Glenaveril, or The Metamorphoses :: :: University of Virginia Library

Glenaveril, or The Metamorphoses

By the Earl of Lytton

Lytton, Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton (1831-1891)

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GLENAVERIL;

VOL. I.

BOOK THE FIRST. THE ORPHANS.

BOOK THE SECOND. FATALITY.

BOOK THE THIRD. THE ALPS.

II.

VOL. II.

BOOK THE FOURTH THE GUARDIANS

BOOK THE FIFTH. THE LOVERS.

BOOK THE SIXTH. CORDELIA.

Collapse All | Expand All expand section

BOOK THE FIRST. THE ORPHANS.

CANTO I. DEATH.

I

Born on the day when Lord Glenaveril died
Was Lord Glenaveril; and the sire's last sigh,
Breathing a premature farewell, replied
To the son's first petitionary cry.
On that dim tract which doth two worlds divide
And yet unite, they passed each other by
As strangers, tho' each bore the selfsame name;
The one departing as the other came.

II

Life and Death darkly jostled in the door
That opes and shuts upon the days of man;
The sire had lived scarce thirty years before
The sireless son his orphaned life began.
That fragile ark in its small bosom bore
A race which else had perished, tho' its span
Was shorter than a cubit's when one bell
Rang birth and burial, welcome and farewell.

III

Long ere the child hath left its mother's knee
The web of the man's character is spun;
Those future paths, no living eye may see,
Ere life's beginning were by Fate begun;
And all the living do, and all they be,
Proceeds from what the dead have been, or done;
For Fate hath no finality on earth.
This is the story of Glenaveril's birth:—

IV

'Twas nigh the ending of the year and day,
And both in sombre golden splendour glowed;
October prone upon the hillside lay,
Down-drooping, half asleep, his fervid load
Of loosened fruitage; when along the way,
Full light of heart, a youthful horseman rode
With heedless hand, at rapid pace, not knowing
That Death, by chance, the selfsame way was going.

V

Youth, in its saucy certitude of joy,
Slights and offends, by noticing it not,
The sadness of that shrouded majesty
Whose unseen power is jealous when forgot.
The Austrian Gessler hung his bonnet high
Upon a pole in some conspicuous spot,
And bade the surly Switzer doff his own,
Passing the symbol of an unseen crown.

VI

A bidding easily obeyed! And yet
The rascals all refused to be polite,
Taking the invitation for a threat;
And that is why, perchance, the Swiss are quite
The most uncivil folks you ever met,
Even to this day. But Gessler's thought was right.
Tyranny's motto (learn it, young aspirant
To freedom!) is Memento. Death's a tyrant.

VII

Remember, and salute him, sons of clay!
Ave, te salutamus, Thanatos!
That horseman spied not Death upon his way,
And passed without saluting. Death was cross
To be so slighted by his natural prey,
And shook the rein with a resentful toss.
The steed beheld the spectre, swerved aside,
Rolled down the abyss,—and Death was satisfied.

VIII

This happened somewhere in a lone retreat
Of the Black Forest, yet not far from where
Fortune erewhile had fixed her favourite seat,
And round her nimble wheel, from here and there,
Her wandering devotees were wont to meet
In Baden Baden's pleasant groves, now bare
Of those gay crowds, those golden oracles,
And Monsieur Benazet's alluring spells.

IX

Here dwelt a widow, whose late-buried spouse
(A simple-minded Lutheran village priest)
Had left her with a living pledge of vows
To love and death twice plighted, unreleased
From ante-natal bondage in that house
Not made with hands: and in the mother's breast
Grief, like a grave that puts forth blossoms, smiled
Its timorous welcomes to her unborn child.

X

Three sons the Pastor's wife had borne him—all,
Before their father, had in childhood died;
So, from the past, four shadows seemed to fall
About the empty cradle Fancy tried
To fill with infant features augural
Of future joys to former hopes denied.
These deaths the dwelling of the widowed wife
Had left too large for her diminished life;

XI

But hither, homeward from the hot south, came
Glenaveril's new-wed Earl, and Countess fair,
The drooping sweetness of whose flowerlike frame,
That late had languished for its native air,
Here drew from breezes which, if not the same,
At least were mountain-born, fresh strength to bear
Those mystic agitations that prelude
The burthened bliss of coming motherhood.

XII

So here Glenaveril was content to stay,
The widow's tenant, till his wife had gained
Health to begin again the homeward way
To their own highlands. Women have retained
Better than men have, the original sway
Of nature's human instincts: unrestrained
By barriers that divide, and ranks that vex,
Theirs is the strong old commonwealth of sex.

XIII

To Eleanor Glenaveril all the pride,
The joy, the glory, the angelic bode;
To the lone human sister at her side
Only the care, the suffering, and the load,
Of that in which all women are allied—
The privilege upon their sex bestowed;
And her heart yearned to solace this poor dame,
Their lot so different yet their case the same.

XIV

So, when at last in one weak body strove
The powers of birth and death with one another,
'Twas Eleanor's sweet face that stooped above
The fatal childbed of the widowed mother,
And her soft voice that whispered words of love
And hope and courage. Man is not man's brother
As woman woman's sister: her vocation
Begins where ends his aid—with consolation.

XV

‘Sister, embrace thy son!’ the lady cried,
And held the infant to the mother's breast;
The dying mother, wanly smiling, eyed
Her little orphan: gratefully she pressed
The hand of Eleanor, and faintly sighed
‘Poor babe! 'twill be but an unwelcome guest
‘In its dead father's house when I am gone;
‘My life is ebbing fast. God's will be done!’

XVI

‘Nay, but,’ said Eleanor, ‘this child will be
‘Half mine, for I have helped it into life;
‘But thou must live to do as much for me
‘When comes mine hour.’ And, as the fond young wife
Thus to the future issued love's decree,
Love's doom fell sudden as the headsman's knife;
For thro' the hall below, with heavy tread,
Men bore the body of her husband—dead.

XVII

The famed physician, summoned that same morn
By Eleanor Glenaveril to the aid
Of her poor hostess, found the infant born;
The mother dead; Glenaveril's body laid,
A lifeless horror, in the hall; and torn,
Almost as lifeless, by her weeping maid
From where she had fall'n above it, his young wife,
Plucked by the pangs of labour back to life.

XVIII

Here the good doctor's skill was not in vain,
For Death's gorged maw had lost its gluttonous zest.
Reluctantly the nurse he brought had ta'en
The child of the dead woman to her breast
With superstitious protest, when again
Glenaveril's heir, another infant guest,
Claimed the unwilling hospitality
Of its hired shelter with a hungry cry.

XIX

Stoutly the churlish peasant's wife demurred
To this new charge. But that celestial
Patron of infants, good St. Francis, heard
The orphan's cry; and wakened in the hall
A hubbub shrill. Ere yet another word
The startled nurse could say, his burden small
The doctor thrust into her arms. ‘Stay there!’
He cried, and forthwith hastened down the stair.

XX

A curious figure at the foot of it
His sight surprised; a woman tall and thin,
On whose hard face time had in wrinkles writ
‘Old Maid.’ Firm jaws, high cheeks, decisive chin,
Keen nose, and eyes with frank defiance lit,
Guarded a face well fortified within
The deep embrasure of her bonnet vast,
A grim cyclopean relic of the past.

XXI

‘So, Sir! And who are you? And whose are these
‘Beliveried pert monkeys? Upon whose
‘Authority, whose orders, whose decrees,
‘My brother's widow's house do they refuse
‘To me, Sir, Martha Müller if you please,
‘Me who’—‘Alas, good lady, pray excuse
‘This sad reception which, if you were not
‘Prepared, no doubt’—‘Prepared, Sir! and for what?’

XXII

‘Did you not know, then, that Frau Müller’—‘Ay,
‘My brother's widow, well?’ ‘Her house had let
‘To a young English nobleman’—‘Not I!’—
‘Who with a grievous accident has met?’
‘But, Sir’—‘His lady lies in jeopardy
‘Of her own life’—‘But, Sir’—‘Nay, hear me yet,
‘I am my lady's doctor’—‘That may be,
‘Herr Doctor, but all this concerns not me.

XXIII

‘Which is the way, Sir, to Frau Müller's room?’
The doctor seized her arm. ‘Alas,’ he said,
‘This house, I told you, is a house of gloom.
‘Frau Müller was this morning brought to bed’—
‘Ah, and the child?’ ‘A boy.’ ‘Then I presume,
‘If she's asleep’—‘Asleep! take courage’—‘Dead!’
The woman cried. ‘I understand you now,
‘And—thank you, Sir. Forgive—my wits were slow.

XXIV

‘I thank you. Dead! Poor Mary!’ Down upon
The stair she sat. The doctor turned aside,
And both were silent for awhile. Anon
She rose erect, and muttered, as she eyed
The doctor keenly, ‘And the child? her son,
‘My nephew?’ ‘The child lives yet,’ he replied.
‘'Tis well. He lives and shall live!’ High she raised
Her hand, and murmured softly ‘God be praised!

XXV

‘Now let me see my nephew. Where is he?’
‘Dear Madam, stay awhile. Your nephew is’—
‘Be good enough, Sir, not to madam me.
‘Thank Heaven, I'm not married!’ ‘Then dear Miss—’
‘Müller, Sir. Martha Müller, as you see,
‘Hearty and hale; and, God be thanked for this,
‘A spinster—Grundbesitzerin, thank Heaven!
‘Residence, Stuttgard—age, Sir, forty-seven’—

XXVI

‘And therefore, Sir, well able to take care
‘Both of herself and nephew. Now, lead on!’
‘Wait, my good woman, wait! The little heir
‘Of Lord Glenaveril and Frau Müller's son
‘Fate has made foster brothers, and they are
‘Both with their nurse now; for I brought but one,
‘Not guessing’—‘Keep her!’ interrupted she,
‘My nephew's nurse from Stuttgard came with me.

XXVII

‘And in the porch outside she waits.’ ‘Indeed!
‘Then,’ said the doctor, ‘you and she were sent
‘By Providence to bless our special need,
‘For with the nurse that's here I'm ill content.
‘The woman has not wherewithal to feed
‘The two poor orphans this day's accident
‘Has cast together on her breast; and so
‘By your good help, Miss Müller’—‘Hold, Sir! no.

XXVIII

‘Neither my nephew, nor his nurse, nor I
‘Can here remain. I keep what I have got,
‘And that is no superfluous supply;
‘A wetnurse, Sir, is not a table d'hôte.’
‘Miss Müller,’ said the doctor with a sigh,
‘This is unfeeling.’ ‘No, Sir, it is not.
‘In all the world my brother's child has none
‘Now left to care for him, save me alone.

XXIX

‘Ho, Gretchen, here!’ And from the porch aglow
Came, coloured like a full-blown cabbage rose,
A peasant wench. ‘This gentleman will show
‘The way upstairs. But first take off thy shoes,
‘Not to disturb the poor sick lady. Go
‘Softly. The woman that hath got them, knows
‘Which child to give thee. Both of them are boys.
‘Follow, and fetch the babe, and make no noise.’

XXX

While the old nurse was handing to the new
One half her charge, the doctor heard a sigh
In the next room; and, entering softly, drew
The curtain, and stooped over tenderly.
The lady oped dim eyes of dreamy blue,
And vaguely smiled. Then, with a bitter cry
Remembrance rushed upon its prey, and grief
In a wild storm of weeping found relief.

XXXI

‘Weep, lady, weep! Those tears have saved your life;
‘They are the gift of Heaven,’ the doctor said.
‘Is it then true? all true?’ the wretched wife
Moaned, ‘and no dream? O God, that I were dead!’
‘My child,’ he sighed, ‘with pain and suffering rife
‘Are all the paths that human footsteps tread,
‘Yet each is thronged. But who could tread them, who
‘Their traveller be, without some end in view?

XXXII

‘Some by ambition, vanity, or pride
‘Are urged; and others, other ends allure;
‘Each follows to the goal a different guide.
‘And is, then, Grief more aimless, or less sure
‘Of its vocation? In your own confide,
‘For it is love's divine investiture;
‘A precious gift bequeathed you from the grave
‘By him to whom life's dearest joys you gave.’

XXXIII

Having said this, the doctor rose, and stole
Out of the chamber; but returned anon,
Carrying in his arms a little roll
Of flannel, lace, and linen. ‘See your son,’
He whispered, ‘and no longer doubt the goal!’
A little sudden cry, a plaintive one,
The babe put forth. The mother flung out wild
Wide arms, and to her bosom clasped her child.

XXXIV

'Twas then his master-stroke the doctor tried.
And, ‘Do you think,’ he said, ‘you have the force
‘To nurse your babe yourself?’ The lady cried
‘And who but I should nurse him?’ ‘Then of course
‘This babe,’ the good man smiled, ‘will be both guide
‘And goal. Dear lady, love grants no divorce
‘'Twixt life and duty, while to life remains
‘Aught that upon its love one claim retains.’

