Spindrift :: :: University of Virginia Library

And Heaven seemed near her life to guard,
Lest sin should smirch or woe befall—
And now! The riddle, friend, is hard
To read—but God is over all! . . .

I met her first at her uncle's place,
Up in the North, in the autumn time;
And I felt, the moment I saw her face,
Rich with the hues of a sunnier clime—

Caught the first flash of her eyes' wild-fire,
Her great brown eyes, half bold, half shy,—
That here was the goal of my Life's desire:
That to win her love I could gladly die.

She was reading, and quickly raised her head,
With its dusky glory of chestnut hair,
As I entered; and blushing a sudden red
From brow to bosom, rose from her chair—

Rose with a formal bow, nor cast
A second glance to where I stood,
But out betwixt the roses past,
Out through the roses into the wood.

I scarce knew how,—'twas like a dream!
But ere next night had reached its noon,
In silence by a silent stream
We stood together beneath the moon.

There was a sighing aloft in the pine,
A stirring below in the dewy grass,
As her eyes met mine in the dim moonshine,
And I felt their look like lightning pass

Through all my frame to the utmost tips
Of my very hair; and, mad with the bliss
That glance foretold, against her lips
My heart leapt forth, and died in a kiss.

And all that could be was confest;
And we plighted our love-troth kneeling there,
Her hot cheek pillowed on my breast,
My dim eyes hidden in her hair:

While overhead the wind grew loud,
And a moan came up from the midnight main,
And the moon set, quenched in watery cloud,
And the leaves fell fast with the falling rain,

And thunder woke with voice of dole
The mountain echoes far and wide;
But heart to heart, soul blent with soul,
What recked we! Rapt and glorified

Beyond mortality, afar
From earth, or touch of earthly care,
To some lone paradisal star,
Through gulfs of warm ambrosial air,

We seemed to float; while new-born Love
Before us moved on plumes of flame;
And unseen harps, around, above,
Broke into music where we came!—

The whole thing was foolish enough, good sooth!
Nay, mad—as such things are apt to be;
Yet, better the generous frenzy of youth,
Than the ossified wisdom of such as we!

This head, old friend, is waxing grey,
The blood in these veins lags dull and slow;
But I shall not forget till my dying day
That autumn midnight long ago! . . .

Swift passed the hours, as hours will pass
With youth and love linked hand-in-hand;
Time, crowned with roses, shook his glass,
With nectar flowing, not with sand.

Till one day a Viscount arrived from the south,
A cousin, or something, to banker Toots:
A small grey man with foxy mouth,
A padded waistcoat and stridulous boots;

A sneering nostril, an eye like glass,
Whose look was an insult: as though it said,
“Of course you are either rogue or ass,
For all men rank under either head!”

His wealth was unbounded, not so his wit.
Broad were his acres, but narrow his views;
As I ventured to tell him across the Lafitte:
A bêtise, no doubt; but I did not choose

To fall down and worship, as they seemed to do,
(Not she though) their beggarly golden calf,—
Their pinchbeck noble; nor swallow in lieu
Of grain, his mildewed conventional chaff.

I bow to the Noble of noble birth
Whose sires have led us in peace and war;
I bow to the Worker whose innate worth
Has won him coronet or star;

But to him who enters by crime or stealth—
And the like has been, or records lie—
Or storms by the mere brute-force of wealth
“The Palace of Honoure”—I' faith, not I!

You can fancy his rage, through its thin disguise
Of a “high-bred” smile—for he spoke not a word:
You can guess how the scorn of avuncular eyes
Transfixed the poor fool who could snub a lord!

You can picture the stately materteral form—
A full-blown Atè, big with doom!
As she rose from the board in a silken storm,
And rustled tempestuous out of the room!

But I knew by the quick scared look She cast
O'er her gleaming shoulder, as, still and pale,—
Her lips in her bouquet,—she glided past,
I had uttered truth that should bring us bale. . . .

That night the gibbous moon, in red
And lurid vapour looming low,
Its faint funereal radiance shed
On two young faces blanched with woe.

For in the fir-wood we had met;
And she had told how, but that morn,
My lord his brandnew coronet
Had proffered: how undowered, forlorn,

Scared by loud threats, by memories moved,
She durst not own our love, nor claim
Her right to wed but where she loved.
—They meant her well,—she would not blame,

—Yet, they were worldlings to the core,
She knew—had plotted, cringed, and lied,
That their fair ward should evermore
Be wretched, and this lordling's bride.

“Sooner, ah! sooner death,” she cried,
“A thousand deaths, than such a fate!”
But yet they would not be denied,
And on the morrow would await

Her acquiescence. I implored,
While yet her soul from stain was free,
That she should snap the toils abhorred,
And, far away in Italy—

Far in the glorious land we loved
And sighed for, as a lover sighs
For the belovèd—safe removed
From “the world's” atmosphere of lies;

From fashion's ignominious rule
Enfranchised—build a heavenward life:
Free, earnest, truthful, dutiful,—
Happy, although a poor man's wife.

Upon her streaming eyes she prest
My hands; and, “No—no—no,” she said;
“Thine am I; but to wait is best.
Why did they call the sacred dead

“To bend me to their will, and thwart
The holiest instincts of the soul!
Thine am I! and though now we part,
We love and trust!—Let this control

“Our anguish!” . . . I will not betray
The secrets of that parting hour.
Enough—we parted. And ere day
Once more awakened bird and flower

About the woodlands, I had fled
My Eden, ne'er to view again,
Save when in dreams by memory led,
The glories of its bright domain. . . .

