University of Virginia Library

FLOWERS AND MUSIC IN A ROOM OF SICKNESS.

Apartment in an English Country-House.—Lilian reclining, as sleeping on a couch. Her Mother watching beside her. Her Sister enters with flowers.
Mother.
Hush, lightly tread! still tranquilly she sleeps,
As, when a babe, I rock'd her on my heart.
I've watch'd, suspending e'en my breath, in fear
To break the heavenly spell. Move silently!
And oh! those flowers! dear Jessy, bear them hence—
Dost thou forget the passion of quick tears
That shook her trembling frame, when last we brought
The roses to her couch? Dost thou not know
What sudden longings for the woods and hills,
Where once her free steps moved so buoyantly,
These leaves and odours with strange influence wake
In her fast-kindled soul?

Jessy.
Oh! she would pine,
Were the wild scents and glowing hues withheld,
Mother! far more than now her spirit yearns
For the blue sky, the singing-birds and brooks,
And swell of breathing turf, whose lightsome spring
Their blooms recall.

Lilian,
(raising herself.)
Is that my Jessy's voice?
It woke me not, sweet mother! I had lain
Silently, visited by waking dreams,
Yet conscious of thy brooding watchfulness,
Long ere I heard the sound. Hath she brought flowers?
Nay, fear not now thy fond child's waywardness,
My thoughtful mother!—in her chasten'd soul
The passion-colour'd images of life,
Which, with their sudden startling flush awoke
So oft those burning tears, have died away;
And night is there—still, solemn, holy night,
With all her stars, and with the gentle tune
Of many fountains, low and musical,
By day unheard.

Mother.
And wherefore night, my child?
Thou art a creature all of life and dawn,
And from thy couch of sickness yet shalt rise,
And walk forth with the dayspring.

Lilian.

Jessy.
All, all is there
Which glad midsummer's wealthiest hours can bring;
All, save the soul of all, thy lightening smile!
Therefore I stood in sadness 'midst the leaves,
And caught an under-music of lament
In the stream's voice; but Nature waits thee still,
And for thy coming piles a fairy throne
Of richest moss.

Lilian.
Alas! it may not be!
My soul hath sent her farewell voicelessly,
To all these blessed haunts of song and thought;
Yet not the less I love to look on these,
Their dear memorials;—strew them o'er my couch
Till it grow like a forest bank in spring,
All flush'd with violets and anemones.
Ah! the pale brier rose! touch'd so tenderly,
As a pure ocean shell, with faintest red,
Melting away to pearliness!—I know
How its long light festoons o'erarching hung
From the grey rock, that rises altar-like,
With its high waving crown of mountain ash,
'Midst the lone grassy dell. And this rich bough
Of honey'd woodbine, tells me of the oak
Whose deep midsummer gloom sleeps heavily,
Shedding a verdurous twilight o'er the face
Of the glade's pool. Methinks I see it now;
I look up through the stirring of its leaves
Unto the intense blue crystal firmament.
The ringdove's wing is flitting o'er my head,
Casting at times a silvery shadow down
'Midst the large water-lilies. Beautiful!
How beautiful is all this fair free world
Under God's open sky!

Mother.
Thou art o'erwrought
Once more, my child! The dewy trembling light
Presaging tears, again is in thine eye.
O, hush, dear Lilian! turn thee to repose.

Lilian.

Mother.
My Lilian! thou
Surely in thy bright life hast little known
Of lost things or of changed!

Lilian.

Jessy.
What would'st thou hear? The Italian peasant's lay,
Which makes the desolate Campagna ring
With “Roma, Roma?” or the madrigal
Warbled on moonlight seas of Sicily?
Or the old ditty left by Troubadours
To girls of Languedoc?

Lilian.
Oh, no! not these.

Jessy.
What then? the Moorish melody still known
Within the Alhambra city? or those notes
Born of the Alps, which pierce the exile's heart
Even unto death?

Lilian.
No, sister, nor yet these—
Too much of dreamy love, of faint regret,
Of passionately fond remembrance, breathes
In the caressing sweetness of their tones,
For one who dies;—They would but woo me back
To glowing life with those Arcadian sounds—
And vainly, vainly—No! a loftier strain,
A deeper music!—Something that may bear
The spirit upon slow yet mighty wings,
Unsway'd by gusts of earth: something all fill'd
With solemn adoration, tearful prayer.—
Sing me that antique strain which once I deem'd
Almost too sternly simple, too austere
In its grave majesty! I love it now—
Now it seems fraught with holiest power, to hush
All billows of the soul, e'en like his voice
That said of old—“Be still!”—Sing me that strain,
“The Saviour's dying hour.”

[Jessy sings to the Harp.