University of Virginia Library

previous section The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith
next section

THE FUNERAL

All the day long, and the next night he sat,
With the dread Presence, in that chamber dim,
And neither stirred nor uttered any word,
Nor ate nor drank; and much they grieved thereat;
And greatly wondered, greatly pitying him:
Nor spake, nor stirred, nor gave one sign of life,
Or knowledge of the life that still went on,
Like one a-dream, or like a frozen stream
With the ice-grip upon its fret and strife,
So fixed was he, and changed as into stone.
Stony his face, his feelings stony too,
Stony and icy was the hard, set eye,
And stony felt the heart that would not melt,
And all his weary world a desert grew,
A wilderness of stones, where dead hopes lie.
Hushed were the household, as they came and went
A-tiptoe through dim lobby, and dusky room,
And whispered low of that heart-breaking woe
Which lined the young face as it sternly leant
On the clenched hand, and never changed its gloom.
They brought him dainties which he never saw,
The choicest of the vintage, old and rare;
They culled fresh flowers he loved in happier hours,
And laid them near him with a silent awe,
But they all knew he knew not they were there.
Two days he sat with that awed Silence dread,
Death's silence, deeper than to be alone,
And you could hear hearts beat for very fear,
Noting the corded hand, and fixed head
Which stared at that white Form with eyes of stone.
111

For as they went in pairs, and passed his door,
The charm of terror made them pause and look,
And by the sight rouse to more utter fright
Their beating hearts that trembled so, before,
And no control of reasoned thought would brook.
Eerie and lone, the east wind moaning low
Billowed the carpets high on lobby and stair,
The timid mouse went pattering through the house,
And from the roof a spider dropped below,
Knotting its thread to his unmoving hair.
The dog howled from his kennel, and his chain
Harsh grated, as the owl screeched from the barn,
A phantom fear seemed ever creeping near,
And in the wood the wild cat yelled amain,
And boomed the bittern from the lonely tarn.
He heeded not, for nought outside he knew,
Swept by the rush and whirl of maddening thought,
And deaf and blind, with agony of mind,
At that dark tale which ever darker grew,
And all his soul to desolation brought.
For she had been his bulwark 'gainst the sea
Of doubts that lashed, and vexed his unquiet spirit;
His forest-land that stayed the desert-band
And drifting sand-storms from the fields which he
Cultured and kept that God might them inherit.
Him she had straitly trained in ways of truth
And righteousness and piety and awe,
Nor spared the rod to drive him unto God,
But with a ruthless method taught him ruth,
And schooled him in the Gospel by stern law.
Yet for that all she taught was surely good,
And for that she exalted God supreme
In all she did, and all that she forbid,
And for that love wrought in her hardest mood,
To him she had been type of worth extreme.
Now, Heaven and all the gods rushed madly down,
Like Dagon's house when its main pillar fell:
And truth and right, and all things clean and white,
Angel and saint, and the Eternal crown,
All, all seemed lost in thickest smoke of Hell.
Gone the fond vision of his trustful youth,
Gone all the awe of natural reverence,
Gone the pure love that seemed of heaven above,
Gone all the certainty of worth and truth—
The fell-mist clouded every higher sense.
112

Could that be true which she, in falsehood, taught?
Could that be good, which, being ill, she praised?
And oh the pain, the ache of heart and brain!
To think that mother could be base and naught,
On whom as God's stern witness he had gazed.
For still our common Heaven is seldom reared
On solid arch of reason, firmly built,
But the high Faith that has to vanquish death
Rests on the lap where first we prayed, and feared,
And wondered in the dawn of thought and guilt.
Still lies its weight on mother-love and truth;
And oh the sorrow if her truth should fail!
Still its strong bands are her so just commands;
And oh the weakness when they break! and youth
Finds its Heaven dark, and hears the night-winds wail!
On the third day, he went out on the hill,
And wandered restless, yet unwearying;
Then sat him down, and with a rigid frown
Gazed steadfast on the yellow tormentil,
And little milk-wort peeping through the ling.
Long there he sat, as one by some fell blow
Stunned, which had loosened every joint and band,
And cast into amazement strange and new
All ordered thought, so that he did not know
The marks and bearings now of sea or land.
But coming from the breezy mountain top,
All saw a change, and yet with pain they saw:
For lightsome now, the cloud swept from his brow,
Words fierce and bitter from his lips would drop,
And laughter too that made them creep with awe.
Far stranger than the silence and the gloom
Seemed now the order sharp, and words precise,
And the hard reason that sounded out of season,
And satire grim that mocked the very tomb,
And clear, cool sense, prompt with its fit advice.
Seemed never madness like that perfect sense,
Seemed never raving like that reason clear,
So out of place, so without touch of grace;
Even dull, dim souls that were of judgment dense
Drew off, estranged, and shivering, and with fear;
Which made him harder than he was before,
And tipped his mocking speech with sharper scorn,
Till they were all met for the funeral,
When the mad impulse taunted them, and tore
Away the mask from every face forlorn.
113

This was his thought, These neigh-bours all have known
The shameful fact, and yet have silence kept;
They made no din, for wealth can gild a sin;
They never told me, that I might atone,
But fawned like beaten hounds, and round her crept.
Hollow and false our life, and this they knew;
Hollow and false, although I knew it not;
And she is gone, and I am left alone,
To right the cruel wrong I did not do;—
So bitterly he spake from bitter thought.
previous section The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith
next section