And She?—Ere long a blotted scroll—
Blotted, and blurred, and dank with tears—
Came, the blind anguish of her soul
Outpouring to the only ears,

She said, that under heaven's deaf cope
Could hear or pity. All, she said,
Was over: even the last frail hope
That He would spare. Escape or aid

Nowhere in all the desolate earth!
But weak, alone, she yet had striven,
As one who knew the priceless worth
Of all at stake, for earth and heaven.

In vain! Too weak to stem the tide,
Her life lay wrecked; and ah, the shame!
My darling was another's bride:
Could I forgive her? With this came,

Bedded in moss, a long bright tress
Of her soft hair. See, it is here,
Old friend; but gone its loveliness,
And gone its perfume many a year!

But it is all remains of what
She was; and so—I let it lie
Close to my heart; and scorn me not
If there you find it when I die.

Well, ere next April's moon had rolled
Its course, the “joyous” marriage-bells
Proclaimed the poor young creature sold—
Sold, soul and body, at “All-Swells.”

But a Christian bishop performed the rite;
And ladies great of spotless fame,
And three live lords of mickle might—
In short, the very crême de la crême,

As “Jenkins” phrased it—came to bear
Their part in the splendid sacrifice,
And drink “long life” to the happy pair
In choice champagne sublimed in ice.

And over all his wide domains
(Each bought “a bargain,” safe and clear!)
The noble British peasant drains
Their health in noble British beer.

And tradesmen (noble British) dress
Their “fronts” in greens, and bunting gay
That flaunts its gaudiest, to express
Their joy on “this auspicious day

Which sees united”—and so forth;
While corporations puff in state,
With tenantry from south and north,
To cheer them as they pass the gate,

All bows and smiles, to their marriage bowers,
Where brass-bands blare, and cannon fire,
And the village children scatter flowers—
What more could woman's heart desire?

What more?—She was only seventeen—
A beauty—the wife of a wealthy peer—
With jewels that had been admired by the Queen,
And a jointure of fabulous thousands a-year.

And yet, I fear it must be confessed,
That in vain the foolish creature strove
To stifle the hunger that gnawed her breast—
The want of a little human love.

So in midst of her splendours “my lady” pined;
As in a dream her stately part
Enacting, with a wandering mind,
A languid eye, and a famished heart.

And he, the pitiful Sham, who had snared
This warm young Life to his groosum bed,
Wrapt in himself, nor knew, nor cared,
So her lip still smiled, how her lone heart bled:

He had bought his estates—his pedigree—
His rank. And a Lady, too, of course,
His grandeur required; so, as we see,
He bought that also—for better, for worse.

And a good round price he had certainly paid—
As he told her ere long with venomed sneers.
'Twas proved, too, he struck her before her maid,
One night when he found her ill and in tears,

When she should have been wreathing her rosiest smiles
Round some great man down-stairs, with a cordon-bleu,
And a place to dispose of—trapped by his wiles
To dine with the noble parvenu.

Yet she strove, poor outraged girl, to fulfil
Her part of the compact; but ever with worse
Success as her strength gave way.—Until
The Tempter came—all good men's curse

On his cowardly head!—and she fell—she fell,
In her beauty, her youth and her loneliness—
And no one to pity! I need not dwell
On the mournful Trial: our lynx-eyed press

Took care the world at large should see
How step by step it had all come about:
In the cause of outraged morality
And social purity—who can doubt!

And Society? Ah! with an upturned eye
It gathered its white robes rustling wide—
Too pure for such contact—and passed her by,
Like the Pharisee, on the other side.

Or rather, with kidded fingers, piled
Its own rank sins on her erring soul,
And drove her with curses—a thing defiled—
Forth into the wilderness. No goal,

No rest for her wounded feet, that yearn
To tread life's “pastures green” once more.
Alas!—for such there is no return,
No resting-place but the Dead-sea shore.

Yet, however “shocking” the notion may be,
I can't help thinking, that even for this
Poor scapegoat of man's iniquity,
Hunted to death by the Nemesis

That tracks the reeking slot of sin,—
Near or more distant, but ever sure!—
The blood of the crucified Lord may win
('Twas shed for All) the garment pure!

But my story flags; and I own I shrink
From the terrible worse that yet remains;
And linger, as mourners do at the brink
Of a grave, ere resigning the ark that contains

Their dead to its dark and grisly fold.
I have kept the secret lockt in my heart;
But the night wears apace, and it must be told,
Though voice may falter and tears may start. . . .

I was then in the East—had rushed abroad
At the time of the marriage, I scarce knew where;
Driven on like a beast by the fiery goad
Of baffled passion. In blind despair

For three long years I wandered on—
By southern cape—by northern floe—
Through teeming city—o'er pampas lone—
As one might, stunned by mortal blow,

Round whom in dim phantasmal reel
Life, death, hope, passion, joy, and pain,
With deafening tumult rave and wheel,
But leave no impress on the brain.

Long had all selfish love been dead,
But tenderest pity wrung me still
For her. And one dark, shadowy dread,
Prophetic of impending ill,

Haunted my footsteps day and night,
And like a spectre ever stood
Between me and the blessed light
And warmth of life, chilling my blood

With horror, till I even feared
The insensate wind that passed me by;
As though each babbling gust I heard
Bruited aloud her infamy.

