University of Virginia Library

Scene XI.

A Garden. Moonlight.
Ferdinand and Caroline.—The latter carrying their child. Flora a little apart.
Ferdinand.
Oh what a rich and lovely day is dead!
It came up like a Monarch from the East;
When the grey bars of dawn were turn'd to gold,
And night shrank back to let the bright one in,
The earth broke silence, and from out her heart,
A thousand singing joys burst like young birds
And went up pure and carolling, heavenward.
It was a happy marriage morn. The earth
Blush'd crimson in her flowers:—the lambkin winds,
Like angels loosening sorrow from the soul,
Shook the light dew from off the smiling leaves,
And all was gladness over sea and land.
Then as the day wore on, a stillness stole,
Like a long pause in music, o'er the earth.
The sea no longer panted on the shore,
But, like a jaded god, lay still and slept;
Not a leaf stirr'd, and every bird was dumb.
The world stood hush'd beneath the blazing sky,
Like a Queen stricken in her marriage robes;
One almost heard the great hot heart of noon
Throb in the silence with fierce passion-pants.
Then dark clouds slowly sail'd along the heavens,
Bending in conclave their great beetling brows,
When from their midst broke out the Thunder-king—
His fierce oration rattling o'er the earth,
Like the dread voice of one who speaketh doom,
Till Echo, like an ancient oracle,
Shook with the utterance of the speaking god;
And rain came splashing through the trembling leaves,
And the repentant earth was bathed in tears.
Then ruddy sunbeams, radiant with haste,
Rush'd past the black skirts of the flying storm—
Bright mediators between earth and heaven—
Rimming the pitchy vault with glowing light;
Masses of sunshine fell athwart the world,
And forth from the surrounding gloom there came
Exultant shapes innumerous, and caught
The glory dancing on their beating wings;
And singing birds fill'd the bright air with songs,
While sunbeams intertwisted threads of gold
Amidst the sable curtains of the storm,
And, like the heavenly finger on the wall,
Wrote mystic characters upon the clouds.
And so the Storm-King went, array'd in gold,
So quietly adown the gorgeous West,
One dreamt not it was his black, brawny hand
That shook the silence from the throne of noon.
He and his clouds went down into the West
Like angels golden-haired. Then twilight came,
And light was streak'd with darkness, Zebra-like,—
Dun, mystic twilight, heralder of Night,
Going before her, like a swarthy page.
And now the great Star-Queen herself has come,—
Night, the revealer of the wedded worlds,
Who draws the bright sun-curtain from the earth,
And lets her look into infinity!

Caroline.
See, the moon hangs there on the verge of stars,
Like a bright vestal at a temple-porch.

Ferdinand.
Ah, 'tis a blissful night! The universe
Is a great rushing hymn of praise to God.
My heart is singing with the happy spheres;
Not a string jars but all is harmony.
Night is the beautiful black slave of God,
And bends before him ever wrapt in awe,
While her great heart throbs thanks in burning stars!

Caroline, to her child.

Ah, toss thy little arms, my pretty one!
Thou canst not reach those beautiful bright things
That bend down towards thee from the blue-brow'd sky.
Ah! do they smile on thee, thou laughest so?
And hast thou learnt the mystery of their speech
That thou dost prattle on so eagerly?
What! leaping from my arms to go to them?
Not yet! not yet! my dear, my lovely babe!

