University of Virginia Library

Canto 5

But Gilbert tossing thro' the sultry night
Exclaimed: “Sweet Haidee, by these burning stars
I swear I am as loth to leave thy side
As thou, thou sayest, art loth to see me gone.
Me thou wouldst please in aught, I know it well;
How often hast with thy Eastern swiftness done
What I with slower Western mind had thought,
Sweetly preventing the dull speech that rose
Even then upon my lips; or some request
Unuttered hast thou granted instantly;
Surely this is the half of ministering,
Not only to stand ready with the draught,
To time the pulse and cool the beaded brow,
To smooth the pillow or the coverlet,
All these are well and hasten health again;
But subtler is the silent ministry
To mind, the understanding of the eyes,
To hear the unspoken whisper of the sick.
Ah, fortunate he, who stricken on his couch,
Watches a lady of high breed and blood
Steal to and fro, with guesses beautiful
Responding to the muteness of the mind.
Such hast thou been to me; by day, by night,
And understanding too how all unused
To the great fire so closely wrapping us,
Or nights without a breath, this frame has been.
What was most natural a delight to thee,
Thou yet couldst see was to a stranger hard,
And difficult unmurmuring to bear.
Such wisdom cometh from the heart, not head,
And more in women than in men is found.
All this I know; that thou wouldst gratify
Each smallest whim if in thy power it came,
Much more a deeper longing that each day
Grows stronger, to return unto my land.
Yet even with thy hands outstretched to aid,
Falters thy heart, and lingers half thy soul.
And thou dost grudge me to the English breeds.
But, Haidee, though I love thee and each day
More truly; though I would thy heart were spared
The arrow of our parting and the sting,
Yet in the night dear faces visit me
In hopeless sorrow and with watching pale.
Faces not young nor beautiful as thine,
But thrilling out of childhood and brave youth.
I can but think upon my father old
Who goeth to and fro the house undone
And mourns for me in silence day and night.
I can but think upon my mother grey,
Who sent me forth to battle with such pride
And yet such sorrow, for her heart misgave
If she should ever see her son again.
Ah, I can feel these two sit hand in hand
In heavy evening ere the stars have come,
Hopelessly gazing through a falling dew.
No word perhaps is said: and yet I see
From time to time one hand the other press,
Or a slow tear come to the eyes and fall.
For they abide beside a lonely sea,
Now that old age from London has withdrawn
The hurrying merchant weary of his bales
And hospitable rites of many friends
Not unpleased to be ridded at the last.
So from the lone sea-window will they watch
The unresponding ocean, and cold foam,
And hear the friendless rhythm of the brain,
For of my comrades who have safe returned
What do they know? Whether I live or die,
Or wounded or imprisoned, or to death
Put secretly in dungeon of the East?
All they can tell and most they can report
Is that unhorsed I on the ground was left
None knowing, while the host retreated safe
From ramparts unassailable and strong.
And how they will have hope that still I live,
And suddenly may come again to them,
And how the hope will go out as a light
And they believe me dead in a strange land.
For, Haidee, know I am their only son;
No other have they, and no daughter young
Who might console, support, at least distract
The fixèd mind and old remembering hearts.
I was their sunrise, I was all their dawn,
Themselves forgotten; to my fate they looked,
And ever glorious as they looked it seemed.
But now a blank has settled down on them,
Uncertainty far worse than cruel truth:
For dreadful as the shock and news of death,
It spends itself, and slowly tolerable
The sun returns and the moon goes her path
And in a daze and heavy dream we move,
Save now and then for the quiet hidden dart
Of recollection and of hopeless love.
So might they come with time, at last with time,
Not to forget, ah never to forget,
But gradually in my far-off doom
To acquiesce, and closer grow to me,
Being old and near the greeting that awaits
All souls that loved beyond the earthly grave.
But now! Ah, sweet, forgive me if my thought
Seems false to thee and to return to them,
It is not so; but I am troubled sore
And suffer many things because of them,
And lest they pass away ere I return,
Then, sweet, forgive me, speak and ease my fears.”