What! no more wine? I must, though. Well,
It reached me at last on the Upper Nile,—
The tale of her ruin. Warm sunlight fell—
I see it now!—on the sacred isle

Where, under obelisk, pillar, and palm,
That from the lake like a vision rise,
Lone-lapt in everlasting calm
Asleep divine Osiris lies;

While by his couch, where none intrude
Of mortal race, two shadows vast—
Silence and Darkness—ever brood
O'er awful memories of the past.

The unearthly beauty of the spot
With magic balm had touched my brain;
Till—all the fleeting now forgot—
I felt the young world rise again

Around me: huge majestic shades
Of gods, and godlike kings who built,
Slew, died; proud queens, dark-bosomed maids
For whose fierce love men's blood was spilt

Like rain, on blazing Libyan sands,
Or wastes of Kush; swift chariot-swarms
Rolling o'er desolated lands
With neigh of steed and clash of arms;

Mysterious rites in temples dim,
Of Thoth or Phtha; voluptuous dance
Of Ethiop girls, with lithesome limb
And dark imperial countenance;

Far moanings of barbaric horn,
Low silver-thrills of lyre and lute,
Clear sistrum-clang, and wail forlorn,
Round mystic Ark of voice and flute.

Like billows o'er a vapoury sea,
They came and flitted o'er my soul,
As backward from eternity
The vanished ages seemed to roll,

Teeming with warm tumultuous life:
Pride's haughty flush, the glow and stress
Of anger, the exultant strife
Of hate, love's dewy tenderness.

But as a wretch condemned, from dreams
Of youth's fair dawn awakes to hear
The hammering of his scaffold beams,
And the grim deathsman shuffling near:

So, with sick pause and mortal pang
Of heart, from Fancy's dream I woke,
Stung by a voice that gaily rang,
Though each light syllable it spoke

Clove deep, as with an edge of flame,
My life's red core, and did devour
Its essence. O, my God! the shame,
The anguish of that wakening hour!

And there, in ducks and sportsman's hat,
Puffing his perfect weed in peace
Up the blue heaven, the speaker sat
(He had come all that way to shoot some geese—

The fratricide!—from England fresh,
And moral quagmires of the town),
Unravelling blandly, mesh by mesh,
The net of doom that had dragged her down.

I listened—questioned, calm and cold,
Though fire was raging in heart and brain;
Nor, when the ghastly tale was told,
Betrayed by word or look my pain.

But when at last the long day died,
O'er hot Sahara's quivering sand,
And from the zenith, starry-eyed,
The night looked down serene and grand,

I—well, amongst other things, I packed
My traps for home; got under way
My boat—by grumbling fellahs tracked
Against a head-wind—long ere day.

And, the breeze lulling with the light,
Down-hurrying with the hurrying stream,
Kom-ombos, ere the second night,
Loomed shadowy o'er our starboard beam.

And ever down, through day and dark,
With wind, or stream, or groaning oar,
Swiftly or slowly slid our bark,
Silent and sad, as though it bore

O'er mournful Acherusian waves
A soul to judgment. All unseen
High temples—immemorial graves
Of kings, as though they had not been;

Or noted but as points to log
Our course by. Down, unresting, down,
Through noon's mirage, through midnight's fog,
By glimmering desert and gleaming town.

Each morn, from Araby the blest
The young dawn danced with golden hair;
Each eve, adown the gorgeous west
The love-star swooned in rosy air.

Night after night, through violet gloom
The fair moon climbed with silver feet,
Shedding o'er river, tower, and tomb,
Her mystic radiance, faint and sweet.

I only saw one pale, sad face,
That with unearthly glory burned,
Through darkness of its dire disgrace:—
One pale, sad, sinful face, that yearned

Across the desolate waste of years,
And shame, and woe—two ghostly eyes
Gleaming on mine through blinding tears,
With the wild gaze of one who dies

Repentant of some mighty wrong,
But unconfessed and unforgiven;
And with a passionate pity, strong
As death, I prayed all-pitying Heaven,

Even yet, from those fair erring lips,
To dash sin's hideous kava-bowl,
And save, even in its dark eclipse
Of hope, her poor bewildered soul.

So night and day, my swarthy band
Of oarsmen toiled—alas! in vain;
For, ere I well had got to land
At Cairo, fever took my brain.

And there for weeks I raving lay,
'Mid stifling heat and odours foul:
Hearing the pest-fly buzz by day;
Hearing the dogs at midnight howl.

Still haunted by the monstrous shapes
Demoniac, of the infant world;
Mummies of men, bulls, reptiles, apes
Obscene, in gusty darkness whirled,

'Mid thundrous voices of the gods,
And shriek of ghosts despairing, hid
In dim Amenti's drear abodes,
Under Night's rayless pyramid.

And ever, through the huge dismay
And anguish of some nameless woe,
Her voice would call me—far away—
In piteous wailings, wild and low.

As through a subterraneal sea,
Cumbered with shoals of pallid dead,
Dumb-weltering in my agony,
I seemed to follow where she led—

To reach her never! But at last,
All helpless as a stranded wreck,
I found myself—the fever past—
Stretched on a schooner's breezy deck,

Steering for England; by my side
A dear old schoolmate, Harry Wylde—
Rich, but as gentle as a bride;
High-born, yet simple as a child.