Ferdinand.
Not yet! Not yet! That thought of starry death
Comes with a shock upon my wilder'd soul.
O Death! I tremble at thy very name,—
Thou terrible Iconoclast—thou dream
From which men waken demigods or fiends—
Thou great soul-sunderer—dreadful mystic, who
Walkest the earth with two worlds at thy heels!
Souls know thee—pure souls—for thou art their friend,
Hearts hate thee, Angel, and thy winning ways!
Thou comest to the festal halls of life,
Exchangest nods with some belovéd guest,
And he gets up and goes—goes with thee, Death,
And we are lorn and lonely evermore!
Thou slidest in among love-wedded hearts,
And there are empty chairs, and vacant rooms,
And gulfs of darkness in the souls of some,
In which eternity hangs like a star!
Black hat-bands banner thee along the streets;
And o'er the hearts who wear them are black bars
That serve to dungeon in the bright-wing'd soul,
That beats against them in ecstatic woe,
Longing to plunge out into seas of light
And sail away to join the cherish'd one!
Thou comest to some quiet, happy home,
And silence falls like snow upon thy steps—
A lonely woman has grown fond of graves,
Or a strong man goes bending all his days—
These are thy triumphs, Death! I love thee not.
Thou hast such fearful power to strip my soul,
As a storm hath to shake the apples down
From a rich orchard-tree, and leave it bare
And wretched in the cold arms of the winds.
Thou hast such fearful power to spoil my home
Of all the treasures I have stored it with,
Letting the long tongue of the howling storm
Lap up its bliss, till not a guest be left
But thee, and it, and woe, with wolf-like eyes;
Such power to make of this transcendent world,
Now laved in sunshine, with its avenues
Stretching away into eternity
Pleach'd o'er with golden fruits and lined with flowers,
Lit up by lights from both worlds—silver-edged,
Like starlight sloping down to meet the dawn—
Into a draggled road across flat fens,
O'er which in gusts, go, witch-like, jabbering winds,
While cold November rains come drizzling down,
And one man only tracks the miry way,
Plodding on wearily towards the distant sea
That lifts its leaden waves up sluggishly
To meet the cold breast of the dripping clouds;—
Such power to strip the world of all its joys,
And leave it tatter'd as a tree in March,
That I must shudder when I hear thee named,
Knowing how much I have for thee to take! [A pause.

This night, this starry night,—I like it not.
'Tis glittering with the heraldry of death!
This silence seems portentous. The hush'd winds
Are whispering to each other, like pale friends
Around a new-made death-bed. I am sick!
This thought of death has jarr'd upon the night,
And struck the music from its beating heart,
Leaving it joyless as a wintry wood.
The moon is not so lovely as she was.
Where is she?

Caroline.
Hiding there behind the clouds.

Ferdinand.
And now she comes forth from them shudderingly,
All white, and hasty, as a fear-bleach'd ghost
Trembling from out the sweltering arms of fiends!

Caroline.
Nay, not so ghastly! Rather like a soul
Who has pass'd through the portals of the tomb,
And come forth fair as she is from its glooms,
With an eternal wilderness of bliss
To travel over on its way to God.

Ferdinand.
Eternity—the portals of the tomb—
Still is our talk of Death—the mighty one
Who dwells beyond the outer edge of Time,
And yet inhabits not Eternity,
But liveth in mid region 'twixt the two;
With one foot planted on the life-fringed world,
And with the other lost in obscure deeps,
He swingeth souls across we know not what
Of wild and fearful, 'mong the thrones and crowns,
And pluméd splendours of infinity!

Caroline.
Ah! there is something strangely grand in death.
One moment, and the soul still lingers here;
Another, and 'tis gone to be with God;
And then the haunted spot that “Knew it once,
Knows it no more, for ever!” Dreadful words—
Full of wild import to the lingerers here.
O Death! we are so happy that thy looks,
Though heaven itself shines through thy pallid face,
Can win us not. Thou canst not tempt us hence.
The world is very fair. She is all heart;
And all her heart is steep'd and swims in love.
In love the landscapes sleep. The stars sing love,
Glowing upon the bosom of the night—
The heaving bosom of the midnight heaven—
And love shines out the soul of all things here.
We are so bound together, Silent One,
That, if thou takest any, oh! take all.
Sunder us not, but let us still be one.

Ferdinand.
Oh! it were sad indeed to change our lot
For some poor wintry phantom of a hope;
To turn our present o'erbrimm'd happiness
Into a dreamy, far world-seeking faith,
And stumble through the quagmires of our days,
Crying, to hush the agony within,
“Remember the star-kingdoms yet to come!”

