University of Virginia Library

Scene II.

An Alcove in a Garden. Night.
Flora and Caroline.
Caroline.
Flora, my dear, why do you look so sad?
Is not the night most lovely, with her locks
Dark as the raven's wing—and all around
A very picture of repose and peace—
Bathed in the luxuries of tranquil bliss,
Steep'd to the very lips in extacy
Too passionate for words, like the sweet moments
When the eye only speaks th'unsyllabled words
Of the o'erbrimming heart, and the soul spills
The overflowing fulness of its joy
In the sweet eloquence of silence. Hark!
The only voices that disturb the night,
Or rather mingle with its solemn hush,
Are two, save ours:—That of the restless wind
Gliding about among the trees, as if
The Angel of the Earth were passing o'er
The velvet carpet of her palace-home,
From chamber unto chamber, just to see,
With all the yearning of a mother's heart,
That all her loved ones were asleep and well,
And look her last on them for this one night,
And take their happy dreams with her to Heaven;
And that the motion that we hear was but
The rustle of her garments; and the other
Is the soft silver-sounding splash of yonder
Moss-covered fountain. How I love the sound
Of falling water! It hath something in it
Which speaks of the long past,—of infancy,
And the bright pearl-like days of childhood; and
I fancy that I hear it murmuring
Stories of red ripe berries; and with glee,
And with an innocent cunning, telling of
Those secret nooks where thickest hang the nuts
From their o'erladen branches:—Oh! it speaks,
In tones one cannot help but understand,
Of those far-distant times when all things were
Treasures and joys—not to be bought with worlds;
When a new pleasure was a pleasure, just
Because that it was new; and all things seem'd
As pretty-playthings to the new-born soul
Constructed for its use and sole amusement.
But why art thou so sad?

Flora.
Nay, Caroline,
Not sad! No, not quite that,—and yet,—ah well!
The Night is lovely, and I love her with
A passionate devotion, for she stirs
Feelings too deep for utterance within me.
She thrills me with an influence and a power,
A saddened kind of joy I cannot name,
So that I meet her brightest smile with tears.
She seemeth like a prophetess, too wise,
Knowing, ah! all too much for happiness;
As though she had tried all things, and had found
All vain and wanting, and was thenceforth steep'd
Up to the very dark, tear-lidded eyes
In a mysterious gloom, a holy calm!
Doth she not look now just as if she knew
All that hath been, and all that is to come?
With one of her all-prescient glances turn'd
Towards those kindred depths which slept for aye,—
The sable robe which God threw round Himself,
And where, pavilioned in glooms, He dwelt
In brooding night for ages, perfecting
The glorious dream of past eternities,
The fabric of creation,—running adown
The long Time-avenues, and gazing out
Into those blanks which slept before Time was;
And with another searching glance, turn'd up
Towards unknown futurities—the book
Of unborn wonders,—till she hath perused
The chapter of its doom; and with an eye
Made vague by the dim vastness of its vision,
Watching unmoved the fall of burning worlds,
Rolling along the steep sides of the Infinite,
All ripe, like apples dropping from their stems;
Till the wide fields of space, like orchards stripp'd,
Have yielded up their treasures to the garner,
And the last star hath fallen from the crown
Of the high heavens into utter night,
Like a bright moment swallow'd up and lost
In hours of after-anguish; and all things
Are as they were in the beginning, ere
The mighty pageant trail'd its golden skirts
Along the glittering pathway of its God—
Save that the spacious halls of heaven are fill'd
With countless multitudes of finite souls,
With germ-like infinite capacities,
As if to prove all had not been a dream.
'Tis this that Night seems always thinking of;
Linking the void past to the future void,
And typifying present times in stars,
To show that all is not quite issueless,
But that the blanks have yielded starlike ones
To cluster round the sapphire throne of God
In bliss for ever, and for evermore!
Oh yes! I love the Night, who ever standeth
With her gemm'd finger on her rich ripe lip,
As if in attitude of deep attention,
Catching the mighty echoes of the words
Which God had utter'd ere the earth was form'd,
Or ere yon Infinite blushed like a bride
With all her jewels; and I love the flowers,
And their soft slumber as they lie around
In the sweet starlight, bathed in love-like dew,
And looking like young sisters, orphans too,
Left to our watchful care and guardianship,
To keep them from the rough-voiced, burly winds,
And see that nought invades their soul-like sleep.
Thou canst not tell me what I do not love
In all this dark-robed family of peace;
The temporary hush of the low winds,
And their uprising wail;—the shadows there
Cast from the long dark shrubberies, that move
And rest again on the green sward, and nod
Their hearselike plumage to the passing winds;—
The deep, unclouded light, half glow, half gloom,
Dark, and yet lustrous, gleaming with a fire
Whose sources seem unfathomable;—love
Even the very grass beneath our feet,
Whose graceful blades I almost fear to tread on,
Because when I have passed, they raise themselves
Again, half in reproach, so quietly
Turning themselves once more unto the heaven
That cherishes and feeds them, I could weep
That I had crush'd them underneath my foot;—
Even yon tree, standing so lonely there,
As if it dreamt of all the music which
Its branches used to hold when in their prime,
Ere it became a dead and blasted thing
Upon the bosom of the living world,
Which she still weareth, as a maiden wears
The wither'd flowers of the sweet Long-Ago,
Ere love itself and lover both were dead!
And yet I love it too—grim ancient thing.
All, all, oh! yes, I dearly love them all!
But Caroline, my dear, canst thou not guess
Why the night makes me sad?