He had heard of my troubles when with his yacht
At Paphos; and, dashing at once across,
Lugged me on board at Damiat,
Like the good fellow he ever was.—

He fell at the Alma—rest his soul! . . .
And O! what joy it was to feel
Once more the sleek hull's heave and roll,
And the long lithe bound of the quivering keel!

What joy to hear the wind once more
Sing loud in tackle and snowy sail;
To hear the big sea's rush and roar;
To feel the stress of the gathering gale,

That, blow where it listeth, must bear us on!
To catch from the plunge of the shearing prow,
The soft, salt spindrift swiftly blown,
Like sea-nymphs' tresses, o'er lip and brow!

To feel, through all one's tingling veins,
The kingly joy that danger gives,
When the gunwale dips and the strong mast strains;
O! then—'tis then, one knows he lives!

Too weak as yet in mind and frame
For aught beyond the sole, sweet sense
Of life new-found, morn went and came,
Nor stirred the Elysian indolence

That held my being thralled, as though
Nepenthè I had drunk, or fed
On lotos. All the gathered woe
Of years—the shame, the fear—had fled,

As, through the gusty Cyclades,
We tacked and veered, day after day;
Fanned by the same Ægæan breeze,
That wont in Homer's locks to play,

While, the great Epos yet unsung,
He trimmed the sail or plied the oar,
A keen-eyed mariner, bold and young,
Roving from sunny shore to shore.

My thirsting fancy—drinking in,
As ether light, all hues, all forms,
All sounds of nature—in the din
Of traffic, in the voice of storms,

The hush of starry midnight—caught
Heroic tones from days of old;
The great sea sang me, wonder-fraught,
Majestic music manifold;

While, by his genius, captive drawn,
I seemed in visionary trance
To float for ever, on and on,
Through golden cycles of romance:

Till the far, rosy depths of morn,
Grew quick with Presences divine;
The sunny squall in splendour borne
Athwart the purple hyaline

Revealed the white unveilèd shape
Of Thetis with her Nereid band;
The clouds of sunset, cape o'er cape,
Piled up the west, serene and grand,

Became the dædal palaces
Of Gods, or Islands of the Blest,
Where, amaranth-crowned in dreamful ease,
The Heroes from their wanderings rest.

Thus on, by many a bluff and bay,
Rich with the dower of patriot fame;
By shrines where yet the Gods hold sway;
By isles whence many a godlike name,

While the long ages come and pass,
Will dominate the pulse, the thought
Of man, I dreamed:—my quest, alas!
Abandoned—shamefully forgot.

But when beneath the morning star,
Athwart the sunless waste of sea,
Uploomed before me, faint and far,
The mountain-peaks of Italy,—

As the poor Indian, who in sleep
Has drifted down, with tranquil breath,
Within Niagara's doomful sweep,
Starts up, full-nerved, at grips with death,

I started; for with whelming roar,
As of a cataract gathering fast,
Rushed in upon my heart once more
The long-pent memories of the past:

The sweet, sad memories of my love—
My youth's one love, so wild—so vain!
And her, the poor, lost, homeless dove,
Even now, beneath the frozen rain

Of “the world's” cold and selfish scorn,
By her own passionate heart's despair
Driven forth, perchance, with pinion torn,
To perish! or, O God! to bear

Life to which bitterest death were sweet
As a babe's slumber! With a pang
Of self-abasement to my feet,
Girt for my task once more, I sprang,

As though I would outspeed the gale
That bore us, from the living grave
Now yawning in her path to hale
And save her—if I yet might save! . . .

We parted at Marseilles, on board
The schooner,—ne'er to meet again.
Poor Hal! the world could ill afford
His loss! Thence home I rushed by train.

Home! what a mockery seemed the name
To me, for whom no household Lar
Expectant stood—no vestal flame
Burnt on the hearth:—life's guiding star,

Round which the infinite heaven of love
Might circle,—as around the pole
The wide-orbed spheres unwavering move—
At once love's starting-point and goal!

I sate within my dreary room,
Its hearth for three long years a-cold;
And in the chill sepulchral gloom
Felt myself grown so grey and old.

While all around me, mouldering lay
Shards of my shattered dream of life.
And yet, it seemed but yesterday
Like a young athlete stript for strife

I stood there, resolute to bow
Earth—heaven to my control!—to clutch
Fame's topmost branch, and round Her brow
To wreathe it! 'Twas not over much,

Methought, for strength, youth, love like mine
To compass. And had She been true,
Who knows!—But now, you will divine,
'Twas other work I had to do! . . .

A weary time! From place to place
I hunted England up and down;
But of her footsteps caught no trace.
And only when all hope seemed flown,

And I despaired, by strangest chance
I found that, scarce two months before
I landed, she had fled to France—
Alone. I gathered this—no more;

But 'twas enough. Remembering how
The smiles would brighten round her mouth,
How dark eye flasht and flusht the brow
At maiden memories of the South,

I felt that, as a stricken hind
Seeks homewards in its mortal pain,
She, lost, forlorn, the track would find
To those pure scenes of youth again.

And so it was. Where mountain Var
Speeds broad and brattling to the brine,
A white-walled cabane gleams afar
Through olive boughs and trellised vine.