Caroline.
And yet, perchance, it were a holier life
To hang for ever, like a star, on heaven.

Ferdinand.
Not to be drawn there by an earthly love.
The soul should long for heaven, and not the heart.
Heaven should not be a refuge, but a home;
Not a mere region of still peace, a state
Of freedom from the slavery of pain,
For which we sigh when we are steep'd in woe,
And earth no longer is endurable—
But the great house of God—the home of truth—
The congregation of the just and good.
'Tis good the soul should still be climbing up
Towards the bright thrones of immortality;
Not that the heart should be dragg'd heavenward
By the long tendrils of an earthly love. [A pause.

By the long tendrils of an earthly love.
Edith was right. She said she could not die
Until she loved God only for Himself,
And heaven for what it is. Her latest words
Were true and beautiful as her brief life.
She said, “The sorrows which the soul endures—
Not self-inflicted—are but hooded joys;
That when she touches the white strand of heaven
They cluster round her, and slip off their robes,
And laugh out angels in the world of light.” [Another pause.

'Tis strange how but a word, a sidelong glance,
Hath power to change the current of our thoughts.
Our talk has guested Death, till he has made
His home within us; like a grisly dream
Haunting a murderer's midnight, he remains.
We came out here to meet the lovely Night,
We said she was the very queen of love,
Our hearts rhymed to each other like a song,
Our souls were poems, fill'd with tranquil thoughts,
And we read out the meaning of the stars
In love, and pure exultant happiness.
But now the dance is done—the guests have gone,
Leaving us nought but the dishevell'd room,
And the pale flickering lamps. This thought of death
Fills up the compass of my soul; and she,
Like a black sun, sheds it on outer things.
We have turn'd night into an Eblis-hall;
We've built a throne for Death among the stars;
The canopy of midnight is his tent,
And yon bright moon is but his minister.

Caroline.
Nay, thou art ill, my much-loved Ferdinand.
Alexis hath infected thee with gloom.
Art thou not happy that thou talkest thus?