Caroline.
Oh yes, I can!
Trust me for that, my dear simplicity!
Thou ever wert a loving, trusting one;
With all thy heart expanded, like a rose
Casting its richest fragrance to the winds,
Retaining the sweet grace of childhood, with
A broad, high spirit always on the march.
I used to be much puzzled with thee once,
For when I saw thee moved, I used to think
Thy tender heart was too great for thy soul:
And then again when I have seen thee stand
Unblenching in the presence of such thoughts
As would shake lesser spirits to their fall,
And topple reason and her balance o'er,
I thought, with something of a shudder, that
Thy soul was greater even than thy heart.
It may be that I could not fathom either,
And therefore each seem'd greater than the other
Just as occasion alternated them.
But I have learn'd to see that heart and soul
Are rounded into perfect harmony
In my sweet friend;—and Flora, I could tell
The name of him, the great magician, who
Hath wrought this change within thee—shall I now?

Flora.
Yes.

Caroline.
It is love! And now, my little one,—
Forgive me, pray, for treating thee as such;—
Although I reverence thy greater gifts,
I feel towards thee, dearest Flora, just
As an elder sister might unto the child
Left to her tutelage and care; for thou
In all thy innocent wisdom art as strange
To all the wiles of worldlings as a child,—
Art like a crusted diamond, dark and void,
Confined within the earth; but when released
And brought out to the kindred light of heaven,
Glowing and beaming like a new-born star.
And now, my dear, I will reveal the cause
Why the night makes thee sad; 'tis simply this,
That in its depths thou seest a shadowy reflex
Of him thou lovest; while its crested stars
Like his great thoughts, seem ever flashing up
The infinite expanse in search of God—
The ultimate and primal truth of things,
And preaching still the unattainable
In lines of light, whose meaning lies beneath
In piles of darkness, which, like that o'erhead,
Is infinite. Is it not so now, say?
His absence makes thee sad. Am I not right?

Flora.
Oh Carry, thou wert ever a sad rogue!
Yes, thou art partly right.

Caroline.
Nay, altogether!
I know I am! And now then tell me this—
Whose thoughts were those thou didst regale me with
But now? I fancy I have heard a voice
Well known to thee, utter some vastly like them.

Flora.
Right once again! Alexis taught me them.
And oh! I think his thoughts so oft within
The solitudes of night, and even dream
Of them in sleep, until they form a part
Of my soul's garniture, and it remains
No more a wonder that I utter them,
As if they were my own; and sometimes too
I catch the rainbow robe of his expressions—
The very words he used—not only stringing
His gems upon a gold thread of my own,
But taking up the casket that enshrined
His jewels.

Caroline.
Nay, Flora, now thou wrong'st thyself!
For thy thoughts are original as his;
And I meant only he had given the tone
And wing'd the tendency of thy remarks.
I wonder where those dreamers are just now,
Alexis and that tiresome Ferdinand.

Flora.
That tiresome Ferdinand? Ah, Caroline!

Caroline.
Talking, I warrant now, about the plan
And method of the universe; and plunged
In difficulties on the politics
And civil laws of Saturn; weaving webs
Of lofty speculation in their minds
To bridge across the gulf-like infinite,
And suffer them to crawl o'er—spider-wise—
Heaven's dizzy ceiling, with their heads turn'd down
To pay a friendly visit to the moon,
And ask the stars how they get on up there!

Flora.
Ho! hold thy tongue, thou pretty rattlepate!

Caroline.
Is not the earth quite wide enough for them?
And are we ciphers in the universe?
Come, let us sing that song Alexis taught thee.
I will begin.

Caroline.—Earth.

Flora.—Heaven.

Caroline.—Earth.

Flora.—Heaven.

Caroline.—Earth.

Flora.—Heaven.

Caroline.—Earth.

Flora.—Heaven.

Caroline.
Ah! 'tis no wonder now, with views like these,
That they—I mean Alexis and dear Ferdinand—
Should turn away from earth, and look to heaven
For that repose, and peace, and purity
Which never have dwelt here.