Thither the fugitive had come,
Alone, way-weary, sorrow-wild;
There found for three calm weeks a home,
Nursing the housewife's dying child

With such sad tenderness as brought
Tears to the rude eyes round the hearth;
While still some ring or garment bought
The babe new comforts; till the earth

Had closed above him. Then, they said,
“She grew quite strange,” and night by night
Haunted the garden of the dead
Alone; where, robed in spectral white,

Kneeling beside the little grave,
She writhed in silent agony;
Seeming from heaven some boon to crave,
All vainly. Then with haggard eye,

Like an unhouselled ghost, would flit
I' the grey dawn homewards—not to sleep;
But in her darkened room to sit
Apart the long day through, and weep. . . .

At length broke on her solitude
A man, whose presence seemed to kill
The little life left in her blood;
At whose stern voice her faltering will

Cowered like a chamois when it hears
The rifle's deadly echoes ring;
Beneath whose haughty glance her tears
Shrank frozen back upon their spring;

Even from whose touch with creeping dread
Her very dress would blench—as though
An asp had hissed, the housewife said,—
Her noisy patois quavering low,

As if for fear. Yes, well I knew
Each trait of the detested face:
The brow's pent wrath: the eyes' cold blue:
The full, red mouth's abhorrent grace:

The sensuality, the scorn,
The treacherous calm of every line.—
Oh! if a devil e'er was born
In human shape, that shape was thine,

Seducer! Passive, white, and cold,
He bore her off. The woman wept
As for a daughter, while she told
The piteous tale. And scarce I kept

In fitting check, the ruth, the rage,
The futile agony that tore
My heart-strings, as his narrow cage
A wild beast tears. An hour or more

Beside the small white-curtained bed
Within her husht and vacant room
I leant: while latest sunset shed
Its roseate light, and faint perfume

Of orange flower and violet
In at the open casement stole.—
Ah, friend! it was an hour to set
Its seal of fire upon the soul

For ever! When I rose to leave
The blameless roof that in her woe
Had sheltered her, the flush of eve
Had paled, and in the lingering glow

Above the purple Estrelles hung
The rich full moon, that o'er the sea
A veil of solemn glory flung;
While the soft night-wind silently

Breathed benediction and a peace
Ineffable o'er all. But not
To me the hour could bring surcease
Of suffering! They had gone, 'twas thought,

To Nice. To Nice I pressed on foot
Through the warm night.—Again too late!
That morning they had left, en route
For Genoa; and I had to wait

Chafing a whole long day, to have
My passport visé; she, meanwhile,
I would have given my life to save,
Speeding from succour, mile by mile. . . .

But wherefore should you care to know,
Or I to tell, how, fruitlessly,
I tracked their footsteps to and fro
Under the blazing southern sky?

For as the shadow of the moon
Before the furrowing prow recedes,
Or flits the bright mirage of noon
From the parched caravan that speeds

Through burning wastes to drink and lave,
They fled me ever. Till, at last,
Where breaks the long Ionian wave
On wild Calabria's shore, I cast

Hope to the winds; and in such mood
As tempts the desperate heart to spurn
At heaven, and in its own life-blood
To quench the girding flames that burn

And bite into its core, again
I turned me northwards: even as one
Stricken to death and blind with pain
From a lost battle-field, alone,

Crawls forth to die. At Rome, of course,
I paused—no need for hurry now!
And being there, by simple force
Of habit climbed the terraced brow

Of Pincio daily—thence to watch
The sun behind the aërial dome
Of Angelo descend, and catch
Eve's last sad smile, as o'er the tomb

Of the world's empire like a queen
She bowed in widowed beauty, crowned
With the young moon and solemn sheen
Of stars; with darkness curtained round,

And robed in the majestic calm
Of desolation, where no more
Fear's outworn pang, hope's futile balm
Might come, to trouble as of yore.

And there beneath an ilex cast,
Sick with my sorrow's cureless ache,
I watched the glittering crowd roll past—
Prince, prelate; prig, lorette and rake.

Watched them as one might watch a cloud
Of emmets dancing o'er a stream;
Or the dust-galaxies that crowd
And glorify some stray sunbeam:—

Dust-atoms—ephemerides,
That buzzed and stung, danced, loved and died;
What were those flutterers more than these,
For all their pomp and all their pride?

To me no more! Dear Lord in heaven!
That hour avenged the impious sin
Of scorn for aught that Thou hadst given
Thy blessed blood to wash and win!

For lo! as through the starry spaces
Flashes and fades a meteor's glare,
From out the press of alien faces
One pale face flashed—unearthly fair!

The white lips moved, like lips that pray,
But the eyes—the wide, wild, weary eyes—
Gleamed to the west with the blank dismay
Of Eve's, when back on Paradise

She gazed from out the gathering gloom,
And heard within the guarded door
The archangel's awful words of doom:
“Thou shalt re-enter never more!”

'Twas she! 'twas she! and by her side,
Sullen and sated, the Beast of Prey;—
Even then, as I knew, at home a bride,
Young, innocent, highborn, fair as day,

Was waiting to crown his infamous brows
With her virgin wreath; for the miscreant owned
Rich acres enow, and could give his spouse
High place—so his errors were soon condoned.

“Arm sin in rags,”—you recollect—
“A pigmy's straw doth pierce it;” but
“Plate it with gold!”—one can't expect
Even Virtue's self should afford to cut

The wearers of such! So this reprobate,
Heartless and brainless, might stretch his hand,
Rank with pollution, and pluck for mate
The snowiest flower of our Christian land.