Ferdinand.
Happy? too happy! God hath given me thee,
And that sweet babe now nestling on thy breast.
Adam whirl'd suddenly out of Paradise
In the rough arms of jaggéd thunder-winds,
And flung down breathless on a wilderness,
Were not so lorn as I in losing you.
There was a widow, and she had a son;
He went forth from her; and she said the sun
Set, as she caught the latest glimpse of him.
The sun that set that night rose never more;
'Twas not the same that came up in the morn;
It wanted the heart-glow the old one had.
Her son was far away—oh! far away,
And the cold sunlight could not warm her heart.
There came a letter; he was coming back;
And the old light play'd once more on the hills.
'Twas winter time. She went down to the shore.
The waves were leaping in the arms of storms.
Three days she stood upon the fringe o' the sea;
The vessel hove in sight—and he was there!
Oh, how the ocean fretted! How it foam'd!
Oh, how the ship was laugh'd at by the waves!
Still he was there—her loved one!—'twas enough.
There came a mighty gust; but still she clung
To the sharp rocks, that tore her spray-drench'd hands.
She look'd again. There was a waste of waves—
A world of leaping water—and no more!
One dreadful billow flung a corpse on shore,
A white corpse—'twas her home-returning son.
The sun set then, and never rose again!
What were her woe to mine in losing you?
Ere I knew thee I was unto the world
But what an idle dream is to the night,
Hopeless and aimless, as the pilgrim clouds.
God gave me thee, and a great golden dawn
Broke on the slumberous splendours of my life.
I was no more a dreamer in dream-land,
But a bliss-haunted tenant of the world.
My energies which, hitherto, were streams
Babbling in sleepiest lazy monotones,
Beneath the umbrage of thick summer woods,
Leapt forth into the sunshine, and laugh'd out
Real living ripples, amid real things.
The world to me was always beautiful;—
Now it was holy too. I gazed no more
With vague eyes on the proud-dom'd temple-porch,
But went within, a worshipper of God.
Music was all I heard ere I knew thee,—
Music, but inarticulate, and wild;
Now I could hear the voices as they sang,
And the great burden of their chant was God!
And when our boy first smiled into my eyes,
His new-born angel-spirit woke in mine
A kindred angel, and the two were one;
And, o'er the barriers of our separate lives,
Held holy converse on their common heaven.
In my best moods I had seen nought but wings
Hastily glancing past my slumberous soul;
But now I dwelt with birds of paradise,
And daily, with familiar, gentle hand,
Stroked the long golden splendour of their plumes!
I, who had been a beggar before heaven,
Grew rich as Persian princes in a day.
New realms of thought were open'd in my soul,
Starry and beautiful as Night herself.
I was Aladdin who had found his lamp,
And all the earth was crusted o'er with gems.
New streams of life rush'd in at every pore;
Kingdoms of unsought beauty came to me;
Newer relationships explain'd the old.
I was an unshorn Pagan in a church
When all the worshippers came in and sang;
Now I was baptized, and a Christian too:
As if the darkness suddenly should break
Into a thousand white-wing'd angel forms
Before the rapt eyes of a tempted saint,
All things grew holy to me—man and beast,
Creeds and religions, and the wheels of life.
My barque had drifted near the shores of heaven;
Faint odours reach'd me from the happy lands,
And hallelujahs burst upon my ear!
The life of all things beat and throbb'd in me;—
I was a brother to the universe,
And loved all things from grass-blades up to God!
I was so happy, that my happiness
Brought me in contact with all blissful things,
And made me one with them. Before, I stood
A blind man 'midst huge piles of hoarded gold;
My eyes were open'd, and my soul grew rich.
You are my fated Lusitanian stars—
And if you fall, my being falls with you;
You are my Norna's candles in the world—
Sink in your socket, and my life sinks too;
Without you I were but a Samson shorn—
A helpless Abaris without his spear.
My spirit still might burn within this clay,
'Twould be like those sepulchral lamps of old
That watch'd for ages o'er the dust of death,
And died out when the light of heaven broke in.
Without you all the world would be a blank—
The idiotcy of being;—without you
Life would be told by pulses, not by aims.
You are the sun whose haloes are my light;
Sink, and the earth is desolate and drear.
Oh! 'twere as if a dank, dishevell'd night
Should rush up madly, haunted by the winds,
All black as Erebus, upon the steps
Of a great laughing, oriental day.
I should be wretched as a cold, lone house,
Standing a mark upon a northern moor,
Eaves-deep in snow, surrounded by black pools,
Pelted by Winter, ever anger-pale.
To lose you, having tasted of such bliss—
Such sweet companionship, such holy joy—
'Twere as if earth should be flung back again,
All singing as she is, and crown'd with flowers,
Into the reeking cycles of her past:
Instead of valleys, sedgy swamps, and fens,
With grim, unwieldy reptiles trailing through;
And in the place of singing, bellowings,
And the wild roar of monsters on the hills,
That reel for ever, belching out red flame—
While a hot mist surrounds the grisly brood,
And the world shakes, like madmen in their dreams.

