University of Virginia Library

Not the whole earth can show a fairer sight,
More haunted by the spirit of the Past,
More overgrown with old-world memories,
That cling about it like the clustering growth
Of its own ivy-shroud, more eloquent
Of the strange pathos of this human life,
Than is the village church. It is the soul
Of all around; so near it seems at once
To nestling cot and field and tree and star,
So tender in its simple harmony
With the sweet quiet of the countryside;
As if it grew there of its own pure will,
And loved the soil that bore it. Softly falls
Its guardian shadow on the sleeping flock,
Low lying in their last and silent fold,
While they who soon shall share that beauteous rest
Are kneeling to the Lord of life and death,
And o'er the graves and through the yew-tree creeps
The murmur of the ages. Envy there
Doth cease to gnaw his heart, and Scorn forgets
To curl the lip, and hate and avarice
And pride, and all that poisons human joy,
Are turned to loveliness; the snarls of Strife,
With all our little swelling selfish cares,
Are hushed; the blustering voice of Tyranny
Is awe-struck; but pure love and gentle thoughts,
Forgetfulness of wrong and utter peace,
Hallow the sombre garden of the dead.

Nor is the life of him, who doth control
That unambitious realm in serving it,
Less beautiful and blessèd, so the man
Be worthy of his calling. He alone,
Saving the healer of their bodies' ills,
Knoweth the dumb abysses that lie hid
Within the darksome bosoms of the poor,
Sees life in all its nakedness, and moves
Familiar through the depths of joy and woe.
His hand it is that seals with Christ's own sign
Our children's brows, that joins their trembling hands
In closest compact; his the voice that breathes
Firm consolation o'er the closing grave,
Whose tones can still the bickerings of spite
And slander's garrulous tongue. 'Tis his to strew
The seed of wholesome knowledge, his to shed
A fruitful sunshine through the dullest home,
Lifting its grovelling cares to nobler aims;
While week by week, oft as the Sabbath hush
Descends upon the country, while the loam
Dries on the empty wain, and by the hearth
The sheep-dog basks, and even the wild birds
Seem conscious of the holy day, 'tis his—
O high and happy service!—to stand forth
Amidst his flock, within those sacred walls
Where generations of the sons of toil
Have lived their purest hours, and feed their souls
From that old Book whose beauty doth not fade,
Whose wisdom, passion, strength and tenderness
For nigh two thousand years have been the stay
Of tottering faith, the balm of bruisèd hearts,
The widow's comfort and the martyr's shield.

All this is his, and more; the pastor hath
Earth's dearest gift—a home whose daily life
Squares with his calling; simple constant joys,
Without excitement and without remorse,
That lengthen days and brace him to endure
His dark experiences, the ruffian's oath,
The breath of sickness and the bed of death.
Beneath his roof the lofty and the low
Find equal entertainment; poverty
Hath not made lean his heart, nor riches dulled
Its native sympathies, but all his ways
A kindly grave refinement ever haunts,
Begot of generous lore, unharassed hours
Of musing, gentle birth, and Christian love;
And if his brain may lack the ample scope
Of those whose thought is free to range at will,
Yet oft a larger heart doth compensate
For tranquil breadth of judgment, and the man
Is loftier than his creed.

Ev'n such an one
Was David Westren; not a man more loved
Through all the breadth of that fair shire which seems
A miniature of all our island's charms,
Whose bosom reared in England's noon-day pride
Her rarest spirits,—the rich old shire of Devon;
There slumber in deep vales her warmest homes,
There lie her greenest pastures, softest woods,
Her wildest streams, her loneliest sweep of moor,
And there the Western Ocean thunders forth
Its mightiest harmonies. He knew them all,
And loved them, as the heir of some great name
Loves the old scrolls that tell his fathers' deeds;
And his was no mean stock; his sire, well pleased
To ply the surgeon's craft, could yet claim kin,
Though here and there broken or dim the line,
With that proud Earl whom zealots sought to mate
With England's kingly Queen, whilst yet the gloom
Of Mary's brow darkened this happy land.
Nor had the old man left the precious trust,
Which all inherit and must all bequeath,
No richer for his stewardship. Full oft,
At night returning from some couch, where Death
Had fled his calm quick hand, the Atlantic blast
Broad-bellowing o'er the moorland, and the sleet
Blinding his watchful eyes, his restless brain
Outstripped the storm, careering through the mists
That coldly veil futurity's dim waste,
Some day to lift as glorious clouds, and melt
In showers of blessing, when her wilderness
Shall blossom as the rose. Full oft, returned,
His hasty meal at end, and scarcely snatched
A too brief space of hardly-won repose,
The midnight lamp lit up his furrowed brow,
Bent on the page that told from o'er the sea
The latest marvel of his art, or knit
To prove with lens the subtle seeds of ill;
Whence rising, he would pace his lonely room
With flashing eye, quick heart, and cheek aflame,
Forecasting the wide hope that dawneth now,
Its brightest ray beaming from eager France,
On plagued humanity; that every pest
May, by long culture of its ravenous germs,
Be turned against itself, and slowly starved
From out its stronghold. His was the first hand,
In all that custom-nursing shire, that steeped
The sufferer's senses in a painless trance,
Ere the knife did its cruel kindly work;
His the first hand, when all the veins ran flame,
That ceased to rob the weak and panting heart
Of that which fed its strength.—A brave, wise man;
Above his place, yet scorning not its toils,
Before his day, yet faithful to its needs.

