found himself, it seemed, in Rome
And knocking at the doors of his own home.

XIV

His servants opened. None appeared to doubt
How it might happen their young lord stood there,
But led him in. The house as for a rout
Stood swept and garnished and exceeding fair.
Adrian's strange eyes, long widowed of the sight,
Found all things larger, nobler and more proud
Than on the day he left them in his flight,
A love-sick boy by a long sorrow bowed.
And still through halls and corridors he went
And found new treasures still at every door,
Mirrors and silks and fretwork excellent,
And panelled tapestry and marbled floor.
He paused in wonder and delight at each,
Pleased to his soul to find himself thus rich.

XV

Anon, ere yet his pleasure was aware
Of other presence with him in that place,
A growing murmur in the jubilant air,
With hum of voices gathering apace,
And laughter interchanged, and tones well known,
And steps approaching him familiar-wise,
And names that seemed an echo of his own,
Broke on his musing. Turning in surprise
He saw around him a gay company,
Faces of kinsmen or of friends as near,
But dead or changed or wed: all now in joy,
Such as they showed him once in days more dear
Ere yet his manhood had been touched with pain,
Stood forth to greet him to their hearts again.

XVI

Among the rest ('twas thus his dream went on
While Adrian slept) in more than courteous mood
And smiling welcome, fairer scarce was none,
That noble knight Natalia's husband stood,
A gentle man whom of a truth in life,
Alas for jealous youth and wit too keen!
Adrian loved little though he loved his wife,
But now beheld as the most blest of men,—
Because Natalia was not dead, he thought,
Seeing him thus unconscious of all grief,—
And in that cloudless face where pain was not
Adrian found omen to his soul's relief,
And looked beyond if haply he should see
Her face too following fixed in constancy.

XVII

Nor yet in vain. For to him through the rout
Behold, 'mid herald whispers of her name
And laughing eyes and welcome hands held out,
Natalia's self behind her husband came,
Her face arrayed in smiles, as who should say
She held a secret string of happiness
Joined to her heart grief could not take away.
And Adrian gazed at her in rapturous bliss,
Knowing his love had triumphed o'er the grave
And she at last was his, a heritage
For ever for his heart to hold and have,
In spite of change and death's untimely rage
And the long tempest of forgotten tears,
The pain, the anger and the grief of years.

XVIII

Nor were the rest astonished. Even he,
Natalia's lord, in all complacent grace
Looked on approving of her act when she
Stepped forward with her face to Adrian's face,
And touched his lips and told him of the truth
How all was ended now of her old life,
With the sad barrier that had marred their youth:
Husband no longer and no longer wife,
Natalia had grown free. Then the proud lover
Gave thanks to God and took her arm in his,
Fearless how now their love they should discover
To any anger of suspicious eyes,
And led her forth his bride before them all
With solemn music to the banquet-hall.

XIX

And still the music sounded near and near,
Loud and more loud on Adrian's nuptial way,
Preluding soft, as 'twere a dulcimer,
But gathering strength and volume with delay,
And sadness too. In truth, as strange a chaunt
As ever bridegroom's ear might choose to know,
Or lover's voice to listening lover vaunt,
(Thus Adrian argued in his dream) for, lo,
The dirge resolved itself to words of pain,
And “Miserere mei Domine”
Became the burden of its dolorous strain,
Till the love faded from Natalia's glee,
And with a sudden shudder in the sun
Adrian awoke and his brave dream was done.

XX

Oh, pitiful awaking! What was Adrian's pleasure,
That it had earned for him such bitterness?
What his soul's pride that its new tender measure
Should find its echo in a dirge like this?
The chaunters chaunting slow were sable priests
Robed for a requiem; the laughters clear,
Women that wept; the untasted marriage feasts,
Death's banquet spread, and she upon the bier,
Natalia's self in her white robe of death,
Mourned by the hard eyes of unfriendly men,
And with them he, her husband, with set teeth
And visage pale which ne'er should smile again
In any welcome. Adrian neither moved
Nor spoke, but gazed upon the form he loved.

XXI

But when they had gone past him every one,
With new resolve begotten of his dream,
Adrian arose and followed where the stone
Yawned for his love, and there unseen by them
In the dark chauntry he beheld them lay
Her body in the grave with his own heart.
A bitter jest it seemed to him that they
Should all stand near and only he apart,
And through his soul a wind of anger swept
When any in the sad crowd chanced to be
Betwixt him and the woman he so wept,
And oftentimes he cursed them bitterly
That hands not his should touch her in the tomb,
Waiting till night and his revenge should come.

XXII

The thought of night consoled him. To his vision
Natalia was dead only in false death,
The sleeping treason of some false misprision,
Some silent mystery of shortened breath,
Not dead in truth for ever and to him,
Or to that other life his dream foretold:—
Her murderers these. And in his heart the whim
Rose he should draw her from her cincture cold,
And set his lips upon her lips once more,
And free her spirit thus from its dull trance,
And all should be between them as before,
Only more dear for her deliverance.
And darkly there he smiled as, their work done,
The mourners left him with their dead alone.