Caroline.
Nay, ever trust in God, my Ferdinand;
'Tis He who gives the tinge to all we see.
He takes the worlds unto His great warm heart,
And it is summer, and they laugh in flowers:
And in correction He is merciful.
Grand purposes still underlie events;
The great earth is a foot-stool to a babe.
The policies of earth and heaven are one,
And what seems insignificant to us
May swell to grandeur in the courts above.
The tear wrung from a holy heart on earth,
May serve to float an argosy in heaven;
And the light breath that shakes the trembling twig
May fill a bright archangel's fanning wings.
Time is the crier of Eternity,
And this world is the herald of the next.
All things are but announcements—lifted hands
Invoking the great blessing—the Hereafter—
Fingers that point for ever at the stars!
Ah! God is ever near us, Ferdinand;
Life of all life, and Soul of all we see.
These are His ministers—the moon and stars,
Low-whispering leaves, and silver-lisping streams—
These are the altar-fumes—the incense-mist—
But the Divine Shekinah is behind!
We dwell in God as yon stars rest in heaven:
He is without, within, above, below,
And all things preach Him to the holy soul.
The world is but the echo of the words
Spoken by Him to old eternity;
And the love-prostrate heart may sometimes catch
Dim intimations of the whispering marvels—
Hints from the driving snow, the falling leaves,
The sun-enamour'd flowers, and twilight calms.
Since this stray angel nestled on my breast
A glory has descended on the earth,
And on the lowly walks of humble men.
All things are holy to me as the steps of saints;
It is as if some bright, angelic throng
Had brush'd the hills and meadows with their wings,
And left their splendour trembling on the grass.
My passion-beating heart is holier now
Since this white flower has rested on its throbs.
There is an ancient lore in childish eyes
That reaches back to those primeval times
Ere there was aught but soul, and bliss, and heaven.
He brought me nearer to those happy days;
He told me tales of God and Fatherland,
As I lay waking through the long, hushed night;
And the old songs are ringing in my heart.
What wonder, if sometimes my speech dwells not
With the sweet every-days of mother earth,
But soars away to older, happier climes?
Oh, not in woe shall we call God our God!
He changeth not. He hath been Love to us.
From Him our half-celestial bliss hath stream'd;
And even bliss is not its own bright end,
'Tis but the aiming at a greater yet;
And thinkest thou that He will break the chain
That links us to each other and to Him,
Ere the great purpose is accomplish'd? No!
I know God better! 'Tis with awe I say it.
He will not sunder us till both are ripe
For the fruition of all earthly love,
And immortality has seal'd our souls;
For each is helper to the other's heart,
And both are travelling surely heavenward.
The contract we have made is not for Time,
But for all times, and for Eternity,
For God was in it; and our love will grow
Coeval with the Deity Himself!

Ferdinand.
Ah! thou art right! 'Tis woman's argument—
The holiest, and the best—the God-touch'd heart's,
Not subtly spun from wire-drawn intellects.
There is no death—no snapping of the chain
That linketh Time unto Eternity.
Being on earth is but the seedling cast
Beneath the soil of immortality;
Death is the breaking through the heavy crust,
And heaven the flowering of the mighty plant;
All is progression, up from seed to flower,
Perpetual continuity; no gaps
From baby-hood on earth, to angel-hood in heaven!

Caroline.
'Tis even so. But see—thy sister there—
Our Flora, Ferdinand. How pale she looks,
With her claspt hands up-gazing at the moon.

Ferdinand to Flora.

Ah! Art thou lost among yon great blue deeps—
Prophetic image of the mind of God—
Agleam with stars, as His great soul with thoughts.
Those melancholy heavens have slept for aye,
Earth's birth-pang shrieks broke not their tranquil dream.
Still stretch'd they in their awful trance as now,
While she lay desolate and dumb as they,
Save when volcanoes lifted up their voice—
Olden Isaiahs in the wilderness—
And told unto the incredulous wastes wild tales
Of the great After-time—the age of flowers,
Of songs, and blossoms, Man and grassy graves?
Or do thy thoughts keep pace with yon lone moon
In her strange journeyings through the star-strewn heavens?
And dost thou view her struggling in the clouds,
Like a great poet with his unshaped thoughts,
Until she comes forth victor, as he does,
Leaving them fair and golden far behind—
A substance and a glory to the world?

Flora.
It is the moon I see, but not as thou.
Seemeth she rather a deserted queen
Who hath laid by her queenly robes, and gone
A solitary pilgrim through the streets
Of the wide city of God, in search of him
Whom she adores—her bright, recusant Lord;
And ever as she goes out by the West,
Lo! he comes up the shining gates of the East!
Yet patiently she follows on his track,
Nursing a trembling hope within her heart,
And catching blinding glimpses now and then
Of him, and his bright retinue before;
And where he cometh, lo! the world laughs out,
And men cry, “It is day;” but where she comes
A great hush goes before,—and it is night!
And she is pale with travel,—hapless moon! [A long Pause.