He, dying of a scratch, by chance self-dealt
Whilst seeking life for others in the dead,
Called to his couch, ere yet the fiery flood
Had wrapt the lofty citadel of mind,
His three stout sons, each from his distant post;
The first-born from those walls which all the might
Of Heathendom ne'er reared, where day by day
The Son of Man is worshipped in good deed,
Where such poor forms, as thronged at set of sun
Around the Great Physician, find a hand
Waiting to heal, a voice attuned to soothe;
The second from his care of field and flock;
The youngest and most prized—for his dear life
Nigh cost the mother's—from his books and sports
In that old city peopled by the young,
Where Time becomes a boy again, and life
Flows ever fresh, a bright and laughing tide,
Through halls grown grey in brooding o'er the past,
And streets that totter with the weight of years.

They by the bedside stood, young David's hand
Locked in his father's grasp, who gazed on all
With such deep eloquence as dying eyes
Alone can pour, and spake in trembling tones:—
“My sons, my own dear sons, you come in time
To hear my blessing and my solemn charge,
Ere Death makes hideous pastime with his prey;
God grant, for your loved sakes, the venomous fangs
That soon will fasten on my reeling brain,
Convulsing all my frame beyond control,
May do their office quickly; that not long
These eyes, that now brim o'er with conscious love,
May glare on you in fierce forgetfulness,
A ghastly mockery, too remote for tears.
Grieve not, my children, that a single tree
Is blasted to the base, before its fruit
Be fully ripened; for no higher lot
Is dealt to man than this, to lose his life
In a good cause; and though my special toil,
The slow research of years, seem labour lost,
Yet from long mingling of aspiring souls,
In God's own time, shall spring the master-mind,
Whose thought shall win the eagle's height, and scan
The dark recesses of the realm of pain.
A vast mosaic is the face of Truth;
We fashion each with patient narrow sight
His little block, tinted with one self-hue
Of light or gloom, as suits his mood; then comes
The master, and with wider vision schemes
Of these a fancied feature; God alone
Knoweth the aspect of the perfect face.
Nor wills He that the meanest piece should fail
From out that mighty work, if but the hand
Were true and firm that wrought it. O my sons,
Be faithful above all things to the light
That burns within you, wheresoe'er it lead,
To shame, to death, to loss of faith itself;
Thus only can new paths be found at last
Through trackless seas of ignorance; and think not
That pilot's life is cast away, who finds
In depths unknown an unrecorded grave.
O, for the honour of High God, be true;
For they blaspheme His faithfulness who deem
That earnest thought e'er led the soul astray.
Let not ambition, poverty, or scorn
Corrupt you to forsake the side of Truth,
How thankless, how deformed soe'er she seem;
So only will ye know the peace of God.”
This and much more he spake, Death standing by
To weigh his words; and when three days had passed,
A desperate conflict over—for the frame
Was iron-knit, and battled to the last—
They closed the sunken eyes, and with held breath
Kissed the white brow and left him to his rest.
But in the dead of night the youngest came,
And kneeling at the bedside laid his head,
Aching with tears, upon his father's breast,
And whispered to his heart, “I will be true;”
And while he lingered by the open grave,
Those sounds were in the throbbing of his blood,
And pleaded in the moaning of the wind;
And evermore his father's dying words,
Which only in the fateful hours of life
Rang in his brothers' ears, possessed his soul
And ruled his lightest action.