XXXV

He left the babe and mother both asleep,
And waked the nurse. `Thou good-for-nothing slut,
‘Get up, and go!’ The nurse began to weep
And whine, ‘'Twas not my fault,’ she whimpered. ‘Tut!
‘Begone!’ ‘I could not tell—'tis hard to keep
‘One's head in such a place as this—I put
‘The cradle yonder, where I thought’—‘Enough!
‘Thy thoughts are stupid heartless fools. Be off!’

XXXVI

Then to himself, ‘How is all this to end?
‘And how am I to get away from here?
`If only I knew where to write, or send!
‘I cannot leave her by herself, poor dear,
‘In such a cemetery. Luck befriend
‘My wits, that know not for what port to steer!
‘Oh for some “Sessame,” to ope the door
‘Out of this deadlock! I can do no more.’

XXXVII

Hap-Hazard, that eccentric humourist,
The patron of adventures, nose in air,
Wanders the world where'er his whim may list,
And, without knocking, enters everywhere.
No man can either summon or resist
His intervention: but with prescience rare
All sorts of complications he scents out,
Either to solve, or else to bring about.

XXXVIII

The Saints disown him, nor his name admit
Into that Heavenly Army List of theirs
Where, in her Calendar, the Church hath writ
The names and ranks of all her officers;
For to no discipline doth he submit;
But in the conduct of this world's affairs,
(Tho' to exclude him all its laws were made,)
His meddling is incessantly displayed.

XXXIX

Now generous and gracious to excess,
And now morose and cruel, he delights
(Like brigands and marauders, who profess
To rectify Dame Fortune's oversights,
And all her inequalities redress)
In mixing up together wrongs and rights;
The sage he foils, instructs the simpleton,
Wins battles lost, and loses battles won.

XL

The unconscious crowd his hovering influence guides
To actions by its leaders never meant;
'Tis his incalculable vote decides
The wavering council. Now the innocent
His hand betrays, and now the guilty hides;
Doth here misdeeds provoke, and there prevent;
Admits the lover to the lady's house,
And then informs the unsuspecting spouse.

XLI

Guessing, no doubt, in that sad hermitage
'Twixt Death and Grief a foremost part to play,
This strolling actor of the world's wide stage
Arrived from Tübingen; whence all the way,
Clad in the garment of a German Sage,
The traveller had walked. Glenaveril's grey
Old valet crossed him on the garden path,
And cried ‘Thank Heaven, Professor Edelrath!’

XLII

A long lean man, bald, and a little bent,
Was Ludwig Edelrath, with luminous eyes.
Scarce more than forty years his life had spent
In innocently learning to be wise;
But of his science the serene extent
Embraced those famous forty centuries
That watched Napoleon's conscripts. To his sight
The past was present in a child's delight.

XLIII

For in this hospitable German mind
Together dwelt ideas old and new.
Those undisturbed disturbers of mankind,
That men and nations, for their prey, pursue,
From Greece, Judæa, Egypt, Rome, and Ind,
Collected here, were all exposed to view
Like wild beasts in a zoologic van,
Without the risk of injury to man.

XLIV

Homer, Gautama, Moses, Zoroäster
Conversed with him in their own tongue. His brow,
Bald, pale, and pure, seemed modelled by a master
In polished ivory; and, like the glow
Of veiled lamps lit in urns of alabaster,
Benevolence and wisdom shone below
So soft, that in their light young Love might sigh,
‘Could I grow old, as he looks so would I!’

XLV

He had contrived to reconcile the dead
Even in their deadliest feuds. Without demur,
His heart wore, now the White Rose, now the Red,
On equal terms with York and Lancaster.
Peloponnesian politics he read
As if they were as new as the last stir
Of those innumerable spoons that keep hot
The storm in Modern Europe's social teapot.

XLVI

Young infants fain would feed on all they see,
With lips still faithful to a mother's breast:
A full-grown child was Edélrath; and he,
Whose growth his growing tenderness caressed
As growing ivy clasps a growing tree,
So vast an appetite of love possessed
That in his heart he crammed man's world, and man,
As in its mouth a child puts all it can.

XLVII

Thro' coloured crystal seen, the gloomiest ground
Looks golden; so to him looked human nature.
Ramses the Great a charming soul he found,
The little Prince of Detmold a grand creature;
For him even Auguste Comte became profound,
And Victor Hugo modest. Some fine feature
His keen capacity of love detected
In every object on his mind reflected.

XLVIII

And these discoveries filled him with delight,
Such as Professor Ehrenberg, they say,
Was almost overcome by at the sight
Of his first favourite infusoria.
But what, then, were the links that could unite
This traveller, from the ages rolled away,
And that young widowed mother? 'Tis a tale
That lifts from vanished years another veil.

XLIX

Returning from his Indian Government
Fired with the love of Hindu literature,
Henry, Lord Orchester, at Bonn had spent
A summer, sipping from the Sanscrit lore
Of the famed Bopp; who to his votary lent
A teacher he himself had trained to store
The scattered wealth of his own aftermath;
His favourite pupil, Ludwig Edelrath.

L

And Orchester and Edelrath, the lean
Gaunt Student, and the study-loving Peer,
In spite of all disparity between
Their age and station, having passed a year
Together, roaming thro' the rich demesne
Of Hindu Legend, became friends so dear
That more than all his kin, save one, in truth,
The Norman patron loved the Saxon youth.

LI

That one was his own daughter, the sole child
And darling solace of his widowed years.
Full well the little Eleanor was skilled
In every winning grace that most endears
Childhood to Age. The Saxon youth, beguiled
From his loved Sanscrit slokas, with hushed ears
Heard something in his soul begin to stir,
Murmured ‘Sacòntala,’ and worshipped her.

LII

A difference of age and rank, a face
Or form too homely to inspire romance,
In close relations may suffice to place
A man still youthful, and a girl perchance
Whose childhood hovers with a lingering grace
Upon the verge of womanhood. A glance,
A tone, at any moment might destroy
This insecure serenity of joy;

LIII

And yet it lasts. In all its force profound
A deep affection, greatening, still remains,
Like Ocean, faithful to its own vast bound.
The shallow streamlet, swoll'n by sudden rains,
O'erflows its narrow banks, and all around
Submerges in its course the neighbouring plains.
But the great sea that voice divine obeys
Which to its storms ‘Thus far, no farther,’ says.

LIV

And so the years slid quietly away,
And nothing happened to divert or fret
The course of those three lives, until one day
An unexpected change of Cabinet
Recalled Lord Orchester once more to pay
That never-wholly-liquidated debt
Which, ever and anon, from men whose names
Are linked with politics, their Party claims.

LV

To Public Life Hernani's fatal horn
Belongs: and woe to him who once hath done
To that cursed horn's possessor a good turn!
Past services perchance, but these alone,
The persecutor now and then may scorn
To recollect; but never any one
That's capable of doing service yet
Doth that relentless creditor forget.

LVI

The fatal horn now startled unawares
The halls of Orchester; and he again,
Obedient to its call, resumed the cares
Of office. Edelrath at Tübingen
Fit refuge found among the learnèd chairs
Of that famed seat of study: and these two men,
Assiduous correspondents for awhile,
Absence with friendship strove to reconcile.

LVII

But visits first, then letters, rarer grew;
Until (like folk whose homestead, field and fold,
Ascending floods have overwhelmed) the two,
As wider and more wide between them rolled
Life's rapid waves, found fewer and more few
The points of common interest, that uphold
A sinking intercourse, still unsubmerged
In the swift current that between them surged.

LVIII

And from those peaks and headlands of the past
They signalled to each other in distress:
‘It seems a century since I got your last
‘Long-wished-for letter’—‘I must plead the press
‘Of business under which I write in haste’—
‘I trust that some time, during the recess,
‘We may be able’—‘I have been unwell’—
‘Excuse this brief reply. No news to tell’—

LIX

Et cætera! Was this, then, the decay
And dissolution of affection? No.
Out of the corn-seed disinterred to-day
From Pharaoh's tomb, where centuries ago
'Twas buried, life hath never passed away;
Harvests unreaped lurk in it. Even so,
Tho' sepulchred in absence, sympathy
Lives a suspended life and cannot die.

LX

At length there came to Edelrath, whose three
Last letters had remained unanswered still,
From his two friends in England, just when he
Had half begun to look for tidings ill,
News of a marriage that was soon to be
'Twixt Eleanor and Lord Glenaveril.
He mused ‘A fine alliance! But what makes
My mind mistrustful of the thoughts it wakes?

LXI

‘Glenaveril? a noble name, too! why
‘So sinister the sound of it to me?
‘Ah, I remember! Many a year's gone by
‘Since first I found in that strange pedigree
‘Facts that confirmed a theory which I
‘Once played with—and my notebook, let me see,
‘I must have kept it’—Then he searched, and took
Down from a rummaged shelf a little book:

LXII

A book of manuscript, in leather bound,
And labelled thus—‘Glenaveril: curious case
Of death from violent causes, sometimes found
Hereditary in a single race.’
It was a record that might well confound
Fate's most inveterate mocker. Red, from place
To place, from age to age, from man to man,
The long hereditary bloodstain ran.

LXIII

Many an old Glenaveril, sire and son,
Had fall'n in savage clan or border feud:
Others at Acre or at Ascalon
Had Painim swords with Christian blood embrued:
Some in the Stuarts' cause had gaily gone
To Hanoverian scaffolds: some at lewd
And brawling feasts when swords, in wine, were crossed
Had perished for a wager, or a toast.

LXIV

One young Glenaveril, in Childe Harold's train,
Had been at Nauplia the first to fall:
One upon Waterloo's historic plain
Had found a soldier's death and burial:
One had in grim Mahratta war been slain:
One in a hurdle race was killed: but all,
As if the victims of some weird command,
Had come to violent ends by sea or land.

LXV

The scholar fell into a reverie.
Where in this series of untoward events
Hereditary causes could one see?
Yet there the facts were. What are accidents?
A causeless accident there cannot be.
And what excludes transmitted influence
From such a series? Character is fate;
Men's dispositions do their dooms dictate.

LXVI

Who dies in battle must to battle go,
Nor are they drowned at sea who stay on shore.
The course of these reflections, in its flow
From one conjecture to another, bore
The wandering fancy of the scholar so
Completely back among the days of yore,
And all the dead Glenaverils, that he quite
Forgot the letter he had meant to write,

LXVII

Congratulating Lady Eleanor
Upon her live Glenaveril's luckier lot.
But, ere the letter she still waited for,
Came one from her, which he had waited not.
No grim Glenaveril ghost, premonitor
Of coming griefs, had warned his heart of what
This letter told. For she had been a bride
Scarce one short month before her father died.

LXVIII

Fresh from that father's grave, and scenes made dim
By the dear memory of his good grey hairs,
Glenaveril took his weeping wife with him
To those soft shores where sweet Sorrento rears
From sapphrine deeps her emerald diadem,
And still the Siren's song, thro' scented airs.
Lulls with delightful spells the tideless sea
In whose embrace sleeps blue Parthenope.

LXIX

The day this letter, by the tears of two
Twice blotted, (his who read, and hers who wrote)
Reached Tübingen, the Sanscrit lecture, due
That morning, a mysterious little note,
Patched to the college lecture board, withdrew.
A learnèd man may from the Vedas quote
The saws of sages and the songs of seers,
But Wisdom never yet stopped Sorrow's tears.

LXX

There be three hundred different ways and more
Of speaking, but of weeping only one;
And that one way, the wide world o'er and o'er,
Is known by all, tho' it is taught by none.
No man is master of this ancient lore,
And no man pupil. Every simpleton
Can weep as well as every sage. The man
Does it no better than the infant can.

LXXI

The first thing all men learn is how to speak,
Yet understand they not each other's speech;
But tears are neither Latin, nor yet Greek,
Nor prose, nor verse. The language that they teach
Is universal. Cleopatra's cheek
They decked with pearls no richer than from each
Of earth's innumerable mourners fall
Unstudied, yet correctly classical.

LXXII

Tears are the oldest and the commonest
Of all things upon earth: and yet how new
The tale each time told by them! how unblessed
Were life's hard way without their heavenly dew!
Joy borrows them from Grief: Faith trembles lest
She lose them: even Hope herself smiles thro'
The rainbow they make round her as they fall:
And Death, that cannot weep, sets weeping all.

LXXIII

With thoughts that overflowed in tears, away
The gentle scholar hastened, to the side
Of her whose second father from that day
He never ceased to be. Glenaveril vied
With Eleanor in response to the sway
Of this quaint, innocent, eccentric guide
Philosopher and friend. But, weeping still,
He gazed bewildered on Glenaveril;

LXXIV

And on his gaze weird visions rose and rolled.
Adown the Chiaja clattering, grim and wroth,
Rode the Black Douglas. In the distance tolled
A passing bell. With folds of sable cloth
The balcony was, like a scaffold, stoled.
Fierce crowds below it waited, nothing loth,
The opening of some hideous spectacle
Announced beforehand by that passing bell.