I leapt, as they tell us people leap
When caught by a bullet right in the heart;
Then, with a rush in my ears, the sweep
Of a tideway, and sudden edgèd smart

As of steel, the whole hot blood in my frame
Converged; my brain in a sickly whirl
Grew blank, and, I own it, ev'n now, with shame,
I swooned on the spot, like a fledgling girl

Who has prickt her finger. When past the swoon,
The crowd with the twilight brief and bright
Had vanished, and the soft young moon
Was silvering with divinest light

Statue and terrace, roof and tower,
And the dim Tiber winding slow
From bridge to bridge. 'Twas vesper hour,
And from the campaniles below

Rang forth those chimes so few can hear
Unmoved. That night they seemed to fall
With dreamier sweetness on my ear,
With tenderer pathos seemed to call

My heart to turn in love to her,
The mother of the Son of God,
Who by the cross and sepulchre
Bore in her weakness all that load

Of pitying anguish. Scarce I checked
The “Ave Mary!” as I rose,
And down the dark stairs, moonbeam-flecked,
Crawled homewards,—not to seek repose,

Though, certes, in as wretched case
As well could be. That night, once more
Began the intermitted chase,—
But luckless now as heretofore!

Few English then were in Rome, and of these
Their names were not (I afterwards found
They had travelled as Germans). But the police,—
Too busy burrowing under ground

For the widespread roots of the sacred tree
Of freedom, then quickening after years
Of wintry blight—now, gloriously
Watered with patriot blood and tears,

Stretching its sheltering arms abroad
O'er a happy people; ere long to spread
Yet broader, I trust, by the blessing of God!—
Those wretched Sbirri, as I have said,

Would give no help. Still, undeterred,
I plied my quest; and when nearly a week
Had flown, from passing strangers heard
Of her. They had seen her with hectic cheek

And feverous eye, just three days before,
At Civita Vecchia, bound (alone,
As was clear from her scanty baggage, which bore,
However, nor his name nor her own)

For Paris. . . . For Paris! what should she there,
Poor castaway, in her loneliness? Why,
As well might a lamb to the wolf's red lair,
Or a dove to the falcon's eyrie fly!

For Paris! that glittering maëlstrom, that sweeps
With its soul-spume sheer o'er hell's abyss!
That golden palace, where Circe keeps
Her loathliest revels! Is this, then—this!—

The end? Ah, no! that awful look,
(As of one who dreads, but yet must gaze
Right in th' Eternal Eyes, that brook
No paltering, but with lightning-blaze

Search the dark soul, nor leave one spot
Where a sin may shelter—even as His,
From the shuddering breast of Iscariot,
Tore the dread secret smile nor kiss

Could hide, in dim Gethsemane)
That look of dumb beseeching woe
From hopeless eyes, that seemed to see,
Far in the solemn sunset-glow,

The river of Life like crystal rolled
From the throne of God and of the Lamb;
And, in robes washed white, and crowns of gold,
With golden harps and branches of palm,

The ransomed, who gaze on the Saviour's face
And weep no more!—it bade me trust
That yet, even yet, His holy grace
Might reach, and raise her from the dust,

Where, in her sin's drear solitude;
Polluted, outcast, lost, she lay:
Reach, raise, and in His stainless blood
Wash even her scarlet stains away.

Ah, hopes that died so long ago!
To-night ye rise, and bring again
Around me all that coil of woe:
Those prayers, alas! so wild—so vain!

Yet were they heard in heaven! and now,
Even now, the doomful hour drew near
That brought God's answer!—Brought!—but how?
And how shall I the shame—the fear

Of that wild night and ghastly morn
Recall, when—Nay! I must not scritch,
Like him whom, last night, Lydia's scorn
Made ripe for Bedlam—or a switch.

Forgive me! . . . Well, 'twas a night in June;
The air was faint with breath of flowers;
Lutetia laughed beneath the moon,
And the solemn shade of her minster towers:

Laughed, as with flaunting robes in the mire,
And loose locks tangled with rose and vine,
And eyes ablaze with lust's wildfire,
And bright cup brimming with poisoned wine,

She led the godless revelry
Through glittering salon and glaring street;
Shouting between the silent sky
And the silent graves beneath their feet:

“Eat, drink, and be merry, for life is fleet,
And death, as we know, is the end of all;
And thought is bitter, and sin is sweet!
Eat, drink, and be merry, though heaven should fall!”

Thus rang the devils' Carnival—
Brief prelude, alas! to an endless Lent!—
From Père-la-Chaise to the Arc de l'Etoile
Far echoing, as my steps I bent

Towards my lodging. It was late,
And I dead-weary from the day's
Vain quest, when, through a stately gate,
I caught a silken stir—the blaze

Of million-coloured lamps, half hid
In blossoms—the voluptuous moan
Of music, muffled deep amid
Exotic umbrage. It was one

Of those fair by-paths to the broad
Avernian way, where sin's descent
Is made so smooth it needs no goad;
For there all arts profusely blent—

Even nature's innocent loveliness,
Polluted thus to hateful ends,—
With specious blandishments, caress
Frail fancy, that too gladly lends

Her aid to subjugate the sense,
Debase the heart, and lead the soul—
Cozened by many a fond pretence—
Whither, we know! I paid the toll

And entered. But you know the place.
Who does not? You have heard and seen
Those orgies, where, with faultless grace
Of phrase, and majesty of mien,