XXIII

But, when the church was hushed in the night wind,
And all were gone who might his zeal disclaim,
Or hinder the firm purpose of his mind,
A silent man among the tombs he came,
Stooping to listen if so be some sound
Of living thing with speech or power to breathe
Should issuant be from the dark underground,—
And last to hers. There on that home of death
He kneeled him down and called aloud to her,
“Natalia, O Natalia, my beloved,
Am I not here thy soul's petitioner
Whom thou so lovedst?” And around him moved
The phantoms of the night. And the wind's sigh
Answered his prayer, “Beloved, it is I.”

XXIV

And, feeling round him, lo, upon the mould
A pick and spade cast down by accident.
And Adrian laughed when in those engines cold
He guessed the furtherers of his heart's intent.
And all night through he wrought with them in rage,
As miners do who know the prize at hand.
Blest Adrian! Now thy lips thou shalt engage
In the full solace thy long love has planned.
Her face is near thee. Speed thee on thy task.
Her breast's fair purity is thine to kiss.
She shall not now deny though thou shouldst ask
Her whole soul's prize in ransom of thy bliss.
Thrice happy Adrian! See, thy hands have slid
Trembling on thy Natalia's coffin lid.

XXV

Oh, miracle of love! That death, which seems
So hard a master when he holds his prize,
Whom no cajoleries, nor stratagems
Of beauty's power, nor wisdom's sophistries,
E'er turned aside from his appointed way,
But falcon-like, who with relentless foot
And pinions spread above his captured prey,
Holds his high way in heaven absolute,
Nor heeds our questionings: that this same death
Should have grown soft and yielded to love's tears,
And drawn his talons from their fleshly sheath,
And spared awhile his harvest of the years!
Oh, miracle in sooth renowned above
All other wonders of miraculous love!

XXVI

Yet so it was. Adrian had hardly set
His lips to those cold lips where death had been,
His eyes those clammy eyelids scarce had wet
With his warm tears and poured his soul between,
Nor yet with eager hands had he undone
That bosom's fastness of its snowy fold,
Ere, lo, on his rapt ear there fell a moan
As of one waking in the night grown cold.
And, even as he held her in his arms,
And gazed into her face by the dim light,
He saw her blue eyes open in alarms,
As wondering who was with her in the night,
And a long shudder pass through all her frame,
And her lips move as half she breathed his name.

XXVII

She wakes, she breathes, she rises from her bed,
That bed of death where she has lain so long;
The flowers they set there fall from her fair head
Withered, while she, sweet soul, has known no wrong.
Forth from her grave miraculously white,
And all unstained by the dull earth's decay,
Natalia rises, a last star of night,
Just as the dawn is breaking into day.
Upon the stones they kneeled them down and prayed,
For hearts grow soft with a long danger past,
And both were young and for a while dismayed
At their great joy nor deemed they held it fast;
Then, having kissed and wept, they turned to go
Through the dark church with faltering steps and slow.

XXVIII

Away! Away! Away with her, young lover,
Away with her in haste lest dawn should break;
If that her kinsmen should thy deed discover
Ill might it fare with thee for her love's sake.
Away with her to thine own palace walls,
Where thou shalt cherish her, and none may know.
Thy grief alone in those sad funerals
Was left behind and thou art quit of woe.
Oh, happy bridal! Now let songs be sung,
Lead forth the dances, let the minstrels play,
Bring her thou lovest thy own kith among,
A stranger bride, and who shall say thee nay?
Death's mighty river whoso hath passed through
Stands clear of blame, do fate what it may do.

XXIX

He bore her to his home 'twixt life and death,
By mute connivance of the slumbering streets,
Bore her redeemed to a new world of breath
And peace divine, belike the Paraclete's.
There lay she in his hands for many days
Speechless, unasking,—only in her soul
The wonder grew at love's mysterious ways
Which had outwitted grief and proved her fool.
Ay, fool in sooth, unblest by her own will,
Yet now by chiding of love's guidance blest,
Who, sparing all, of all now found her fill,
And lost to love was now of love the guest.
Dreaming she lay, with visions in her eyes
Of a new world where women all were wise.

XXX

Thus was Natalia loved and lost and won.
Some say that Adrian, having gained the goal
Of his long hopes, and being of those who run
Too lightly for their constancy of soul,
Or finding maybe that in spite of fate
She he had saved from death was ill at ease,
And halted still in doubt 'twixt this and that,
Grudging her frightened soul its ecstasies,
At a high feast in presence of her kin
Gave back Natalia to her husband's care:
A fair resolve, mayhap, and lesser sin,
If that sin be which love hath made so fair.
Yet do I doubt me all so blindly ended,
Since both from Adam were and Eve descended.

XXXI

Rather I hold with those that tell it thus,
That they, who had made proof of their great faith,
Were joined no less with honour in love's house
By Holy Church, which binding looseneth,
Since it is written that 'twixt maid and man
The wedded contract joining hand and heart
For this life is and passeth not the span
Of victor death which all our bonds doth part.
And it were grievous one should suffer all,
Even death's last pang and an untimely grave,
If overcoming he again should fall
Prisoner to penance and to sorrow slave.
Ah, no! They lived the life their love had given,
And we too all, so grant it kindly Heaven!