LXXV

‘What is the matter?’ noticing the fear
In her friend's eyes, said Eleanor; and he,
‘For heaven's sake tell me, ere the rest I hear,
‘What may his lordship's occupation be?’
‘That of a man, the noblest and most dear,
‘Who loves your little Eleanor,’ laughed she.
‘Ah, but—is he a soldier?’ ‘No, thank heaven!’
‘A sailor, then?’‘Nor yet a sailor even.’

LXXVI

‘A sportsman?’ ‘Oh, field sports he cannot bear!’
‘But hunting, racing, steeplechasing?’ ‘Yes,
‘Thro’ picture galleries, and after rare
‘Editions of engravings.’ ‘Then God bless
‘His chase!’ laughed Edelrath. Into thin air
His visions vanished. All his cheerfulness
Returned. The dread Glenaveril ghosts grew dim,
And shook no more their ‘gory locks’ at him.

LXXVII

Before the three friends separated, they
Agreed to meet in Germany, and make
A tour thro' the Black Forest. But one day
Glenaveril wrote to Edelrath, ‘Forsake,
‘O Shepherd Sage, thy flocks on Himelay,
‘And hasten here to Baden, for the sake
‘Of Eleanor; whose state forbids, I fear,
‘Our further progress. We await you here.’

LXXVIII

Hence the Professor's pilgrimage: and hence
His fortunate arrival at the gate
Of that drear house; altho' no warning sense
Of his loved lady's miserable state
His steps had hastened. It was Providence
(The name man's gratitude bestows on Fate
When she, so often cruel, shows contrition)
That managed this most timely apparition.

LXXIX

The old servant, he had greeted with a nod
Of ignorant gladness, led him to the hall
In ominous silence; there, with feet unshod,
Crept to the bier, and plucked away the pall
That hid the dead man's face. ‘The curse, O God,’
Groaned Edelrath, ‘hath fallen after all!’
And back he reeled with an instinctive cry,
‘Glenaveril—violent death—fatality!’

CANTO II. CHILDHOOD.

I

There is a Hades, the unblessed sojourn
Of spirits not departed, who await
A signal to go on, or to return.
Athwart the obscurity of that dim state
Voices and visions float from either bourne,
Vague and confused; and the disconsolate
Spirit, from life half loosed and yet not free,
Knows not which world the nearest world may be.

II

There, each surrounding scene, each neighbouring face,
Glimmers uncertain thro' a shadowy veil;
And faint as echo from a distant place
Falls every sound. Long in that dolorous dale,
Where thro' the twilight of sensation pace
With muffled steps, and shrouded features pale,
The phantoms of realities, lay still
The soul of Eleanor Glenaveril.

III

An infant voice, the voice of her own child,
To human life recalled her. She obeyed
Its bidding, and with a compliance mild
Resumed the load by love and duty laid
Upon a patient tenderness that smiled
Only thro' tears. But close beside her stayed,
Soothing her sad life's solitary path
To its lone goal, the faithful Edelrath.

IV

Back to the vast domains, whose lord was now
A cradled infant, she had wished to take
The widow's son with hers, and bring the two
As brethren up together, for the sake
Of the dead mother; but no prayer, no vow,
And no persuasion, could avail to shake
The resolution of the maiden aunt,
Whose ‘yea’ and ‘any’ were made of adamant.

V

To Edelrath, who had to Stuttgard gone
Charged to deliver Eleanor's request,
‘No, Sir,’ she said, ‘Emanuel is the son
‘Of a poor German Pastor who addressed
‘His blameless life (which had no fault but one,
‘That it was all too brief, alas!) with zest
‘To serving God. As did his father, so
‘Doth it behove Emanuel to do.

VI

For that high task one life sufficeth not.
‘Its due accomplishment must be ensured
‘By an inheritance of virtues, got
‘From generations that have been inured,
‘Fathers and children, to the humble lot,
But high vocation, that of yore allured
‘The first beginner of a saintly line
‘Of men devoted to its claim divine.

VII

‘My brother's life was all too short for this.
‘The son must finish what the sire began.
‘And Providence hath in that boy of his
‘A miracle vouchsafed us. What a man
‘The child will be! Just look at him! He is
‘An infant Samson, born to lead the van
‘Of Israel to battle, undismayed
‘In these bad days when Faith herself's afraid.

VIII

‘Not one of his dead kindred equalled him,
‘Not at his age (how bravely built and stout
‘The little body stands!) in strength of limb.
‘The generations, that seemed half worn out
‘Before his birth, like sleeping Cherubim
‘Were only resting; and, with force no doubt
‘By sleep refreshed, concentrated at length
‘In one brave effort all their gathered strength.

IX

‘Yet I am not ungrateful. You may tell
‘The English lady that I thank her, Sir,
‘Both for myself, and for Emanuel;
‘And tell her, too, how much I pity her.
‘But she is young. Long may she live, and well
‘Watch over her own boy! He is the heir
‘Of a great name and fame; and he, too, hath
‘Traditions to preserve, Herr Edelrath.

X

‘May he grow up a gallant nobleman,
‘The pattern of what nobleness should be!
‘My nephew and adopted son, Sir, can
‘Never be more, nor ever less, than he
‘Was born to be: a good Samaritan,
‘To lift up Faith, and heal her wounds, when she
‘Faints by the way; or else her oracle,
‘Filled with the voice of God, like Samuel.

XI

‘Farewell! I thank the lady for her kind
‘Intentions to the boy. And I thank you,
‘Herr Edelrath. I have a grateful mind,
‘Tho' I've an independent spirit too.
‘And you have that about you I'm inclined
‘To like at once. I think you, Sir, a true
‘Good man, and to be trusted. And I'm glad
‘You've come to see me, and my little lad.’

XII

Edelrath, notwithstanding his defeat,
Respected Mistress Müller's honest pride.
The young Emanuel's image left a sweet
And bright impression on his mind. He sighed,
Comparing the abundant life that beat
In that young Teuton's babyhood, bold-eyed,
And nimble-footed, with the drooping grace
Of the last scion of Glenaveril's race.

XIII

Baptised in tears, and by a mother's groans
Greeted to life and sorrow, this lone child
Was all the more beloved. The pleading moans
Of Ivor's plaintive infancy beguiled
Grief to soft response, mimicking Joy's tones.
Upon her babe the weeping mother smiled
With widowed eyes; and, sombre as regret,
Hope hailed a promise that recalled a threat.

XIV

The babe lived on, grew up, became a boy;
About his being felt a mother's love
Sweetened by sadness; learned to look for joy
In tear-stained eyes, and thro' the hushed house move
With uncompanioned steps, whose echoes coy
Scared not the sensitive quietness above
Floors that were haunted by the shadow of death,
Where Mirth in whispers spake with bated breath.

XV

Dwellers in boreal regions by the pole
Call twilight day, and know no other light:
Like theirs, there is a twilight of the soul
Where, as a polar sun, by day and night
Tho' pale, yet beautiful, throughout the whole
Of its dim summer beaming darkly bright,
A love that sets not thro' a shadowy air
Shines on strange flowers that only blossom there.

XVI

Such blossoms in young Ivor's childhood grew.
The solitary child contèmplated
Shadow and depth undaunted. Well he knew,
By some wise instinct in his being bred
From griefs not his, that heaven's transcendent blue,
Dazzling the hawk's eye on the mountain's head,
A sweeter and serener glory takes
Reflected from the bosom of dark lakes.

XVII

Some childhoods are there, that impatient pass
Into life's sewer of common cares, almost
As rapid as the rinsings of a glass
Down from the garret to the gutter tossed
By some wild Magdalen, whose midnight mass
Is a libation to the unlaid ghost
Of her slain innocence. Where such drops fall
No blossoms spring. The gutter takes them all.

XVIII

Others there be whose days are drops of dew
That softly, droplet after droplet, sliding
From flower to flower, in sheltered peace pursue
Hushed grassy courses; all their sweetness hiding,
Till from its silent growth a rivulet new
The woodland wins, along whose wavelets gliding
On sun beams, and on moonbeams, fearless elves
Under dim forest leaves disport themselves.

XIX

And there's a beauty that demands the light,
Bursting, like glory from the battle plain,
Full-blown. A whole world's homage is its right;
The sun is not solicited in vain;
He shines to be admired; from alpine height
To height, from shore to shore, from main to main,
The god goes radiant, gilding, as it rolls,
Each wave between the Indus and the poles.

XX

But oh, that beauty born beneath the veil,
The Isis of the heart! By many a fold
Its mystic vesture tells the silent tale
Of charms that eyes profane may not behold:
Whilst to its own appointed priest the pale
Composure of the sacred image, stoled
In sweet repose, if ruffled not, reveals
The secret it from all beside conceals.

XXI

Lift not the veil! Divined in silence, leave
The beauty hid beneath its holy hem!
Poësy, Childhood, Faith, Love, Passion, weave
(Like the wise moth, ere round the rose's stem
With wavering joy his budded winglets heave)
O'er them a mystery that shelters them
From the rude touch, and the inquisitive eye;
Lift not the veil; but worship, and pass by!

XXII

Thirteen still summers slumbrous in the shade
Of agèd oaks, whose dusky boughs were green
Ere yet the first Glenaveril's sword had laid
Its lordly rule upon their rich demesne:
Thirteen hushed winters in dim halls arrayed
With the heraldic banners of thirteen
Glenaverils: thirteen happy hidden years
Of all that childhood loves, and love endears:

XXIII

And then, one evening, in a quiet hour
When o'er her somnolent autumnal bed
The sweetness of the wasted lily-flower
Drooped, in the dewy twilight, a wan head,
The pensive smile that lit that lonely bower
Softly became the smiling of the dead;
And Eleanor, Glenaveril's Countess, slept
Once more by him whose loss her life had wept.

XXIV

They laid the mother in the father's grave:
They hailed the orphan, head of all his race:
O'er leagues of woodland, and by lengths of wave,
The boy beheld his feudal rule embrace
A hundred vassal homes: himself the slave
And lord of that high solitary place
Above them all, which linked, from sire to son,
The lot of many with the life of one.

XXV

The death of Eleanor Glenaveril
Left Edelrath her child's sole guardian.
Her dying prayer implored him to be still
The guide of Ivor's boyhood: and (so ran
The fond injunction of her husband's will)
To him, in preference to all the clan,
Was given, until the boy became of age,
The management of his wide heritage.

XXVI

And now, remembering a long-nursed intent
Of his dear lady (in whose faithful heart
Each unforgotten face and incident
Of her brief wifehood had become a part
Of one supreme, sustaining sentiment
That found a sort of sweetness in the smart
Of the sharp memories it was pastured on)
His thoughts reverted to the widow's son.

XXVII

So to Emanuel's aunt he wrote. Ere now
Letters he had exchanged with her. He said
Ivor was suffering from a cruel blow:
The Countess of Glenaveril was dead:
His wish, like hers, was that the boys should know
And love each other: by which motive led,
Ivor and he were now upon their way
To Stuttgard, for perchance a lengthened stay.

XXVIII

The announcement of this project much delighted
That agèd maiden. That the heir of wide
Domains and ancient titles, uninvited,
Should come from his own country to abide
In Stuttgard for her nephew's sake, excited
And flattered greatly her plebeian pride;
Which, had Emanuel first from Stuttgard wended
To visit Ivor, would have been offended.

XXIX

For every sentiment is more or less
Mixed with another in the heart of man;
And in the sentiment of lowliness
There lurks a secret vanity. This plan
Appeared to Mistress Müller to redress
An inequality of birth, and span
A gap which, thus got over, left to pride
A little balance, all on her own side.

XXX

Nevertheless the prudent spinster deemed
That when her nephew's star into conjunction
With Gemini was coming, it beseemed
The occasion she should preach to him with unction
A homily; wherein what she esteemed
Her knowledge of the world performed the function
A pinch of salt does in a strawberry ice,
Of spoiling something naturally nice.

XXXI

‘Emanuel,’ she said, ‘remember now
‘That a young, rich, arìstocrat is he,
‘And but the child of lowly parents thou.
‘You will not, either of you, feel or see
‘This difference between you (that I know)
‘So long as boys and playfellows you be:
‘For between boys, if boys with boys be friends,
‘The intercourse on sentiment depends.

XXXII

‘But bear in mind, my nephew, bear in mind
‘Thou and this young Glenaveril will be men
‘A few years hence: for thou anon wilt find
‘That between one man and another, when
‘Their stations differ in degree and kind,
‘Even sentiment is regulated then
‘By that which, if a man thro' life would pass
‘Respected, bids him cling to his own class.