Hetaira spreads her toils; and where,
With smiling lips and lampant eyes,
Coiled sleek within her flowery lair,
The snaky Lamia watching lies:

Whom even to look upon is shame;
Whom but to touch is death; to love,
Perdition. Where, with lips a-flame,
Youth, deaf to whisperings from above,

Bartering youth's glorious heritage
For sin's illusive cup—tastes, drinks,
And perishes; where grizzly age—
O sight abhorred!—even as he sinks

To the long sleep he fondly deems
Eternal, strives, with palsied clutch,
To grasp the unhallowed bliss that gleams
Before, but still eludes his touch

In mockery! . . . What a scene! Flowers, lights,
The music, the gay dancers, whirled
Like dead leaves on autumnal nights;
Or, liker the lost spirits hurled

By that fierce wind, with shriek and moan,
Through the Dantean darkness. So,
By the wild storm of music blown,
The dance wheels madly to and fro:

Round and round, with silken sound
Of robes that glitter, and feet that gleam;
With bright arms bare, and floating hair;
With jest, and laugh, and wanton scream!

While fiercer and faster it eddies and coils
In its rhythmic rage; as a waterfall,
In the rush of its frenzy, seething boils—
And the deep calm heaven looked down o'er all.

I watched, in half-oblivious trance,
The pageant that before me moved,
Till, by some—must I call it, chance?
The music changed to an air She loved

In that sweet season when our moon
Of love was crescent, and undreamed
The storm that quenched it, all too soon!—
How long ago! and yet it seemed

To-night so near! as up the black
And starless vault the music rolled
Its passionate surges, that trembled back
In diamond rillets and showers of gold.

I felt almost as though I leant
Once more beside her; heard once more
Enrapt, heart, voice, and instrument
Commingle, as in days of yore.

While the white-owl flitted, the beetle whirred,
And Hesper blazed o'er the shadowy Ben,
And the curlew's wail from the shore was heard,
And the mist came creeping down the glen;

And She, with the lingering light on her brow,
And the gathering gloom in her musky hair;
With her great brown eyes that gleamed below,
Like pools in the Garry when nights are fair,

And the planet of love lies mirrored there—
Appeared a spirit to whom were given
The vials of rapture and despair,—
Whose frown was hell, whose smile was heaven!

And now! ah, now! With stifled breath
And tear-blind eyes I fled the spot—
A grip at my heart like the grip of death,
Or the fang of “the worm that dieth not.”

But wildered by the glare, the din,
The turmoil round me, and the throng
Of memories gathering dark within—
I missed the exit; and along

An alley, curtained from the light
By odorous shrub and trellised flower,
Staggered as one in nightmare might,
Who knows he dreams, yet has no power

To snap the spell. So stumbling on
I sped with introverted eye;
Till, by a half-articulate moan
Arrested—a low quivering sigh

Of abject woe; so close, it seemed
The echo of my own despair.
I turned; and lo! before me gleamed,
In the sharp moonshine—by the glare

Of lamps no more obscured—a young,
Slight woman. To the sculptured base
Of a white Artemis she clung
As if in agony. Her face

Was buried in her clinging hands;
But could I doubt 'twas She, at length—
The fugitive, through many lands
Till now so vainly sought! My strength,

Worn as it was, could scarce sustain
The quick tumultuous joy—the pang
Of hope's new birth—like mortal pain
That stung me, as I forward sprang,

Intent to grasp her—lest again
She should escape me. But in dread
Of what dire mischief to a brain
So worn, and heart so sore bestead

As hers, the act might wreak—awed, too,
By the lone spirit wrestling there
With God—I paused, and backwards drew
A little space in silent prayer.

Then softly—calmly as I might
For grief's pent breathing—did I call
Her name. Like sleeper by a light
Perturbed, she stirred—was still; then all

Her queenly height uplifting slow,
Raised her wan brow to heaven, and seemed
To listen. O'er her cheek the glow
Of some sweet memory passed; and gleamed

One instant in her eye the pride
Of sinless years; across her lips
Trembled a rapturous smile, and died.
Then all her face in cold eclipse

Darkened and shrivelled. Yet once more
I called her by her old home-name,
And stood beside her. Swiftly o'er
Her aspect, as our eyes met, came

A terrible change—as though dusk flame
Had flared upon her: neck, cheek, brow
Purpling with agony of shame
And blank abasement. Stretching now

My hands towards her, “Come, poor child,”
I whispered; “yet there's hope.” Her eye
One moment softened—then grew wild
And lowering; and a bitter cry

Burst from her: a long wailing shriek
Of infinite despair—“Too late!—
Too late!” she gasped. “In vain you seek
To save me! Sin must expiate

“Its guilt. And never more, O friend!
May we two meet, till both have trod
Life's pathway to the desolate end:—
Henceforth I am alone with God!—

“And so, farewell!” I wildly strove
To hold her; softly did invoke
The memory of our youth—our love—
To soothe her. From my grasp she broke

With the insuperable force
Of madness, and was gone. I fled
In swift pursuit. As if a corse
In ghastly cerements of the dead

Had passed before them, in their place
Paused the flusht dancers, and abashed
Stood silent; even a moment's space
The music faltered, as I dashed,

Calling her name, athwart the glare,
And in the gloom revanished. Then
Uprang into the shuddering air
Yells of derisive mirth, as when

The devils grow orgillous, and all
The infernal vault their fiendish scorn
Reverberates. . . . Why should I recall
That night's dread vigil? How, till morn

In maiden loveliness blushed forth,
And the gay city donned again
Her bravery—as though the earth
Knew not a care—with eyes a-strain,

By starry glimmer, by murky gleam
Of lamps, from shadowy bridge and quay
I watched the melancholy stream,
Dark-winding on its doomful way.