But the stroke
That robbed him of the firmest of all friends,
A wisely-loving father, was an ill
That carried its own balm—the need for work;
And not as yet knew he the grief that snaps
The spring of deed and drains the fount of hope,
The tears that wash the colour out of life,
Making each night a frantic prayer for death,
Each morn a lingering torture, with dull eyes
Fixed ever on the past. His equal share
Of the small hoard, his father's selfless thrift
Had heaped to meet the hour of need, he spent
In training for the soldiership of Heaven;
Deeming himself full rich if once he stood,
Like they of old, not having purse or scrip,
Yet girt to serve his Captain. But not long
Was poverty, that prunes luxuriant growth
To bear more fruit, that saves the warmth of youth
For starving age, and keeps life's relish keen,
His comrade; for the widely-honoured name
His father left him, joined with his own worth,
His noble mien and courtly eloquence,
Availed, ere many years had flown, to win
An ample living 'mid the tors and streams
That bred him, and the loveliest home in Devon.

Sheltered it lay beside the bosomed slope
That nursed the little village, and the church
Peeped from the woods in whose soft lap it slept;
Although some fields removed from humbler homes,
'Twas more, it seemed, in modesty than pride,
As if it sought to screen its wealthier lot
From its poor brethren; for it rather showed
A lordly cottage than a pastor's home;
A mossy thatch, with ivy half o'ergrown,
Proof against summer's sting and winter's tooth,
O'erpeeped the lattices, set wide to drink
The garden's breath, whose lingering scent should lure
The sleeper to sweet dreams; while sunshine beamed,
Or moonlight glimmered, in the rooms beneath,
Through creepers, wreathing with their tangled flowers
The long verandah shading all the front;
There the white jasmine, rose and honeysuckle
Twined lovingly their arms and mingled free
Their fragrant kisses; pale canary-creeper
Climbed in its one brief summertide of life
As near the sky as they; and the sweet pea
Reached feeling tendrils to each drooping spray
And lightly curled around it; but when these
Had shed their petals on the thirsty wind,
And the few feeble blossoms, that still strove
To smile, were smothered in a wealth of green,
Came Autumn, and with lovely petulance
Set all aflame, while 'mid the glowing leaves
The clematis, proud empress of the fall,
Arrayed herself in purple.—Such the bower;
Whence sloped a lawn, studded with beds of bloom,
Streaked with trim paths, and dappled with the shade
Of flowering trees, down to the riverside.

There for three years he dwelt, a cheerful man,
Beside his lonely hearth; though oftentimes,
The full flood chafing in his Celtic veins,
His big heart bounding and his cheek on fire
With draughts of ocean-air, a mighty want
Would on a sudden famish frame and soul;
And passion-gusts would sweep through every nerve,
Like the warm pulsings of a great south-wind,
Melting his inmost core, and drowning sense
With wave on wave of strange delirious hope.
Then would a vivid presence, far away,
A dream of darkling eyes and silken hair,
An ecstasy of all things soft and pure,
A rapture of all grace and tenderness,
Possess him like a frenzy; and a soul
Would seem from these to clothe herself in shape,
Like Venus rising from the spray; a form
His strong arms ached to clasp, and all his being
Yearned to enfold. Yet nowise was the man
Of sensual cast, no kin to those slow beasts
Whose dull desires crave coarsest excitants
And constant whetting; agony and death
Were such to him, whose heart, though strung to cope
All day with horse and hound from tor to tor,
And scarcely own the strain, yet thrilled and shook
Before the downcast lashes of a girl.
Less was he one to chill the zest of life
With thankless self-repression, or lay waste
The sunny fields of joy with monkish scorn,
Or fret away the substance of delight
In idle day-dreams, or forego the care
Of his loved flock to battle with himself—
Dangers that still beset the lonely priest.
No healthier life than his on all the moor;
A lover of good cheer; a bubbling source
Of jest and tale; a monarch of the gun;
A dreader tyrant of the darting trout
Than that bright bird whose azure lightning threads
The brooklet's bowery windings; the red fox
Did well to seek the boulder-strewn hillside,
When Westren cheered her dappled foes; the otter
Had cause to rue the dawn when Westren's form
Loomed through the steaming bracken, to waylay
Her late return from plunder, the rough pack
Barking a jealous welcome round their friend.
Yet was the sportsman's heart as kind and soft
As any mother's; he would turn aside
To set the struggling beetle on its feet,
Or stoop to lift a pallid worm, surprised
By daybreak, and restore it to the grass;
Children would hang upon his willing arm,
Dancing for joy beside him, as he strode
Through the small thorp whose heart and soul he was;
And not a cottage threshold but well knew
And loved his footstep. Nobly could his voice
Render the lofty music of the Word,
While sunbeams streamed across the well-filled church;
Boldly apply it, in all charity,
To present need; nor mar the good effect
By dealing it as patrons deal a dole,
But rather as all brethren at one feast.