Hast thou forgot thy promise, Ferdinand?
Thou hast seen him? How did he look—what said he?

Ferdinand.
He look'd as pale as he had been with God
Close closeted an hour, and heard the boom
And clangour of the everlasting wheels
In the great under-world of busy doom.
He said, “Behold a wreck! Were there a sun
Shiver'd before me I'd crawl into it,
And gladly wrap its ruins round my head,
And hide me from the jeering universe.
Oh, what a terrible and maddening day—
Thunder and sleet, cold shiverings and fierce fires,
Hath burst out racking from my golden dawn!
Friends of my boyhood! whither have you flown?
You said of me, when I was but a child,
‘Lo! a new star hath broke upon the night!
Behold with what a mighty spring that soul
Leapeth upon strange truth! Ah! it shall yet
Unfold its long white plumes, and rush right up
Into cloud-regions, thrilling heaven with song,
And flinging down wide floods of harmony
Till the world rings, and men look up with wonder!’
Friends of my childhood, ah! what say you now?
True friends no doubt,—false prophets ne'ertheless!”
He said that he had gone in search of truth,
A sandall'd pilgrim o'er the wilderness.
Quoth he, “I made a hermit of my youth,
And shut it up in narrow silent cells,
Wooing with whitest hands this angel's love.
Never did fame-bless'd bard more eagerly
Quaff the great golden goblet at his lips
Than I dim glimpses of this heartless jilt.
I was a Roderick in the Fated Halls;
When the gigantic dangers leapt up arm'd,
Threatening me with their fearful panoplies,
I boldly challenged them, and they once more,
All clanging, dropp'd into their mystic sleep,
And I went on. On did I say? Ay, on!
But unto what? Deep call'd to mighty deep,
And down unto the lowest deep I went,
Hoping to meet some wizard in the dark
Who should reveal to me the wonder-world;
And ever as I went, the lamp of Truth
Flicker'd and flared before me, saying—On!
Ha! Ha! it is a pitiable tale!
Flappings of fear, great wheeling shapes of dread,
Tremours and shudderings shook me on the way,
And made me bend like flag-staffs in the wind.
Yet still the great word ‘On’ rang through the vaults,
And on I stumbled through the whistling caves,
Until at last my guide went swooping o'er—
Hurtling and quivering—a grim, black-jaw'd gulph,
And I stood trembling on the darksome brink,
And saw its bituminous sides stretch far below,
Rugged and bare, horrent and sheer as death,
And I drew back abash'd.”—
He said, his disappointed faculties,
Debarr'd of truth, leapt back upon the world
With energies intensified, and saw
Gigantic shapes of wrong upon its thrones,—
Saw heresies glide snake-like through the church,
Sliming the pulpit-cushion with their trail,
And nestle in the very Bible-leaves!
Saw vast oppressions in the market-place,
And in the halls of commerce, rottenness,—
Falsest philanthropies go through the streets,
And children suck in error with their milk,
Till he lost faith, lost heart, lost everything!

Flora.
Ah! 'Tis a dreary tale, and yet my heart,
My feeble woman's heart, hath faith in God!
A greater e'en than he hath cried in tears
“My God! Oh! why hast Thou forsaken Me?”
He will not suffer a great, earnest soul
To struggle with the Enemy alone.
When Reason only tries to scale high heaven
A flaming seraph guards its gleaming gates;
Even as the mystic sword shut Paradise
Unto our father in the days of old,
Is the bright heaven of Truth closed up on man.
But oh, there is a humble postern door
Open to love,—to love, and childlike faith,
Where he may glean up glances of the gods
As they go shimmering past in shining mist.
I do believe he will be brought to God,
Even as the babes were unto Christ of old,
And hear the blessing sounding o'er his head!
My poor Alexis! Would that I were with thee,
But I would be alone. Good night!

Ferdinand and Caroline.
Good night!