University of Virginia Library

The summer had been cold, the harvest wet,
And the reaped corn lay rotting in the fields.
Men who at morning stood as prosperous
As bearded autumn, were, ere sunset, poor
As a worn scarecrow fluttering dingy rags
Within the feeble wind. Each month, the boom
Of a great battle travelled on the wind,
Smiting the hearers pale. Down came the snow.
'Tis said, the blown and desperate forester
Chased by a lean and hunger-pinched bear,
Drops, one by one, his garments in his flight,
To make the monster pause—In those dark months,
My weary mother, chased by poverty,
Gave, one by one, her treasures—precious things
Hallowed by love and death; yet all in vain:
The terror followed on our flying heels.
So, on a summer morning, I was led
Into a square of warehouses, and left
'Mong faces merciless as engine-wheels.—
The right hand learns its cunning, and the feet
That tread upon the rough ways of the world
Grow mercifully callous. Months crept past;
If they brought bitterness, why then complain?
Will Fate relax his stern and iron brows
For a boy's foolish tears? In this grim world,
The beggar tosses on his straw, the king
Upon his velvet bed. Yet a few steps,
And Death will lift the load the heavens gave
From off the burdened back. I now can look
Upon those distant years with calmer eyes
And melancholy pleasure. Then it was
Love oped the dusky volume of my life,
And wrote, with his own hot and hurrying hand,
A chapter in fierce splendours. Then it was
I built an altar—raised a flame to Love;
And a strong whirlwind threw the altar down,
And strewed its sparks on darkness.

In a room,
Quiet, 'mid that building full of groaning wheels,
She sat, and sang as merry as a lark
Whose cage is shining in the sunny beam;
Laughed, like a happy fountain in a cave
Brightening the gloomy rocks. O'er costly gauze
Her busy twinkling fingers moved,—like Spring's,
Flowers grew beneath their touch. How I began
To love her first is now to me unknown
As how I came from nothingness to life.
Her frequent duties led her through our room;
I thrilled, when through the noises of the day
I caught her door, the rustle of her dress,
Her coming footstep. Oh! that little foot
Did more imperiously stir my blood
Than the heart-shaking trumpets of a king
Heard through the rolling, ever-deepening shout,
When houses, peopled to the chimney-tops,
Lean forward, eager for the coming sight.
She flew across our room with sudden gleam,
Like bird of Paradise. Sometimes she paused,
And tossed amongst us a few crumbs of speech,
Or pelted us in sport with saucy words,
Then vanished, like a star into a cloud.
Love's magic finger touched my ear and eye;
And music, which before was but a sound,
Now something far more passionate than myself
Spake trembling of her beauty; and the world
Folded around me fragrant as a rose.