University of Virginia Library

III. PART III.

A dark hour came, and left us desolate:
Then, as a beggar thrust by menial hands
From comfortable doors, doth wrap his rags
Around him, ere he face the whistling wind
And flying showers that travel through the night,
We gathered what we had; and she and I
Went forth together to the cruel world.
O we were bare and naked as the trees
That stand up silent in the freezing air,
With black boughs motionless against the sky,
While midnight holds her lonely starry sway.
We crept into a half-forgotten street
Of frail and tumbling houses propt by beams,
And ruined courts which, centuries before,
Rung oft to iron heels,—which palfreys pawed,
As down the mighty steps the Lady came
Bright as the summer morning,—peopled now
By outcasts, sullen men, bold girls who sat
Pounding sand in the sun. The day we came
The windows from which beauty leant and smiled,
Were stuffed with rags, or held a withered stick
Whence foul clothes hung to dry. Beneath an arch
Two long-haired women fought; while high above,
Heads thrust through broken panes, two shrill-voiced crones
Scolded each other. Hell-fire burst at night
Through the thin rind of earth; the place was loud
With drunken strife, hoarse curses; then the cry
Of a lost woman by a ruffian felled
Made the blood stop. Ah! different from the dream
That keeps my memory fragrant—sunny air,
Stirred into drowsy music by the bees;
Hollyhocks glowing at the open door;
A dark, grave, loving face; a step and voice
That faded in that time! We dwelt alone:
Red Autumn died unseen along the waste,
The soundless snow came down in thickening flakes,
And Poverty, who sat beside our hearth,
Blew out the feeble fire, and all was dark.
It was the closing evening of the year,
The night that I was born. I laughed, and said,
“The old year brought me in his dying arms,
And laid me in your breast; his last task done,
He went away through whirls of blinding snow.”
She murmured, “'Tis the first time in these years
We cannot hold your birth-night as our wont,
With feast, and smiling friends, and quiet mirth
O'er-shadowed by the memory of the dead
Until 'tis almost sad. 'Tis sixteen years,
And every night I've looked upon your sleep
Although you knew it not. Of those who were
Dear to me on the night that you were born,
You only now remain.” I knew her thoughts,
“He wearies for us in the happy fields;
His bliss is incomplete till we are there.”
My mother spoke with heart far, far away.
“I count the years, as eagerly as one
Long separated from the friends he loves
Counts the slow milestones as he travels home.
Your life is all before you with its joy;
The only thing I covet is the grave.”
She kissed me, put her withered hand in mine.
Its touch brought tears. I thought of all the pain,
The sorrow which had grown up in her life
Through her long years of widowhood, like grass
In a deserted street. Then all at once
A hundred church-bells struck the hour of twelve;
A mighty shout went up, “The year is dead!”
There were glad footsteps on a thousand stairs,
And happy greetings in a thousand homes;
None said, God bless us. Bitterly I cried,
“What great unpardoned sin is on our race
That we are so accursed? Where'er we go,
Calamity glides ever in our track,
A ghost implacable. Were I to die
On this great night when Christendom is glad,
I would be all unpitied and unknown,
As a forgotten captive, or a worm
That dies unheard of underneath the ground.”
But she reproached me with her silent eyes.
The sun burst forth; 'neath sheltering cliff and bank
Lay melting wreaths, which, in its swift retreat,
The army of the snow had left. Whene'er
The gloomy Winter round him called his showers,
Legions of howling winds, and with a cry
Fled to the icy north, the timid Spring
Arose in snowdrops, and the days grew long.