For a nameless terror now had caught
My fancy: and in every swirl
Of pallid spume I saw in thought
The dead, drowned face of the homeless girl—

Ah! still but a girl!—and, numb with fear,
In each low intermittent sigh
Of the wandering night-wind seemed to hear
The wail of her dying agony. . . .

Thus passed the night, like a troubled ghost
To his grave, each moment horror-quick;
When the Quai du Marché Neuf I crost—
Reeling, I knew, like a drunkard—sick

As unto death, and blind with tears
That welled within, but would not flow.—
Even now, beneath the ice of years,
A silent Phlegethon of woe,

They gather, as that awful hour
Returns and looks me in the eyes;
With more than dread Medusa's power,
Thicking the blood! . . . Ay! there she lies

Before me now, as in that place
Of horror which I dare not name—
The unblushing sunlight broad on her face
And foam-white form. Oh bitter shame!

And overhead the dress she wore
Last night, yet freshly dripping hangs!—
The Morgue? Yes, yes; but of that no more,
“For that way madness lies!” Ah, the fangs

Of the ancient woe yet clutch me here
At the foolish heart!—No, no more wine!
Well—somewhat too much of myself, I fear,
In this long yarn; but to untwine

The strands of a fate so closely knit
As ours, were hard. So if I prose—
And age is garrulous—bear with it
For our lost darling's sake. The close

Is near. And you, who are the first
To hear the story of her doom,
Shall be the last: for worlds I durst
Not call the dead Past from its tomb

To show its gaping wounds again! . . .
Yes, there I found her: Her—and There!
Washed up like a noisome weed from Seine,
Whose drops yet oozed from her madid hair.

O, drowned Parthenopè not more fair!
What wonder the crowd of ribald men
And brazen women—come to stare
And bandy jests in that charnel-den

O'er any new horror bequeathed by night
To the shuddering day—forbore their jeers,
Husht with unwonted awe by a sight
Of such dread beauty. What wonder tears

O'er many a cheek to tears unused,
Were falling as they turned away—
Or that one poor soul whose eyes refused
That tribute, cowered aside to pray!

For death the poor dishonoured clay
Had touched with consecrating hand;
And o'er her brow and eyelids lay
A light as from the spirit-land.

And O! the smile of peace that round
Her wan, sweet mouth enraptured hung!
Of anguish past, of mercy found
It spoke, as with an angel's tongue.

What marvel they should weep! But I
Stood cold, impassive as a stone:
Nor wept, nor prayed; for still the sigh
Of Nor'land pines, the far-heard moan

Of billows in my vacant brain
Made weary descant: o'er and o'er
Re-echoing that wild cry of pain,
“Alone with God, for evermore!” . . .

I claimed my dead: mine only, now!
And bore her home with reverent care;
And as I kissed the icy brow,
And knelt alone beside her there,—

As on the vext Judæan wave
Fell the calm “Peace, be still!”—there came
A whisper from beyond the grave—
The whisper of a Saviour's name!

And then I felt,—If love like mine,
Earth of the earth, thus held her fast
Through sin and shame, the Love Divine
That made, would hold her till the last.

God's ways—what man hath found them out?
But in that dark, woe-wildered hour
He heard her cry—I dare not doubt:—
Was near her soul with saving power. . . .

—Poor girl! about her neck they found
A locket I had fastened there
The night we parted; and close wound
Within, a ring of withered hair

She had cut with cold and trembling hand
In the gloom of the pine wood, while the blore
Of the dim Atlantic swept the land,
And the black waves boomed on the echoing shore.

They found a book, too, in her breast,
She was wont to love, in her strange wild way,
And read for hours in a woodland nest
That caught the sunset over “the bay”—

'Twas her mother's Bible. These, unmoved,
I gave her back; and, still and cold,
Around the form so vainly loved
Smoothed the white death-robes, fold by fold.

Without a tear I saw her laid
Within her dark, dishonoured bed;
With horrible calm I heard the spade
Heave “dust to dust” upon her head.

Nor till I turned that night to cast
My farewell look on the darkling mound
Of alien earth that hid her last
Lone resting-place, my sorrow found

Its natural outlet, and I wept—
As men but once in a lifetime weep;
Prayed—as he only prays who has kept
Vigil where youth, hope, passion, sleep,

As mine did in that nameless tomb,
Where all that had made life dear went down. . .
But there is light beyond the gloom,
And the Son of Man will not disown

In heaven His earthly pledge, “to save
That which was lost.”—And in the end,
Shall not the blood He freely gave
Redeem even her? . . . So now, my friend,

You know her story; know, too, how
My life, thus poisoned at the root,
All warped and withered, bole and bough,
Has borne, alas! such bitter fruit.

Yet not resultless all those years
Of lonely being: I have grown
To tenderer pity for the tears
Of others, gazing through my own.

So, too, the loving sympathy
With hopes and joys I may not share
Has deepened, in the memory
Of my own youth—so glad, so fair.

But chiefly, I have come to feel
That God is just whate'er befall;
That when He wounds, 'tis but to heal:
For He hath “made and loveth all.”