XXXIII

‘And as thy father's was, and as ere then
‘Thy father's father's, so is thy career
‘A simple village pastor's. Honest men
‘And women, born in the same humble sphere,
‘Loved and revered them, as in thee again
‘The same folk the same virtues will revere.
‘Their lot to them sufficed; and unto thee
‘Sufficient also must thine own lot be.

XXXIV

‘In other spheres hath young Glenaveril's lot,
‘'Mid other folk, by other fates, been cast.
‘Respect thyself, dear child, that he may not
‘Cease to respect thee. In the days long past
‘I, too, was young’—She paused, and one bright spot
Of sudden colour flushed and flickered fast
Thro' the grey quiet of her withered cheek,
And her eyes softened, and her face grew meek.

XXXV

‘Yes, I was young, and had my trials too.
‘I might, by yielding to the generous prayer
‘Of one above me born, have lost the clue
‘Which, kept, (thank God!) hath aided me to fare
‘Thro' life, lone woman tho' I be, still true
‘And loyal to the lowly name I bear
‘Without a blush. The right and power to guard
‘From harm thine orphaned youth, are my reward.’

XXXVI

And, as with moistened eyes she murmured this,
The stern old veteran of virtue bent
Above the boy's fair forehead, with a kiss
Whose grave caress was such a rare event,
And fraught with so much more of awe than bliss,
To him it seemed a solemn sacrament.
Then, with a sigh that haply to the dead
Some message bore, ‘Be brave, my child!’ she said.

XXXVII

But, like snow castles in the sun, all these
Cold fortresses by Pride and Prudence planned,
The warmth of Ivor's nature by degrees
Melted away. No heart could long withstand
The charm of his unconscious power to please;
And the first captive to its soft command
Was the old dame herself. Against her will
Her bosom yearned to young Glenaveril.

XXXVIII

A doctrinaire in sentiment, who held
That all affections must perforce obey
Some principle or precept, she rebelled,
Albeit in vain, against the insidious sway
Of this instinctive fondness that up-welled
Spontaneously, in a mysterious way,
From depths disturbed by some new sense of beauty
Owning no source in reason or in duty.

XXXIX

‘What is this blue-eyed cherub from above
‘To me, or I to him,’ the old lady sighed,
‘That I should waste on him a wealth of love
‘By not one claim of kinship justified?’
Her pride against this new affection strove,
And the affection that subdued her pride
She grudged her heart, as housewives grudge their house
Some dainty deemed by thrift superfluous.

XL

It vexed her that from her well-guarded store
Of tenderness the stranger's child had won,
In one short month, without an effort, more
Than to the claim of her own brother's son
Nature and duty had vouchsafed before.
Excuse for this injustice found she none
In reason: but mysterious sympathies
Lurked in the light of Ivor's wistful eyes.

XLI

As if to right the balance thus set wrong,
An instinct just as unaccountable,
By some inverse attraction no less strong,
Drew Edelrath towards Emanuel:
Not to the loss of that affection long
To Ivor given; but with a livelier spell
That spoilt his cherished theories, because
It seemed to contradict all natural laws.

XLII

‘'Tis strange,’ he mused, ‘the more that I compare
‘The characters of these two boys, the more
‘Inexplicable to my mind they are.
‘Hard is it Nature's mysteries to explore,
‘And this seems one of those exceptions rare
‘To her fixed order, that confound the lore
‘Of the biologist, who must admit
‘He cannot penetrate the cause of it.

XLIII

‘Here, from a race of peaceful shepherds springs
‘A little warrior, born to rule and fight;
‘And there, from a long line of warrior kings
‘Comes forth at last a peaceful shepherd wight,
‘Meek as a lamb. What freak of Nature brings
‘Such miracles about, transcending quite
‘The jurisdiction of her own decrees,
‘By gathering laurel crowns from olive trees?’

XLIV

Albeit the gentle optimist was well
With Nature's eccentricities contented.
‘For Heaven,’ thought he, ‘ordained this miracle
‘That hath to the Church Militant presented
‘A champion bold in young Emanuel,
‘And in our Ivor's milder vein prevented
‘Renewal of the curse whose horror still
‘Haunts the red records of Glenaveril.’

XLV

Such was the situation of these four
Constituents of a chance-made family.
Won by a charm she never felt before,
The hard old daughter of the Bourgeoisie
In noble birth found much to praise, and more
To love. So great is the capacity
Of adaptation that discretely dwells
In all imperishable principles!

XLVI

Emanuel who, tho' by nature gay
Gallant and frank, had in the solitude
Of his chilled childhood missed the ripening ray
By sympathy diffused from souls imbued
With its caressing warmth, now day by day
In Ivor's loved companionship renewed
The ever-growing consciousness of joy
That fills the first fresh friendship of a boy.

XLVII

And Edelrath, whose own youth, vowed too soon
To study, ne'er before had known the bright
Vivacity of boyhood, this late boon
Enjoyed vicariously in the delight
Of those young hearts. With his ripe afternoon
Their fresh morn mingled; and, in time's despite,
Their boyhood gave its youth to warm the sage
Whose love, to light their boyhood, gave his age.

XLVIII

Ivor himself, the vivifying sun
Of that small universe that round him moved,
Giving to each what each most wanted, won
From all in turn the love his nature loved:
Adventurous with Emanuel; anon
Studious with Edelrath; and, as behoved,
To the old aunt so tenderly he bore him,
She found herself beginning to adore him.

XLIX

Thus the two boys, like brothers, hand in hand
Wending the selfsame path, and side by side,
Youth's frontier reached; whence that untravelled land,
The Future, opens, and the ways divide.
The management of half a county, spanned
Superbly by Glenaveril's Earldom wide,
Recalled to England once in every year
The presence of its guardian and its heir.

L

Ivor, on these occasions, would not quit
Emanuel: and so, with Edelrath
And him, Emanuel went. ‘No help for it!’
The old aunt sighed. ‘That little wizard hath
‘Bewitched us all, and we must needs submit.’
But great was her bewilderment and wrath
When letters she from Edelrath received
Recording feats her nephew had achieved:

LI

What famous sport at Orchester he had:
How well he looked when mounted on his filly,
In scarlet coat and leather breeches clad:
How at Glenaveril Castle every gilly
Would go thro' fire and water for the lad:
And (here the old maid's very soul grew chilly
With horror) how up strath, and glen, and crag,
That future village pastor stalked the stag.

LII

Her perturbation was in part relieved
By Edelrath. With ardour he explained
The Christian muscularity achieved
By England's Church; whose Clergy thus maintained
In strength robust the doctrine they received
From Wittemberg. But his success sustained
A serious check the moment she caught scent
Of certain plans on which his mind was bent.

LIII

His wish, and Ivor's was (the truth to tell)
That, as the agent for Glenaveril, he
Should be succeeded by Emanuel;
And that, meanwhile, Emanuel should be
Trained for the duties he appeared so well
By nature fitted to discharge. But she
Listened to these proposals as, they say,
Ulysses listened to the Siren's lay.

LIV

‘A false position,’ she replied, ‘destroys
‘The truth of character. The boys are friends,
‘And that is well. So long as they are boys,
‘Friends let them be. But friendship's charm depends
‘For all its graces, and for all its joys,
‘Upon complete equality; which ends
‘With childhood. The equality of men
‘Is but the dream of childhood come again;

LV

And they who dream it, tho' their beards be grey,
‘Are babes who into second childhood fall.
‘No disrespect to you, friend, by the way!
‘Your childhood you have ne'er outgrown at all,
‘And you are just as much a child to-day
‘As you were forty years ago. I call
‘Such childhood quite another sort of thing.
‘But I, a born old maid, to old age cling.

LVI

‘Your pupil's course you from your heart dictate.
‘But, by your leave, my head guides mine and me.
‘The boys are nearly come to man's estate;
‘And, if they are to enter on it free,
‘'Tis best for both that they should separate
‘Till each becomes what each was born to be:
‘Ivor, the lord of all Glenaveril;
‘Emanuel, God's servant, if God will!’

LVII

How many generous ideas ere now
Good Sense, with its stout truncheon, hath struck down!
It takes them for illusions; and we know
Good Sense spares no illusions but its own.
Sentiment aims too high, and Sense too low:
Between them both the ball of life is thrown
Wide of the mark, and never hits it fairly:
Genius alone sees just, and that but rarely.

LVIII

Edelrath, possibly, had judged aright,
But in his judgment he lacked faith. The scheme
Of Mistress Müller was erroneous quite;
But Error never doubts. All men who seem
Convinced, we should mistrust with all our might.
The danger from such persons is extreme,
Because all those who of their own have none
By other men's convictions are undone.

LIX

And so the dame's uncompromising will
Prevailed; and all things as she wished them went;
Alone to Oxford went Glenaveril,
Emanuel to Tübingen was sent.
That she had done her duty she was still
Convinced when, one year after this event,
Emanuel she sent for, blessed him, sighed
‘Now let thy servant part in peace!’ and died.

LX

Her will survived her: and it was decided,
In deference to the wishes of the dead
Who had for this contingency provided,
That not till after three full years were fled
Ivor (whatever chance to each betided
Before the stipulated time was sped)
Should with Emanuel hold the least relation,
Or seek, in aught, to alter his vocation.

LXI

For her belief had been that, to the path
Of safety bound thus far, Emanuel
(Equipped for battle with the sons of Gath)
Would, of his own accord, decline to dwell
Among the tents of Kedar. Edelrath,
Assured that with his pupils all was well,
To Heidelberg retired, until the last
Of those probationary years was past.

LXII

But o'er the separated friends he still
His fatherly, tho' distant, watch maintained.
They from the least evasion of the will
Of the dead woman loyally refrained.
So to Emanuel and Glenaveril
Only the memories and the hopes remained
Of their old union. But still hope is strong,
And memory still is sweet, while life is young.

LXIII

O Youth, O Childhood, fugitive angels you,
That, once gone back to Heaven, return no more!
In vain our hearts invoke you to renew
The joys that followed you: in vain implore
The bounty of a single bead of dew
That perished with you from our paths before
We knew you gone. The only dew that wets
Those pathways now, falls there from vain regrets.

LXIV

Regrets that, while you lingered here below,
We knew not that you would so soon depart:
Regrets that you are gone: regrets to know
That you will come no more: regrets that start
To life at every backward glance we throw:
Regrets that cling to the discouraged heart,
When all the joys that smile on later years
Lost youth's memento mori fills with fears.

LXV

O Heaven! to have been young, and all youth was,
All we have felt and cannot feel again,
Still to remember, and to find, alas,
That the remembrance of lost joy is pain!
'Tis ever drinking from an empty glass.
Better the full glass broken, than the vain
Importunate wild cravings, that caress
With pining lips its perfect emptiness!

LXVI

Fall in the fresh delight of victory,
Young warriors! In your bridal garments dressed,
On your death biers, young virgin brides, go by!
Perish, young infants, on your mother's breast!
And you, in love's first kiss, young lovers, die,
Dreaming of beauty still to be possessed!
Let earth, thro' you, whose bliss no memory mars,
Send up one happy message to the stars!

LXVII

Say to them, you, ‘O wistful stars, down there,
‘Hid in the depth of night's primæval dome
‘From your bright eyes, that seek her everywhere,
‘Happiness dwells. From her abode we come.
‘There have we seen and known her; and we bear
‘This message of the earth, her human home,
‘From star to star, thro' all your shining mists
‘Of suns and planets, “Happiness exists!”’

LXVIII

Why do the stars with such reproachful eyes
Search all the dismal avenues of night?
What questions that admit of no replies
Come trembling to us on their plaintive light?
‘Alas,’ they seem to say, ‘earth's look belies
‘The tidings carried in their heavenward flight
‘By those young messengers she sent us. Yes,
‘They sung to us of earthly happiness—

LXIX

‘What have you done with it? Where is it? Who
‘Are its possessors? Yonder man, that glides
‘Down the dark alley stealthily, below
‘His cloak gleams something that he grasps and hides,
‘But can it be his happiness? Ah, no!
‘Hark! thro' the sleeping house what harsh sound grides
‘I’ the shuttered dark? Doth happiness emit
‘That sullen cry? or is it the centrebit?

LXX

‘Is it for happiness dark hands explore
‘Those rummaged coffers? Is it happiness
‘Yon woman, hovering by the half-shut door,
‘On every passing stranger strives to press?
‘Who are earth's happy ones? and where their store
‘Of undiscoverable earthly bliss?
‘Lurks it beneath the lids of eyes that keep
‘Its stolen treasures only while they sleep?’

LXXI

What to such questioners can we reply?
Is all earth's happiness a heartless boast?
Is it not lest the legend of earth's joy
Should all too soon become a legend lost,
That in their unsuspecting youth they die
Who still believe in it? And we (sad host
Of mourners!) hide our griefs, and whisper low,
Lest them, and it, our voice should disavow.