Spring touched the black pots on my window-sill,
And, though begrimed and foul with dust and soot,
The blind plants felt it in their withered veins,
And smiled a sickly green. One Sabbath day,
I left my mother's dwelling in the morn
Behind; the pleading and the scolding bells
Disturbed the peaceful air. “'Tis ever so—
Religion's pure serene is vexed and torn
By raging sectaries. In every street
The brave streams of the proud and gaudy world
Flow to the house of God.—My mother sits
With vanished shapes, and faces of the dead,
And little pattering footsteps: why should she,
A broken heart wrapt up in faded silk,
Mix with the prosperous? 'Tis very well;
Let the white faces creep into their graves,
And leave pomp in the sun.” The shining day
Spread out before me, and I wandered on
Free as those vagrant children of the waste,
Shadow and sunshine. By the sandy banks
Of a shrunk stream, that in unnumbered rills
Tinkled 'tween pebbles and hot glistening stones,
Two green kingfishers played. A travelling shower
O'ertook me on my way; I stood and heard
The skylarks singing in the sunny rain,
With a dim recognition in my heart
As if I knew the meaning of the song
In some forgotten life. I reached a height
Which lay from fairy fern to stately tree
Asleep in sunshine. From its crown I saw
The country fade into the distant sky,
With happy hamlets drowned in apple-bloom,
And ivy-muffled churches still with graves,
And restless fires subdued and tamed by day,
And scattered towns whence came at intervals
Upon the wind, a sweet clear sound of bells;
Through all, a river, like a stream of haze,
Drew its slow length until 'twas lost in woods.
Still as a lichened stone I lay and watched
The lights and shadows on the landscape's face,
The moving cloud that quenched the shining fields,
The gliding sunbeam, the grey trailing shower,
And all the commerce of the earth and sky.
With weary limbs at sunset I returned;
And in the dingy fringes of the town,
The helpless languor of the Sabbath-eve,
The listless groups that stood around the doors,
The silent children, and the smoke that rose
Lazy and spiritless into the air,
Told the world's sinews had been overwrought
And now hung lax and loose. My spirits fell,
Sheer as a skylark when his song is o'er;
I crept into my little twilight room,
And there my day of glory set in tears.
Next morn the bells awoke me to my toil,
And what a pageant of divinest sights
Passed by me on my daily round of life!
I bore a message, and upon my way
The streets were swept by the impetuous rain,
The lightning fluttered in my dazzled eyes,
And thunder like a sea broke overhead.
A fleece of thunder hung before the sun
With a wild blazing fringe, while scattered shreds
Burned on the marble sky. Black strings of ships
Sat on the angry mirror of the stream
Keen with the splendour, till the gusty rain
Drowned the red sunset and the winds were loud.
For years and years continually were mine
The long dull roar of traffic, and at night
The mighty pathos of the empty streets.
I leant at midnight o'er the lonely bridge,
And heard the water slipping 'neath the arch:
“Man flies from solitude and dwells in noise,
Like one who has a pale wronged face at home
On which he dares not look; to calm his heart
The world must roar with traffic, brawl with war.
What need to strive for wealth, opinion, praise,
Wherewith to drug our spirits and forget?
Thou bearest in thy heart, black glittering stream,
A deeper rest for the unfortunate
Than Pluto's gold can buy. Ah! Pleasure, Fame,
But crown pale mortals with an envied pain;
Death pities, and gives sleep. A thousand years
This river wandered through an empty waste
Where no man's voice was heard, and mournful winds
Shook sighing sedges as they swept along,
And blurred the silver of the lonely moon.
Huts rose upon its banks, then sank in flame,
And rose from ashes. Slow the city grew,
Like coral reef on which the builders die
Until it stands complete in pain and death.
Great bridges with their coronets of lamps
Light the black stream beneath; rude ocean's flock,
Ships from all climes, are folded in its docks;
And every heart from its great central dome
To farthest suburb is a darkened stage
On which Grief walks alone. A thousand years!
The idle Summer will amuse herself
Dressing the front where merchants congregate,
And where the mighty war-horse snorts in bronze,
With clasping flowers; where now the evening street
Rolls gay with life,—in silence and the dew
The hamadryad issues from the tree,
Like music from an instrument.” How strange
When the chill morn was breaking in the east
Looked the familiar streets! In pallid squares
I stood awe-struck, like a bewildered soul
In the great dawn of death. Each house was blind,
Closed 'gainst the light, and slow it filled the street,
Unsoiled by smoke, unscared by any sound;
It entered trembling rude and haggard lanes
Where riot but an hour before had brawled
Himself to rest. St. Stephen's golden vane
Burned in the early beam, which glimmered down,
Making the old spire gay. The swallows woke,
And jerked and twittered in the shining air;
Broad Labour turned and muttered in his sleep;
And the first morning cart began to roll.