Flora.
And yet, O Earth,
We love thee, in whatever drapery
Thou art invested.—Whether thou dost come
With all thy budding-blossomings of Spring,
Orbing themselves into fulfilment; or,
Girdled in nameless glories, in the prime
And plenitude of Summer, with thy zone
Sun-dyed and purpled, like the gates of heaven;
Or whether in the ripe fruition-bursts
Of golden autumns, with their loaded wains,
Nodding like gods whose smile is plenty; or,
In thy most ghostly garb of winter, when
Thou foldest up thyself in faultless snows,
And lookest like a marble-sculptured form,
Waiting for some fire-giving god to breathe
Into thy spotless shape the breath of life;
Or whether deck'd in all the pomp and glow
Of thy day-splendours and activities,
Brushing the gather'd skirts of ebon darkness
With opaline gem-like sunbeams; or, at night,
When thou unrollest thy great map of stars;
Or when thou wrappest round thee heavy clouds,
And the white foam of brattling tempests, and
Peoplest thy caverns with a thousand wails,
And night with wandering voices full of woe;
Or whether, with thy brow serene and calm,
Thou stretchest o'er thee, like a tranquil thought,
The charmèd circle of thy summer skies;
In each of thy appearances we love thee;
Whether a smile dwells on thee like a blessing,
Or a frown hangs its thunder-curtain o'er
Thy beetling temples; Oh, we love thee, Earth!
Thou beautiful! Thou happy once! We love
Both thee and thine, for art thou not our mother?

Caroline.
Yes, Flora, and in spite of all her faults,
And even sometimes, perhaps, because of them,
Earth's children cling tenaciously to her
As to a mother, though they may have dreams
Of peace and happiness in other spheres.
Didst ever hear of any who declared
That they did not, and yet who were sincere
In their profess'd alienation?

Flora.
Yes!
Of one such I have heard:—A fair young girl
To whom one keen woe, like the scythe of Death,
Had sever'd at a stroke the ties of earth,—
The tender trammelage of love and hope,—
And not released the spirit from its clay,
But left it bleeding out at every pore,
Clinging with torn hands to its prison-bars,
And gasping out towards the light, in vain.
For she had loved and been deserted; and
All her heart's wealth was now return'd to her
Base metal, and not current coin. Her love
Which went forth from her bright and beautiful
Came back a ghastly corpse, to turn her heart
Into a bier, and chill it with its weight
Of passive woe for ever. But the shock
Had turn'd the poles of being, and henceforth,
In circles ever narrowing, her soul
Went wheeling like a stricken world, round heaven.

Edith.

Caroline.
Ah! I was thoughtless when I question'd thee,
And reck'd not of those broken-hearted ones
Who are among us now, in spite of all
The sneers of hollow worldlings, who would fain
Persuade themselves and us that wither'd hearts,—
Hearts from whose deathliness all joys have flown
As birds from winter,—are but poets' dreams,
Feign'd but to rouse a tear or to amuse.
Who hath not seen them,—the dead living ones,
With that sad ghastly something—meant to hide
From other eyes the anguish and the woe
That are consuming them,—that something, which
Like the poor pallid ghost of a dead smile
Plays over lips that never shall smile more—
Cold as December moonbeams on snow-drifts?

Flora.
Yes! Who hath not seen them come where music is,
And high-pitch'd jubilance and merriment,
Like a low, plaintive semi-tone to break
The noisy harmony into pathos, and
Gliding upon the gorgeous lighted rooms,
Like a November gloom let deftly in
Among the golden hours of Summer. Oh!
Who hath not seen and pitied what he saw?
And felt for these most solitary souls
Left to the wardenship of misery;
Within whose charmèd circle not a ray
So far mistakes its mission as to pierce,
And not a sound of mirth can penetrate,
For all things take its shape and breathe its tone;—
Those earth-abjured ones unto whom the stars
Preach nothing but the record of their woe,
And tell it to the depths in which they slumber;
To whom the day inscribes it on the clouds,
And figures it in well known hieroglyphs
Upon the front of all things and all times;
To whom Night typifies it in her glooms;
And all the winds come laden with its wail;
And all sounds seem to utter it in turns;
And all the trees seem nodding their farewell
To happiness for ever. And the flowers,
Bending beneath its weight, seem glad to die;
And sobs and sighs are all the food of time;
And all things bright have got it as their shadow;
And every joy is but the gay reverse,—
The bright blank nothing,—but the picture's back,—
The portrait of their woe turn'd to the wall!
Woe! woe! All woe! Until it is sublime,
And the great thing stands out, and clasps the world
Within its gaunt, dark arms, and cries, Behold,
Here is my infant!—Those unhappy ones
Who take their anguish round about with them,
And whose dead atmosphere opaques all things,
And dyes them in its sable hues:—Who seem
For ever wondering why the world is glad,
And why it does not let its great black heart
Reveal itself and gloom upon its face.
Ah! there are many dead ones walking up
And down the world whose thoughts are not with us
Nor with the living earth, and asking nought
Of all its sunshine, and its smiles, and bliss,
But pleading with the passion of despair
For nothing but a grave and burial.