LXXII

For who would blast what those young lips have blessed?
Or who the promise they proclaimed belie?
For their sakes, Sorrow, in thine aching breast
Stifle the vain involuntary sigh!
For their sakes, Misery, be thy groans suppressed!
And smile, Old Age! Lo, as thou limpest by,
Along the hedge the honeysuckle flings
Her frolic blossoms, and the linnet sings!

CANTO III. THE WORLD.

I

‘O England, O my Country!’ These are not
The last words spoken by the lips of Pitt;
And that's unlucky, for the words have got
A fine grandiloquence that seems to fit
Lips so sententious. I've been told that what
Was really said (but I'll not vouch for it)
By that great man before death closed his eyes
Was ‘Bring me one of Bellamy's veal pies!’

II

But howsoe'er that be, O England, O
My Country, canst thou, unashamed, recall
All thou hast lived to lose without a blow,
And gain without a blush? Slav, Teuton, Gaul,
In turn deride thee, while the meanest foe
Thy menace mocks: and how ironical
Sounds History's voice when she records thy praise
Of that ‘August Ally’ of other days!

III

Praise, till he fell! Then, wast thou first to preach
The sanctimonious sermon o'er his doom;
Proclaiming all his sins, and damning each;
Tagging the moral to the dead man's tomb;
And still too dull to see thou didst impeach
Less the foiled gamester than the fawning groom
Of his good fortune, who first shared the pelf,
Then called ‘Police!’ and slyly hid himself.

IV

O England, O my Country! Is thy sun
Sunk in a fogbank bred from its own heats?
O land of Nelson, and of Wellington,
The prowess of thine armies and thy fleets
What now attests? Vain victories, soon as won
Repented and renounced—the smouldering streets
Of Alexandria—and the dead that still
Lie unavenged upon Majuba Hill!

V

Dupe of thy Sadducean policy,
That owns no spirit, trusts no future state,
Lives for the hour, and with the hour shall die!
Fortune plays fairly, and doth ne'er checkmate
Nations, or men, without the warning cry
Of ‘check!’ first given—tho' often heard too late.
But thou, long since, from east and west hast heard
(O be it not in vain!) that warning word.

VI

O England, O my Country! far and wide
The nations ask what hath become of thee,
And why thy sons repent their fathers' pride
In thy renown. What can we answer? We
Who, to protect it, have been forced to hide
Thy sullied flag! Must this the answer be?
‘Tho' rich, not proud, 'tis our especial merit
‘To join a full purse to a lowly spirit.

VII

‘What boots an empire to our burdened isle?
‘Or why retain a sway that's too extensive,
‘And costs, at least, a farthing every mile?
‘Soldiers and ships are horribly expensive.
‘At all who scoff we can afford to smile,
‘It costs us nothing to be inoffensive,
‘To avenge offence would cost us much, and still
‘We serve the gospel when we save the till.

VIII

‘Repose is gained with every province lost;
‘Let other nations boast that they are growing
‘Greater and stronger, be it still our boast
‘That we remain the richest and most knowing!
‘Our trade's the largest, and our wealth the most,
‘And while our mills and furnaces keep going,
‘And our free mart invites even foes to stock it,
‘Our pride is where it should be—in our pocket!’

IX

O England, O my Country! And hast thou
No nobler creed than ever to forsake
The feeble, fawn upon the strong, bestow
Base blessings on each upstart power, and shake
A coward's fist at every fallen brow?
Degenerate land, beware! The storm may break
On thee thyself, when skies seem most serene,
And find thee friendless—as thy friends have been!

X

Themistocles once boasted he knew how
A small State to convert into a great,
But, with less effort, our new statesmen know
How to convert into a little State
A mighty Empire. And this science now
By skilled adepts, whom none can emulate,
Is nightly taught us at that National
And Public School near Westminster's old Hall.

XI

Glenaveril, as became a youthful peer,
To whom the privilege, tho' grudged, is given,
His place upon its benches took. And here
Each afternoon, from half-past four till seven,
Inhaled the soporiferous atmosphere
Of those Elysian Meadows smooth and even,
Wherein the lordly leaders of the State
On its affairs till dinner-time debate.

XII

His station on that Bridge of Sighs he chose
(The short Cross Bench) that spans the narrow space
Between the hostile armies led by those
Last veterans of the old illustrious race
Of English Oligarchs: and, as they rose
To right and left, from this impartial place
He viewed (as, in the play, Mercutio views)
The rival Capulets and Montagues.

XIII

What stately form, in that historic hall
Now rising as the expectant cheer ascends,
Stoops the swayed outline of its stature tall,
And o'er the box upon the table bends
Brows weighty with stored thought about to fall
In unpremeditated speech, that blends
Slow-gathering forces in its wavelike swell?
Behold Cæcilius, and observe him well!

XIV

For not yet by the influence or the power
It hath attained can this chief's greatness be
Completely gauged. 'Tis growing still. His hour
Is not yet come. A force mysterious he,
By friends and foes but half-divined. A tower
That, high above their heads, beholders see
Looming aloft in cloudy solitudes:
Their course it points, but their approach eludes.

XV

Times low and little—the blind craft which loses
A cause to catch a vote—the artifice
That stoops to conquer—the sly speech that glozes
Meanness with solemn plausibilities,
Or the loud rant that upon crowds imposes—
Need not such men. Them, dunces deem unwise,
And cowards rash. But by such men alone
Great times are guided, and great deeds are done.

XVI

Let the times ripen—let the hour arise
When, from the grim inevitable crash
Of all the smooth deceits and pleasant lies
Men still deem safe, bewildered by the flash
Of knowledge known too late, they lift scorched eyes,
And stretch lamed hands to seize—not truthless trash,
But rescue from it—then, and then alone,
Thy worth, Cæcilius, shall be fully known!

XVII

Tho' born the scion of a House that boasts
Historic title to its rich domains,
Long while about the obscure and bitter coasts
Of that bleak land where Want's chill winter reigns,
The hardest labourer of those struggling hosts
Who daily dig for bread its stubborn plains,
His sad youth toiled; and from its toil hath wrought,
To enrich his manhood, treasures dearly bought.

XVIII

Treasures of deepened thought and widened life;
A well-stored memory and a ready wit;
Prone to reflection, yet inured to strife,
Alike for study and for action fit;
An English heart with high-born ardours rife;
Fervid as Fox, but national as Pitt;
And, for that cause, mistrusted by a time
When to be national is deemed a crime.

XIX

Philosopher and Paladin in one;
The soldier's courage, and the sage's lore;
A searching intellect that leaves no stone
Unturned on any path its thoughts explore;
A rush of repartee that, not alone
Dazzles, but scathes—like lightning flashing o'er
The loaded fulness of a brooding mind,
Scornful of men, but studious of mankind.

XX

Observe his mien. Above the spacious chest
The large Olympian forehead forward droops
Its massive temples, as if thus to rest
The crowded brain their firm-built bastion coops;
And the large slouching shoulder, as oppressed
By the prone head, habitually stoops
Above a world his contemplative gaze
Peruses, finding little there to praise.

XXI

And, as the outward, so the inward man,
Larger and loftier than are other men,
To meet their level must contract its span,
And stoop its height. Weak followers, now and then,
While fearless strides the chieftain in their van,
Lag in the rear so far behind that when
The victory else were won 'tis lost at last,
Because the baggage-waggons have stuck fast!

XXII

As when (ah, woe the day!) with dauntless zeal,
To save Hibernia's garrison, he drew
His trenchant blade, and his proud clarion's peal
To the Freebooters' Camp defiance blew,
What checked the hand? Why sank the lifted steel?
A murmur thro' the host behind him flew,
The baffled chief obeyed the muttered word,
‘And in the sheath, reluctant, plunged the sword.’

XXIII

But lo! where, lifting now his polished shield
To parry darts shot straighter than his own,
The supple Glaucus, smiling, takes the field:
Evades the point, with deprecating tone
Of well-bred wonder noble lords should yield
To doubts unworthy of reply: smiles down
The unanswered charge: from old Whig history quotes:
And wards off arguments with anecdotes.

XXIV

Supremely skilled to plead whatever cause
The most excìtes aristocratic fears
Before arìstocrats, and win applause
For tones that never once offend their ears;
The awful schedules of subversive laws
He cheerfully explains to shuddering peers,
And chats along, serene, complacent, gay,
Thro' bills whose clauses take your breath away.

XXV

Fine type of that fine world before the Flood!
Wherein the attributes of statesmen were
An intellectual sublimate of Good
Society; whose light elastic air
They breathed with every breath into their blood!
Statesmen to whom the State was an affair
Of tact and taste, and public life a staid
Decorous game by well-bred persons played!

XXVI

Gifted with every charm of social grace
That to ability can reconcile
The envy of that influential race,
The slow and dull, is Glaucus. With a smile
And tap he splinters battle-axe and mace;
Does all with ease; and sets on fire the Nile,
Or rides 'cross country, with the same address,
Which ne'er betrays a moment's awkwardness.

XXVII

Glaucus, a pure Patrician to the bone,
Serving Plebeian masters coarse and rough,
Seems all misplaced, as some fine Parian stone
At Smithfield used to prop a cattle trough!
Doth Misery make strange bedfellows alone,
When Glaucus, trained in arts polite enough
For the fine conduct of a Court Intrigue,
Drapes in brocade the fustian of the League?

XXVIII

But hush! while yonder amiable bore
Fumbles the dismal Blue Book's dog-eared page,
His gentle eyes for drowsy texts explore,
And the House slumbers, thro' what seems an age,
Till all his melancholy task is o'er,
Gaze we around this oratoric stage,
And mark the actors waiting to come on;
For ere 'tis dinner-time they'll all be gone.

XXIX

Manly, yet courteous, bold, but debonair,
Gallus, even ere he rises, seems to smile
With lips so frank, and such a hearty air
Of English courage, that his looks meanwhile
Both welcoming friends and wistful foes prepare
For his straightforward onset's gallant style;
A style that most from feeling wins its force,
And is, like Cæsar's, action in discourse.

XXX

Ill was the chance that, in its direst need,
From the main body of the host, which he
Beyond all others seemed so fit to lead,
This dashing soldier called away, to be
A wandering ghost on an Elysian Mead!
With what exploits of genial chivalry
Would he have cheered the sullen troops that now
Droop, waiting trumpet notes which never blow!

XXXI

Grave with each grace, mere speakers cast aside,
Of natural eloquence, by art refined
To periods that majestically glide
Like some Greek chorus,—from the bench behind
His wincing friends, Argyllus soars in pride,
And the hushed House forgets it has not dined;
While even admiring foemen feel his spell;
Let no dog bark. Behold Sir Oracle!

XXXII

With what solemnity of purpose flow
Denunciations from that fluent tongue!
Like royal horses in a coach of show
The stately gestures bear the speech along,
Step finely out, and move extremely slow.
A coach so gorgeous, drawn by steeds so strong,
For common use seems all too grandly made;
But how superb, on field days, for parade!

XXXIII

Caught from some school that else hath left no trace,
His eloquence recalls a loftier day:
And, had he then been in ‘another place,’
He might have braved, in some historic fray,
Burke's mighty sword, sustained with classic grace
Windham's skilled fence, rebuked the sprightly play
Of nimble Brinsley's pertinacious wit,
And breathed again tho' felled to earth by Pitt.

XXXIV

From those who forge, to those who wield our laws,
Turn where the cheer around the woolsack rings
While, crashing down on some ill-fated cause,
The massive mace of Caius sternly swings
Its ponderous strokes; which yet expose no flaws
In his own mail, that round the giant clings
Close rivetted with links of finest steel;
Links that no crevice to the foe reveal.

XXXV

Roused to reply, scholastic Sylvius see!
Sedate, deliberate, and severely mild;
Half priest, some hint; but all alike agree
Whole lawyer! With what learning undefiled,
(From Papist and from Puritan to free
The Church so cherished by her faithful child)
Had he but lived when our Sixth Edward died,
He could have argued law itself aside!

XXXVI

He lacks not fire, but 'tis a fire subdued;
Warm in defence, yet in attack well bred;
Calm, but not tame; in earnest, but not rude;
His speech, ingenious, leaves, when all is said,
If little that can fix the attitude
Of wavering minds to Party votes unwed,
Yet much that, in its influence, pleases friends,
And nothing that even foes rebuked offends.

XXXVII

But to Glenaveril all this stately scene
Looked dreamlike and devoid of real life,
As those phantasmal combats waged between
Heroic ghosts in Hades. From a strife
So noiseless, in a region so serene,
Oft strayed he down to where, with scalping knife
And tomahawk, more savage foemen fight
Their barbarous battles all the livelong night.

XXXVIII

And there, the sad spectator of the fray,
Its progress with a pensive pain he eyed;
To him it seemed one vast insane display
Of wasted power, and passion misapplied.
Yet, in this motley mannerless array
Of rufflers, move the men whose names with pride
Their country cherishes; and here abides
The wisdom that o'er England's fate presides.

