University of Virginia Library

Yes, thou art gone down to the still, cold grave
To hide thy broken heart. The dim-eyed world
Says, that consumption drank the fountain dry
Of thy young joyous life. Well, be it so!
That world would scoff, perhaps, if it should know
The hidden agony that burned away
Thy spirit's silver spring, and left thy heart,
Thy woman-heart, to waste by sure decay,
Till, like a lily withered at the root,
Thou droopedst to the earth. Consumption! Ay,
Came the destroyer ever unto her,
Who wore within her heart no secret grief?
Oh, woman, woman! if thy history
Were written by th' impartial pen of truth,
The world would start away in dumb surprise
From the revealings of the agonies
Which thou hast borne in silence, while they gnawed
Thy heart away, and fed upon thy brain
Like fiery vipers, or consumed away
Thy very soul within thee!
Thy young heart,
My poor Calista, was an open book to me,
From our glad childhood. Every throb,
And wish, and feeling, pleaded unto me
For sympathy and shelter; and the doom
That parted us in girlhood was like death.
The paper missive passing to and fro,
And burdened with the yearnings of the soul,
Still formed a chain between us, but alas!
How cold is such communion to the hearts
That long to give each other throb for throb
In love's unchecked embrace; while full deep eyes
Pour forth the treasures of each ardent soul,
In language that needs not the form of words,
But is itself the eloquence of truth.
Thy spirit was so formed for confidence,
It could not live without a present friend,
With whom it might commingle every tone
Of its wild melody. And there was one
Whose spirit seemed attuned to blend with thine
Every harmonious tone. He seemed like thee,
Pensive and pious, intellectual;
All poetry, and gentleness, and love.
He called thee sister, and was unto thee
All that the fondest brother could have been;
And thou didst lean on him confidingly,
And listen to the dreamy sophistries
Of “pure platonic love.” Ah me, that dream
Of passionless affection! Many a heart
Has trusted in it, and awoke too late,
Pierced through with many sorrows. Earnestly
I gave my warning. But the heart—the heart!
When did it list to reason? 'tis so sweet
To rest the heart in perfect confidence
On one that feels and feeds its sympathies
With fond devotion; and to deem that flame,
Burning in earthen censers, high and pure
As the devotion of the raptured love
That wreaths its incense in the spirit-land.
Such love is pure, but 'neath its placid tide—
Ah, poor humanity!—a current runs,
Silent and strong, which the heart recks not of,
Till it is undermined, and borne away
Wrecked and undone for ever. So it was
With thee, Calista. Placid were thy dreams
As the sweet bird's, who sings herself to sleep,
Where trembling radiance of the evening star
Illumes the pinions of the summer winds,
That kiss the fragrant flowers and rock her nest.
As breaks upon the slumber of that bird
The voice of the tornado, as he bends
His black breast on the forest, with a crash
That makes earth shudder, while his sounding wings
Strike the strong trees to splinters, as aghast,
Wounded and helpless, rest and desolate,
She flutters to the earth in agony,—
So to Calista came from Henry's lips
The words—“I love—not with a brother's love,
But passionately, with a burning heart,
One whom I long have known, who will be mine
In wedlock's holy bondage. A few days,
And I will bring a sister to your arms,
And we shall be so happy.”
So it was—
Here was the secret of the holy love,
The placid tenderness, the platonism,
That bound him to Calista. His young heart,
With its wild flood of passion, had been given
Unto another ere he saw her face;
And she had been to him a sweet relief
To absence, doubt, and sorrow, while her heart
And soul, and being, mingled into his,
With holy worship of a maiden's love,
Guiltless of passion,till that fatal word,
“I love another,” opened to her view
The deep springs of her heart. She could have lived
For ever happy in her gentle dream
Of pure fraternal love, if Henry's heart
Had owned no other. But to hear him say,
“Rejoice, sweet spirit-sister! for the maid
Whom I have loved so many weary years
With passionate devotion, is mine own.”
Oh, 'twas too deadly bitter to her soul!
Yet still she smiled—that smile which woman's pride
Throws o'er the ruin of a broken heart,
Like sunlight flitting o'er a sepulchre.

Of what could she complain? He was not false;
He never sought the love that she had given;—
So in the deep recesses of her soul,
She hid her shame and sorrow, and stood by,
While to another he pledged earnestly
All that she valued or desired on earth.
But from that day she drooped, fading away
Like summer twilight, which goes sweetly out,
With dying melody and closing flowers,
Into the world of sleep.
Around her bier
The weepers stood, and chided at the fate
Which gave so lovely and beloved a maid
To pitiless consumption.