XXXIX

Who, rising yonder, from firm lips unlocks
Words, like chained bulldogs chafing for release?
What front pugnacious! Doth he rise to box?
The Saints be thanked, your natural fears may cease!
Tho' fierce of heart as Sefton's fighting cocks,
His creed is Penn's, and his vocation Peace.
Those sturdy fists may not assault your nose,
And words must vent the instinctive wish for blows.

XL

Big words they are! If Balbo's lore be small,
Large is his utterance, and his language strong.
With what fierce bile his blows about him fall!
What stripes the stout fanatic deals the throng
Of those who, unconverted by his call,
Presume to hold his doctrine in the wrong!
He should have lived when Lenthal filled the Chair,
And led the Saints to war as well as prayer!

XLI

A later, leaner, demagogue behold
In envious Casca. Scorning argument,
His manner of persuading is to scold;
His mode of proving, to misrepresent;
By no restraints of courtesy controlled,
His words the rancour of a lifetime vent;
And, if the art of speech be to provoke,
Far better Casca speaks than Tully spoke.

XLII

More ignorant than Balbo, and with less
Redeeming faith in his own ignorance,
But better fitted to achieve success
In the rank game that's played for the main chance
By those political Macaires who guess
Each card in packs they've shuffled in advance,
Because impelled by more sustained ambition
For power, upon no matter what condition;

XLIII

Abhorring all who in men's reverence stand
Above him (and how many such there be!)
Exhausting earth's grudged dignitaries, and
Embracing Heaven's, in that abhorrence, he,
With scarce one other talent for command,
By matchless menace hath attained to be
The secret despot of a Cabinet
That dare not disregard his faintest threat.

XLIV

See, where, to cheer him from the lower hall,
His minions round the gangway congregate!
Great is their zeal, altho' their number small;
And theirslife's strongest motives—Hope, and Hate;
Hope of what ne'er hath been, and hate of all
That still is left of what were Church and State,
Each, of some revolution in the air,
A mimic Marat, or a mock Robespierre!

XLV

Alas, that lost in such a brainless brood
Sophronion's philosophic soul should be!
Can Platos be by Cleons understood?
Fastidious zealot, dost thou dream to see
The world reformed, with neither blows nor blood,
On some ideal pattern planned by thee,
When statecraft, changed to science in the schools,
Shall build republics by enlightened rules?

XLVI

That world moves slowly, but moves all the same;
Tho' ne'er, Sophronion, hath it kept the tracks
Thy dreams dictate. 'Twere better for thy fame
Hadst thou been born when Hampden braved the tax,
Eliot the Tower! In Freedom's cause and name
Thou wouldst have doomed the Stuart to the axe,
On Cromwell's ear have Vane's Reform Bill urged,
And—from the House by Colonel Pride been purged!

XLVII

Hibernia's fame Triptolemus sustains,
(‘Her old good humour and good manners too’)
When English sense from Irish wit obtains,
In his discourse, an animation new;
Fleet as Camilla's steed he ‘scours the plains,’
Cheers on the hunt with lusty view halloo!
And tho' he rides with weight, as 'tis well known,
Takes every leap, yet never yet was thrown.

XLVIII

The rostrum now Historicus ascends.
Fighting to him, for fighting's sake is dear;
And if, at times, his style your taste offends,
It charms to lusty life a Party cheer.
With Hansard tingling at his fingers' ends,
He rates the House, and yet the House cries ‘Hear!’
Such verve, such gusto, and such lively force!
The whole so clever! Must one add—so coarse?

XLIX

What fails his eloquence? It is not wit.
His jokes are pregnant, and his sneers are smart.
It is not strength. ‘A hit, a palpable hit’
In every sentence! 'Tis what fails the art
Of the praised actor who, to please the pit,
Provokes its laughter, but lets down his part,
Winks at his audience while he slaps his fob,
And turns Charles Surface into swaggering Bob.

L

Hist! who comes next? The Wizard of Finance!
Whose spell on Budget Nights each bosom thrills
Beneath a charm that turns to bright romance
Bank Charters, Consols, and Exchequer Bills;
The Sugar Duty, or the Trade with France,
Your soul, by turns, with fine emotion fills;
And squires, who tearless bore the fall of rents,
Weep for the perils of the Three-per-Cents.

LI

With what a choice variety of play
The gesture pleases, as the utterance warms,
While changing looks the changeful thoughts obey!
So would Quinctilian have composed his arms,
And so Hortensius might have paused to lay
Finger on palm, ere some new sentence charms
The listening ear with periods rich, that rise
In tones intensely dotting smallest ‘i's’!

LII

With what electric light the dark eye glows!
From lips still placid with a smile urbane
How smooth the long elaborate prelude flows
With what a rapture of sublime disdain
The quivering frame the inward passion shows!
Yet, ah!—what memories in the mind remain
Of this grand stage play, when the show is o'er?
Vox et præterea nihil—nothing more!

LIII

Burke, Fox, Pitt, Chatham, Canning, Brougham, and Peel,
All put together—by mere force of speech
Could no such faith inspire, nor fan such zeal,
As those to whom Grandævus loves to preach
(Devout as Ghazis!) in his preaching feel.
Yet this great orator's orations, each
And all, we search, and search in vain, to find
Aught of the smallest value to the mind.

LIV

Not one new truth, not one deep thought, not one
Original fancy, or profound remark!
No gleam of wit that sheds new lights upon
Old commonplaces! not a single spark
Of genius, or creative power! When gone
The living voice, we wander thro' a dark
And tedious labyrinth of words, that say
Nothing the thankful mind can bear away.

LV

The man himself, a Chillingworth in creed;
Not his the mind that in its own deep well
Finds Truth, and, trusting her still voice, doth need,
To guide his steps, no noisier oracle.
To-day stout oak, to-morrow bending reed,
According as the wind may sink or swell;
To him the weathercock's a heavenly force,
And its loud rattle regulates his course.

LVI

Men of far-reaching action are born seers,
And their intelligence is in their eyes;
That of the vulgar crowd is in its ears;
Not light, but sound, the guiding force supplies
To its blind brain. It goes by what it hears;
And, since to it the noisy seem the wise,
It dreads the thunder-clap, forgetting quite
That 'tis the lightning only that can smite.

LVII

Yet great his gift, whom multitudes of men
With shut eyes follow, shouting to the sound
His mouth emits, and dancing blindfold when
Its strains they hear: and, were it only found
With insight and true statesmanship, who then
Would wish that gift ungiven? But gaze around!
Where'er this shepherd's pipe his sheep hath led,
The paths with ruin and disgrace are spread.

LVIII

Confusion, and dismay, and wrath, and shame,
And death, and doubt, and pain, and tribulation
Are in the cup he ministers. The name
Of a once glorious and magnanimous nation,
To him entrusted, hath been bathed in blame,
And made the byeword of humiliation.
Still to prolong his shameless shameful hour
Of personally comfortable power,

LIX

Loosed, o'er a land betrayed, hath treason been,
To run, unreined, its sanguinary course;
Victims the noblest, to appease obscene
And senseless idols, slain without remorse;
And all the while, with self-admiring mien,
And throat with self-congratulation hoarse,
Soaked in his country's blood, yet blushing never,
He boasts, and bawls, and babbles on for ever!

LX

And hath it come to this (ye gods, to this!)
The sad beginning of the end of all
Free States,—when their most trusted leader is,
Not he that can do best, whate'er befall,
But he that can talk most? Adown the abyss
Of some vexed crater, whence perpetual
Rumblings resound, and rank miasmas rise,
Glenaveril seemed to gaze with sickened eyes.

LXI

His German training spoilt his English life;
He could not catch the brisk enthusiasm
Of those around him. Paltry seemed the strife,
And mad the combatants. With no sweet spasm
Of emulous pride he to their fluttering fife
And rattling drum responded. A drear chasm
Of hopes, and loves, and faiths, unsatisfied,
Him from the world he lived in did divide.

LXII

Not wholly for the public cause alone,
Do public men on public life bestow
Such passionate patientness. But he had none
Of those ambitions that, in youth's fresh glow,
The love of fame, or power, enkindles. Won
By dead men's hands, and his without a blow,
Was all that Boyhood, eager to begin
Its combat with the world, aspires to win.

LXIII

Fair was the prospect, but it failed to please;
The spoils were his before the field was fought;
And, tho' his soul disdained unwishful ease,
He strove with no man, for he wanted nought.
Not his the rapture of tired hands that seize
The poorest prize with passionate purpose sought.
Man's life, if awed, is charmed, by the unknown:
This awful charm was wanting to his own.

LXIV

Yet powers were his which might, perchance, have won,
(Had foes opposed him, or harsh fortune tried)
The goal surrendered ere the race was won:
Nor lacked his wit fine instincts oft denied
To Fame's slow pilgrims who, by plodding on,
Fulfil the dreams of that Parental Pride
Which wafts Young Hopeful on a mother's prayer
To Selborne's woolsack, or the Speaker's Chair.

LXV

And Youth has sweeter hopes, and fairer dreams,
Than those which politics can satisfy;
Its natural, and its best ambition seems
To love, and to be loved. A glancing eye,
A glowing lip, can fill with rosy gleams
Of beauty the most leaden-coloured sky
In life's first dawn; and Ivor's young heart yearned
With love's vast longings. Were they unreturned?

LXVI

Not by the Season's lovely débutantes!
All London's marriageable maidens smiled
Like ministering angels on the wants,
Still unavowed, of Fortune's thankless child.
Each beauteous bosom's sympathetic pants
Would all too willingly have reconciled
That lonely heart to the afflicting weight
Of the vast wealth it seemed to find too great.

LXVII

A thousand fond maternal souls conferred
A kind anticipative parentage
Upon the orphan. The good creatures purred
With pride in offering to his tender age
Their trusty counsel; while a heavenly herd
Of Houris hovered o'er the opening page
Of his young life, and all their wistful wings
About it fanned with amorous whisperings.

LXVIII

He might have married, had he felt inclined,
The lively Lady Adeline Adair;
No prettier brunette could Cupid find
Unwed between Belgravia and May Fair.
He might have wooed, nor found the maid unkind,
The beautiful Miss Spence, whose golden hair
Was rippled by the little Loves that heave
Entangled in sweet curls they cannot leave.

LXIX

And there were Lady Betty, Lady Jane,
And Lady Susan, jealous, for his sake,
Of that pert fairy, Clementina Vane;
Whose known vocation was to undertake
(With a good nature nothing could restrain,
Nor yet reïterated failure shake)
The amorous education, night by night,
Of each new Season's latest neophyte.

LXX

A richer prize than all, he could have won
The great Scotch heiress, Maud McLeod, whose face
And form might challenge fair comparison
With those of Manchester's Teutonic Grace.
Moulded she looked to sit superb upon
The rock-hewn throne of some heroic race,
A warrior queen, with helmet, spear, and shield;
Tall as a Walkyr, blue-eyed as Criemhild!

LXXI

But had she been, in these mild days, the bride
Of some pacific chief whose deeds are done
By means of words, she could have boldly vied
With elder rivals in the race still run
To snatch that sceptre once so deftly plied,
When thou wast still, lamented Palmerston,
The darling of the Fashion and the State,
By thine incomparably social mate!

LXXII

What hosts, for his support, would she have brought
To man, or storm, the Ministerial trenches!
What ardour breathed into those battles fought
About St. Stephens—for a change of benches!
With what a zest would her sweet lips have taught
The proper means to rid the Thames of stenches,
Or check the increase of beggary and beer,
And prove that soldiers cost a deal too dear!

LXXIII

And she could dance and flirt the livelong night,
Yet keep the rose still fresh in her young cheek;
Discuss the style of Milton's prose with Bright,
Or rally Gladstone upon Homer's Greek.
Wedded, she would have been a social light
Whose guidance Fashion had been forced to seek,
Or, Lowe's gay Pyrrha, ruled ‘that pleasant cave,’
And won Whig hearts from sprightly Waldegrave.

LXXIV

In ceremonial hours so stately she,
That all averred she was extremely fit
For an ambassadress: yet could she be
The soul of frolic when she fancied it;
Serious enough, with Stanhope after tea
To criticise the character of Pitt;
Lively enough, to laugh at Osborne's jokes,
And bet with young St. Leger on the Oaks!

LXXV

Gaily the stiffest ground she galloped over;
And on her little stage performed all parts
With equal grace; could awe the boldest lover,
And coax the shyest vote; invade all hearts,
Nor ever let her own heart's motion move her
An inch too far: for hers were Dian's darts,
Tho' Venus bound them in her zone together,
And Cupid winged them with his warmest feather.

LXXVI

Nor was it only each unwedded maid
That smiled upon Glenaveril. Matrons fair
To him in confidential tones betrayed
The disappointments they were doomed to bear
From conjugal neglect; with sighs displayed
The rents a young consoler might repair
In ravaged hearts, and hinted a regret
That they so late had their ideal met.

LXXVII

What spell withheld him from the paradise
That opened round him wheresoe'er he went?
Why gazed he with such welcomeless surprise
On those fair fruits so eager to present
Their unforbidden beauties to his eyes?
Alas, the cause of all his discontent
Was that Content had nothing left to crave
When Pleasure whispered ‘Only ask, and have!’

LXXVIII

'Twas this indifference which had saved perchance
The boy's unvalued birthright from the pot
Wherein sly Jacob puts the inheritance
Of reckless Esau, when the brew is hot,
And Thriftless Hunger craves ‘a last advance.’
But tho', like Esau, in his envied lot
Unenviably small was his delight,
Glenaveril lacked stout Esau's appetite.

LXXIX

'Twas not a soul whose sweets the world had wasted,
No heart it was, by sated passion chilled,
That left on Life's large banquet board untasted
The cup by Fortune for her favourite filled:
His boyhood's blossom no spring frost had blasted,
No canker gnawed: yet May's blithe breathings thrilled
But feebly its pure petals that reposed
In pensive peace round childhood's dreams, half closed.

LXXX

To all the affections of his life's brief past,
The loves that with his growth began and grew,
His nature clung, tenacious to the last;
He missed the comrade of his youth. No new
Endearment o'er Emanuel's image cast
Effacing spells. And now, as nearer drew
The time for their reünion, life seemed brought
To a glad pause on that one pleasant thought.

LXXXI

And here awhile will I, too, pause, to plead
My right of calling every spade a spade.
I wish each knight would saddle his own steed
Whene'er the Press proclaims its next crusade.
Men's virtues should not on men's vices feed:
But counterfeited feeling's now a trade
That all compete in. Who can say (not I!)
This Age's signature's no forgery?

LXXXII

Meek Maiden Love, what art thou nowadays?
‘Discrete attention to the eldest son!’
Filial Affection? ‘Debts my dad defrays!’
Parental Love? ‘The brat is twenty-one!’
Philanthropy? ‘A company that pays!’
Virtue? ‘Denounce the deeds by others done!’
Religion? ‘Force your clamorous catechism
‘On John and Joan, or else proclaim a schism!’

LXXXIII

Nothing is what it calls itself. And I
Myself am not a Cato, tho' I dare
Assume the Censor's office. Ask you why?
Being an honest Sinner, I can't bear
Fictitious Saints. ‘But Heaven,’ says Samuel Sly,
‘Is looking on, our dealings must be fair!’
'Faith, my wise friend, if Heaven be in the matter,
You'd best deal fairer, but you'll grow no fatter!

CANTO IV. THE COMPACT.

I

Now came that sweetest month of all the year
Ere Autumn's sigh hath Summer's smile effaced.
The seasons with the seasons interfere:
Spring chases Winter, and in turn is chased:
Winter too often, ere the leaf be sere,
Rich Autumn's treasuries ransacks in haste:
And in the midst of Nature's civil strife
The year begins and ends its troubled life.

II

Its calmest hours are in the month that blends
Summer with Autumn, when the glow of one
To the cool quiet of the other lends
A hushed voluptuous charm. And now was done
The long probation of the severed friends;
Emanuel to Heidelberg had gone,
There in Theology to graduate;
And there Glenaveril's coming did he wait.

III

Of old, some dozen leagues the traveller went,
And, having travelled, he arrived at last;
To-day he traverses a continent,
Yet neither travels nor arrives; tho' fast
Across the world he flies, securely pent
In a snug cage, with pause for brief repast
At intervals, in places that remind him
Exactly of the places left behind him.

IV

Europe exists no longer. In its place
Are railway stations. Watches supersede
Geography, and Time has swallowed Space.
‘Two hours!’ That means plain, mountain, moorland, mead,
Lake, river, sea-coast, valley, forest, chase,
Cathedrals, castles, cities. 'Tis agreed
To call this fiction's finish an arrival,
Tho' 'tis departure's horrible revival.

V

Give up your tickets, and your passport show,
Be pushed about a platform up and down,
Then, bag and baggage, off again you go,
Omnibussed darkly thro' the sleeping town,
Reach your friend's house past midnight, when you know
The family's in bed, and to your own
Creep sick, and sad, and tired, to sleep away
The recollections of a joyless day!

VI

But in the luxuries of sentiment
Glenaveril was an epicure, and he
Had so arranged, that the long-wished event
Of his reünion with his friend should be
Graced and surrounded, to his heart's content,
With all appropriate influences, free
From the fatigue, confusion, and disgust
Of those who meet, not as they would, but must.

VII

He and Emanuel on a certain day
And hour, 'twas settled, were again to meet
Upon the ruin-crested summit grey
Of Heidelberg. And now, with pausing feet,
Emanuel wound his solitary way,
Near sunset, up the mountain road, to greet
The three-years-absent comrade of a time
Dim-glimmering seen thro' Memory's misty clime.

VIII

He pressed his heart, and sighed ‘What ails me here?
‘Why lags my foot when every step brings nigh
‘The hour so wished-for, and the friend so dear?
‘Why do I shrink and hesitate? and why
‘So sinks my heart within me? Is it fear?
‘Yes! fear to find no more what memory
‘So long hath cherished, fear to find no more
‘The youth I knew, the friend I loved, of yore,

IX

‘But, in his dear and gracious semblance dressed,
‘Some stranger. I am changed, and why not he?
‘What feelings chase each other thro’ my breast,
‘And yet not one of them what it should be!
‘To fear succeeds, not faith, but an unblessed
‘And faithless curiosity. Ah, me!
‘Sufficient is one sovereign sentiment
‘To fill the heart with a divine content.

X

‘Why suffers it, about its simple throne,
‘A tribe of courtiers that prescribe to it
‘The regulated course of every one
‘Of its own acts? What suitors to admit,
‘When to give audience: when to be alone,
‘And whether silence or discourse be fit
‘To each occasion, as it comes, until
‘They leave it nothing of its natural will.

XI

‘Oh, to love ignorantly, stupidly,
‘And blindly, caring not (whate'er it be)
‘To know, or understand, the reason why!
‘Not asking Duty first to guarantee
‘This impulse, Gratitude to certify
‘That other, Prudence to safeguard Joy's free
‘Improvident path, and Justice to approve
‘The reckless liberality of Love!

XII

‘When all things change around us, why persist
‘In striving to fix firm and fast forever
‘That which of all things is the changefullest,
‘A sentiment? Vain is the heart's endeavour
‘The flux of its own feelings to resist;
‘Wave upon wave, flows by the fleeting river,
‘And what clings fastest to the bank, anon
‘We soonest lose: for we ourselves go on.’

XIII

But time was not vouchsafed him to pursue
This self-analysis. A whirlwind warm
Of hugs enwrapped him, staggered, blinded, blew
His wits about in such a sweet alarm
Of doubts rebuked, that nothing more he knew
Than that he felt thro' every pore the charm
Of being loved; an inarticulate joy
No chill reflection lingered to alloy.

XIV

Hand clasped in hand, not heeding where they went,
This way, and that way, all beatified
And breathless in a bright bewilderment,
The two friends walked, and talked, and laughed, and cried,
Questions, too rapid for reply, gave vent
To a delight that, in its haste, replied
To questions yet unasked; and both replies
And questions were but stammering ecstasies.

XV

When evening fell, and over vale and grove
And river, slowly reddening, sank the sun,
With farewell signal from the fort above
Saluted by a solitary gun,
Together seated in the dim alcove
Of a small hillside garden, overrun
With Autumn's scarlet creeper, they at last,
Into coherent conversation passed.

XVI

To greet the arrival of the wished-for time
With honour due, Glenaveril had broached
A flagon old of golden Rudesheim:
And, while its genial influence encroached
On the reserve that clings, like morning rime,
To all unwonted joys, he thus approached
The subject which, tho' long deprived of speech,
Had occupied for years the thoughts of each.

XVII

‘Dost thou remember, my Emanuel,
‘The promises we pledged to one another,
‘On that sad morning of our last farewell?
‘Then we were children, both of us, my brother.
‘Children we are no longer, but—ah well,
‘We still are young enough to mourn a mother!
‘Our choice in life upon ourselves depends:
‘But one thing both must choose—to still be friends!

XVIII

‘I know not yet thy projects—Hush! anon
‘We will discuss them—But, whate'er they be,
‘There's one condition I insist upon,
‘They must not separate my friend from me.
‘Nay, speak not yet! I have but half begun
‘What I have waited years to say to thee.
‘Save when on some assured affection based,
‘Life drifts like sand by every wind displaced;

XIX

‘And hence it was man's earliest act on earth
‘To build a hearth, and found a family;
‘But we, the heirs of an unfamilied hearth,
‘Have nothing to hold on to, but the tie
‘Fate hath between us woven from the dearth
‘Of all life's other bonds; and that is why,
‘If this tie snaps, our loosened lives must fall
‘Asunder, lacking any tie at all.

XX

‘Marriage? Ah, yes—across an unknown sea
‘A voyage of adventure to find out
‘An unknown world! And which of us may be
‘Its Christopher Columbus? For no doubt
‘We cannot all be fortunate as he.
‘Better the world that we know all about!
‘Sweeter the paths that to the past are true,
‘And dearer the old faces than the new!

XXI

‘Moreover, marriage is youth's tomb, they say;
‘And who would bury youth ere youth be dead?
‘Our own is in the blossom of its May,
‘And on its branches still the buds are red.
‘Enough! The fate that took so soon away
‘Those who might else thy steps and mine have led
‘By paths perchance diverging far and wide,
‘Hath left us free to travel side by side.

XXII

‘And left us, also, in misfortune shared,
‘One common heritage; a constant one,
‘Whose equalised effect hath half repaired
‘The wrong by fortune to our friendship done
‘Thro' inequalities which, if compared
‘By vulgar standards (tho' by them alone)
‘Seem vast indeed. But I have long devised
‘How even these may all be equalised.

XXIII

‘A fortune larger than its owner's need
‘Of all that it can give him, larger than
‘The liberty it leaves him, is indeed
‘Only a splendid burden to the man
‘Whose life supports it; and were mine but freed
‘From half that burden which, as best it can,
‘It bears unshared and unenjoyed, how blessed
‘Would be its free enjoyment of the rest!

XXIV

‘Who but a bosom friend could render me
‘This service? And what friend have I, but one?
‘There's no one I can crave it of but thee.
(‘Peace! interrupt me not. I've not half done.)
‘Thus halved, our fortune will twice doubled be.
‘The paths wealth smooths for steps that stray alone
‘Allure me not. My life hath no ambition,
‘Nothing can hurt or better its condition.

XXV

‘Nought for myself do I desire, and none
‘For what he hath I envy. Me the zest
‘Of emulation moves not. I have known
‘No pleasure in life's pleasant things possessed
‘Without an effort. Oh to share, with one
‘I loved, some common human interest!
‘Thou know'st that England's public life is free
‘To every man, whate'er his birth may be.

XXVI

‘Nowhere does Prejudice with Reason live
‘On better terms; and nowhere else does wealth
‘Give to its getter more than birth can give
‘In thine own land, where merit, save by stealth,
‘Without a pedigree can scarce contrive
‘To climb to power. Now pledge me to the health
‘Of Sir Emanuel Miller, K.C.B.
‘Called to the future Cabinet with me!’

XXVII

‘I drink,’ Emanuel answered, ‘to the most
‘Unselfish heart, the noblest nature too,
‘In England! And’ (he added, as he tossed
‘His glass down) ‘to the faithful friend, the true,
‘The grateful, servant of a generous host,
‘Emanuel, son of Gottfried Müller, who,
‘A Heidelberg licentiate, to the cure
‘Of souls is called. Heaven keep his calling pure!

XXVIII

‘Nay, be not disappointed or surprised,
‘Dear Ivor,’ he went on, ‘nor take it ill,
‘That thy kind wish is more than realised
‘In the delight I feel to find thee still
‘All thou hast been. That gift is not despised
‘Which gratitude resigns with tears that fill
‘An overflowing heart. The slave of pride
‘And prejudice, believe me not!’ He sighed;

XXIX

And stretched his own to grasp Glenaveril's hand.
‘Ah no! the joy of pure beneficence,
‘The blessedness of hearts that have it, and
‘The heaven that glows in hearts whose grateful sense
‘Rejoices to receive, I understand.
‘But never unrebuked from Providence
‘Hath man usurped the power to separate
‘The future from the past of human fate.

XXX

‘A Will Divine hath at our birth confided
‘To each of us a stringent, tho' concealed,
‘Direction how our course must needs be guided
‘Towards a goal that's by our growth revealed;
‘And, like the captain of a ship, provided
‘Ere he sets forth to sea with orders sealed,
‘Life's voyager learns only in mid sea
‘Both what he is, and what he is be.

XXXI

‘The duties Heaven hath charged him with, he then
‘Discovers, when he can no longer steer
‘His bark, tho' storms may threaten it, again
‘Back to the port he sailed from. Trust me, dear
‘And honoured friend of now and always, when
‘I own it cost me a prolonged, severe,
‘And sorely bitter struggle to subdue
‘All that once strove to prove this truth untrue;

XXXII

‘All my youth's natural cravings! all the wild
‘And passionate promptings of a rebel heart!
‘I know, too well, my nature is not mild,
‘As my vocation must be. Loth to part
‘With what I loved to keep, but unbeguiled,
‘I have cut off my hand, and still the smart
‘Lingers; plucked out mine eyes, and still the light
‘Of heaven afflicts my mutilated sight.

XXXIII

‘Thy confidence I would, but cannot, share
‘In the duration of those sentiments
‘Which to thy fond imagination are
‘As Heaven's vicegerents, or at all events
‘Its messengers, commissioned to declare
‘Authentically its divine intents.
‘Of all things insubordinate to will,
‘The subtlest seems emotion's mystic thrill.

XXXIV

‘'Tis most withdrawn from reason's rule, and so
‘The most susceptible, from hour to hour,
‘To all that changes with the ebb and flow
‘Of that obscure incalculable power
‘Men call fatality. But well I know
‘The law that to the leaf allots the flower,
‘And to the plant the soil, my place on earth
‘Hath fastened to the race that gave me birth.

XXXV

‘Protest not! Change is nature's common right.
‘We form not our affections. It is they
‘That do form us; and form us in despite
‘Of our poor protests. Nothing we can say,
‘Or do, will make life's temperature be quite
‘The same to-morrow as it is to-day.
‘The wind blows where it lists, and no man knows
‘Whence the wind comes, or whither the wind goes.

XXXVI

‘Because we must, and not because we choose,
‘We change. Let Age remember and regret
‘The generous ardours that no more suffuse
‘Its sober cheek; thus honouring them yet
‘Better than when with imitated hues
‘Of youth, that blushing without bliss, beget
‘Only a hypocritical grimace,
‘It paints the wrinkles of a withered face.

XXXVII

‘If aught of thy rich heritage I may
‘Not meanly envy, Ivor, it is still
‘The grand device Glenaveril sois vrai.
‘When first I read the scroll those three words fill
‘Graved on the gates of that storm-beaten, grey,
‘Grandæval home of thine, I felt a thrill,
‘As one to whom some voice, expected not,
‘Recalls an order that hath been forgot.

XXXVIII

‘Oh, what sublimer than the solemn cry
‘Of an ancestral mandate, all along
‘The listening years transmitted from on high
‘By ancestor to ancestor? The throng
‘Of generations, each as it goes by,
‘In turn reëchoes that heart-thrilling song,
‘Which is a law to those of whose high names
‘The duties and traditions it proclaims.

XXXIX

‘Alas! my name is one I cannot find
‘Among the records of events that share
‘In shaping the traditions of mankind.
‘My father, and my father's father, were
‘Shepherds whose own sheep knew them: and to bind
‘My present to their past, that I may bear
‘Some part in the transmission of a type,
‘Mine too must be the shepherd's crook and pipe.

XL

‘I care not—peasant, burgher, prince, or priest—
‘Whate'er the rank assigned me, were but I
‘A step among the reckoned steps at least
‘Of the great ladder of Humanity.
‘But, ere the birth of my grandfather, ceased
‘The record of my race. In vain I try
‘To trace three lives from mine thro' death's deep night,
‘That to my search vouchsafes no gleam of light.

XLI

‘Whoe'er he was, my great-grandfather drew
‘The ladder after him, or flung it down.
‘The People (my progenitor) ne'er knew
‘Itself, nor to itself will e'er be known.
‘It springs from, and anon subsides into,
‘A nameless characterless crowd, whose own
‘Existence is but a congested clot
‘Of life, not born, but casually got.’

XLII

‘Ah,’ sighed Glenaveril, with reproachful face,
‘And wouldst thou rather, then, from age to age
‘Reckon the grim procession of thy race
‘By slaughtered corpses, strewn at every stage
‘Beneath the sword or axe, to keep the trace
‘Of blood unbroken down the dismal page
‘Of chronicled catastrophes?’ And ‘Ay,’
‘Emanuel answered quickly, ‘that would I!’

XLIII

‘I would the ladder, on whose lowest rung
‘I stand upgazing thro' the dark, were propped
‘Against a scaffold, whence the axe that swung
‘Above my head continually dropped
‘The ancestral blood from which mine own had sprung,
‘Rather than know my life's short lineage stopped,
‘Annulled, expunged, beyond my power to guess
‘Its cancelled source in nameless nothingness.

XLIV

‘'Tis well, 'tis natural, that the grain which grows
‘Along our valleys should remember not
‘The Caucasus it came from. Over those
‘Whose growth is reaped in one unreckoned lot,
‘The recollection of lost grandeur throws
‘No individual grace. 'Tis best forgot.
‘But oh, that immortality should be
‘The dunce of time, unable to count three!

XLV

‘In this loose series of existences
‘I fain would link the future to the past,
‘By such a life as may, at least, express
‘Some purpose common to them both, held fast
‘By sire and son with pious faithfulness
‘To one pure type, the same from first to last.
‘Still honoured doth my grandsire's memory stand
‘Among the theologians of our land;

XLVI

‘He to a piety severe united
‘An erudition splendid and profound,
‘That made his name redoubtable. A lighted
‘And lofty beacon, all the region round
‘Its blaze illumined, rallying Faith's benighted
‘And straying children. 'Twas a name renowned
‘In Lutheran Theology. Then came
‘My father, who made loveable that name;

XLVII

‘Winning to it the benedictions deep
‘Of those whose lives his own had comforted
‘In its short ministry. His quiet sheep
‘On Hermon's freshest dews the shepherd fed,
‘Or soft, by lawns where Kedron's wavelets sleep
‘In sabbath sweetness lulled, their steps he led.
‘His sermons, if I published them, would bring
‘Fresh solace to a world of suffering.

XLVIII

‘Have not the pages of à Kempis been
‘As often as the Bible's self almost
‘Reprinted? I myself can count eighteen
‘Hundred editions of them. What a host
‘In one!—as many as the years between
‘The Saviour's death and this sad age, whose boast
‘Is to save nothing, but let all die out,
‘And, doubting faith, to still put faith in doubt.

XLIX

‘Thou seest that, even in those two lives alone,
‘I lack not some hereditary base
‘Whereon to fix and edify mine own.
‘I have the will, too, and the wish for grace
‘And strength the labours of those lives to crown.
‘But have I the vocation?’ (There his face
‘Darkened.) ‘St. Paul once doubted of his own.
‘What's faith, but doubt incessantly kept down?

L

‘Or walking, but a tendency to fall
‘Each footstep is an effort to suspend?
‘Or life itself, but death's continual
‘Postponement? Far as Nature's realms extend,
‘This conflict with its contrary, in all
‘That lives and acts, goes on without an end.
‘And now, my brother, my heart's loved, and blessed,
‘First, last, and only friend,—what is, is best!

100

LI

‘Pledge me one toast, the sweetest, and the last,
‘To Cæsar Cæsar's due! For I declare
‘The Cæsar that I honour is the Past,
‘Whose empire is Remembrance. Young and fair
‘Are all the loves that live there. Time's chill blast
‘Can blight them not. Change cannot reach them there.
‘To them be this libation!’ ‘Ah, but why
‘All for the Past?’ said Ivor with a sigh,

LII

‘And nothing for the Future?’ ‘Nay,’ replied
‘Emanuel, ‘To the Future I concede
‘Its due—to be the Past, in turn. Decide
‘Its worth till then, who can? Not I, indeed!
‘The eldest sister was the first-wed bride
‘In Israel's family; and 'twas agreed
‘The latest married should the youngest be.’
‘O Laban, Laban!’ Ivor sighed, ‘to me

LIII

Thou givest Leah, when the bride I sought
‘Was Rachel.’ ‘Jacob,’ laughed Emanuel,
‘Got Rachel too; and, by a lucky thought,
‘Contrived to get, along with her as well,
‘All the striped cattle.’ ‘They were dearly bought,’
Said Ivor, with a half-perceptible
Scorn in his accent, ‘by a sly deceit.
‘But be it so. Myself I cannot cheat.

101

LIV

‘Yet, so to serve my friend as Isaac's son
‘Served Rachel's wily father, I exact
‘A pledge, a compact, no impossible one.’
‘Good!’ said Emanuel, ‘name it, and the pact
‘I'll sign, upon the faith of Laban.’ ‘Done!
‘But this acceptance shall be better backed
‘Than by the faith of Laban. Brother, lay
‘Thy hand in mine. Heed well, too, what I say!’

LV

And, as the adept adjures the neophyte,
Glenaveril resumed. ‘As sure as now
‘I hold thy hand in mine, Emanuel, plight
‘To me this promise, and hold fast the vow.
‘Soon as thy studies here, completed quite,
‘Have closed the respite I till then allow,
‘Thou thro' the world awhile with me shalt go:
‘My “yes” shall be thy “yes,” my “no” thy “no.”

LVI

‘And all this while shalt thou to me belong;
‘But, like those comrades of the days of old,
‘The heroes of the Niebelungen song,
‘Who with each other in their battles bold
‘Exchanged their arms; so, moving thro' the throng
‘And rabble of a world that takes for gold
‘Whatever glitters, thou my name shalt bear,
‘I thine, and each the other's vesture wear.

102

LVII

‘If, after this, thou still persist in trying
‘To offer Heaven to others, and to me,
‘Thine earliest petitioner, denying
‘That handful of poor earth I offer thee,
‘I then must needs correct myself of sighing
‘For a felicity that's not to be,
‘And be contented with a lesser claim
‘On thy regard; which it remains to name.

LVIII

‘My marriage, when its destined hour is come,
‘Thou, with due ritual done, shalt solemnise:
‘My children, in the water carried home
‘From Jordan by us two, shalt thou baptise:
‘And if I die before thee (since by some
‘Mischance, untimely, each Glenaveril dies)
‘Then shalt thou bury me, where now thou hast
‘Buried youth's dreams—in a remembered past.

LIX

‘Swear it!’ ‘'Tis sworn, but comprehended not,
‘Wherefore this masquerade?’ ‘For the salvation
‘Of thy life's happiness, 'tis love's last plot.
‘Emanuel, I trust not thy vocation
‘To apostolic holiness. The lot
‘Thy stubborn fancy deems the destination
‘Of thy proud spirit, would but blight and kill
‘All of thy better self that lingers still.

103

LX

‘Wear, for awhile, a name that represents
‘Some little portion of earth's soil possessed
‘By him that wears it; and at all events
‘Thou wilt have put thy nature to the test,
‘Roused into life its latent elements,
‘And gained a new experience. For the rest,
‘No harm befalls thee if the experiment
‘Should haply disappoint mine own intent.’

LXI

‘Bene! præclare!’ laughed Emanuel.
‘Whoever founded the Four Faculties
‘Ought to have joined to them a fifth as well,
‘Giving to all who have taken its degrees
‘As many acres of good arable
‘Land of their own; then I, by means of these,
‘Might be a real land-owner, and not die
‘A simple Doctor of Divinity.’

LXII

‘Nay, but,’ said Ivor, ‘that Fifth Faculty
‘Exists already.’ ‘Where? In what sublime
‘Ideal University? Oh ay,
‘The University of Rudesheim!’
Emanuel answered. ‘One more glass! that I
‘May graduate in it while there yet is time!’
Said Ivor, ‘Its degrees need no rehearsal;
‘Its university is universal;

104

LXIII

‘And Friendship is the name of it.’ ‘Well said!’
Emanuel sighed. ‘Dear friend, the way that seems
‘The shortest to it is the way to bed.
‘Come! let us seek it in the land of dreams.’
And, saying this, he rose. Thick overhead
The night was strewn with stars: the moon's pure beams
In silver panoplied the castled hill:
Lights twinkled underneath: and all was still.

LXIV

All but the rustling of the moonlit stream;
For silent was the sleeping town below,
And nothing stirred but the unquiet gleam
Of the reflected lamps, whose ruddy glow
Shook in the tremours of a quivering team
Of sparkles shaken by the tide's swift flow.
Slowly the two friends, arm in arm enlaced,
Along the downward-sloping pathway paced—

LXV

Back to that fortress of Philosophy
Where Science stores inflammatory dust,
And yearly trains her young recruits to ply
Keen weapons, sharpened for quick cut and thrust
By masters of the lore of How and Why;
Whose sapience is, to Nature's wisdom, just
As are the gleams from clustered candles given,
To the far splendours of the stars of heaven.

END OF BOOK THE FIRST.

“Nenn'ich Sakontala dich, und so ist alles gesagt.”—Goethe.