Thus for three years he lived, a lonely man;
Till, at a look, the secret of his breast,
And all the folded powers within his soul,
Expanded; as a bud, that long hath swelled
In russet sheath, suffusing its shut heart
With faintest tints of beauty yet to come,
Bursts at a glance of summer, and lays bare
The splendour of its bosom to the sun,
Revealing deepening hues, which but for him
Had languished into pallor. Such a sun
Is love, and such a bud the heart of man.

'Twas on a flashing morning, storm and shine,
And April like a wilful maiden laughed
To see her own bright tears, and rainbows played
With huge clouds, huddling to a sullen heap,
Yet crowned with pearl, while overhead the sky
Was fresh-bathed blue; snow here and there still clung
Along the dusky ridges of the moor,
Dwindling the farthest distance to a span;
But where the river, like a silver thread
That wanders o'er a cloth of broidered gold,
Wound through the fragrant glory of the furze,
Fluttered the first white butterfly, and larks
Left with a cry of joy the twinkling wheat
To mount upon the sunbeams. At first dawn,
Led by the muffled voices of the stream,
Enswathed in mist, had Westren wandered forth;
Snatched a sweet breakfast, with a mossy rock
For seat and table, and for drink a draught
Of the pure torrent rioting its way
From pool to pool; had cast his mimic fly
Where'er a deeper eddy offered hope
Of stouter prey; and now, his creel well-stored
With many a supple victim, homeward bound
Loitered in vacant mood.

When, as he reached
A sudden bend, where the pent river made
A whirlpool, fretting 'neath the hollow bank,
Smiled over by a blackthorn-bush, that vied
Its snowy radiance with the sunlit foam,
A vision met his eyes which sent the blood
Back to his startled heart, and held his frame
Entranced.—Upon the further bank, one foot
Lost in the yielding sand, and one far-stretched
Against a fallen bough, that made the stream
Swerve savagely but left a tranquil pool
Beyond, there stood the figure of a girl,
Shapely and full and tall, in all the grace
Of unrestraint; a joyful eagerness,
Save for one swift glance round, had banished shame
As far as from the brow of any child
That tumbles in the hayfield; her light arms
Cared but to rule the sturdy trout, that leapt
And struggled for its life, bending the rod
Toward its dark lair beneath the twisted roots;
Her wild-rose cheek was burning with the pants
That shook her giddy heart; her soft grey eyes
Flashed triumph, and the tawny hair flew loose
About her face, rejoicing to escape
The hat, blown off and dangling at her back.

But scarce had Westren stumbled on the thought
To steal away, then raise some warning sound
Of song or crackling thicket as he neared
The blackthorn, when she turned, as if aware
Of one that watched, and turning met his eyes
Fixed with delighted wonder on her own.
Then, quick as the deep blush that flooded cheek
And brow and neck with crimson, she drew back
The witching foot, and stood erect, her face
The plaything of contending pride and shame;
While the big trout, a moment free, rushed in
Beneath the tangled drift. But, net in hand,
Splashed Westren to the rescue, with gay laugh
And merry words of compliment; and soon
The trout lay floundering on the grassy bank,
A gallant fish, all flashing to the sun
In silver mail inlaid with scarlet gems,
His back thick-sprinkled as a leopard's hide
With rich brown spots, and belly of bright gold

Then followed broken talk; and then a pause
Whose sweet oppression only young hearts know,
When the tongue fails and all the brain is steeped
In languor, when the breath comes fast and faint,
Laden with cherished sickness, when the heart
Is lost, and in its place a sense of want
Curdling the frame with bliss, till arms and lips
Tingle with tender promptings.—O that life,
Time and the world could stand for ever still
In that deep pause, dearer than tongue can sing,
Or heart imagine that hath felt it not,
Dearer than they who own its spell e'er know
Till all the dew on life's best flower be dry.—
Great God! could not the wealth of might, that went
To build this world, have framed a lesser orb
And saved it from decay; could not Thy love
Have willed that life's best pleasure should outlive
One melting hour?—We thank Thee for the hope
That cheers us to our downfall,—while it lasts;
But ah! 'tis sad to stand beside its wreck,
And see the lovely longing of the bud
To blossom full, the passion of the boy
For manhood, the blind hunger of the youth
To rush from love's light promise to a feast,
Which, though 'tis sweet, yet dulls the first fresh sense,
And leads through loss and mourning to the grave.

So Westren lived one hour of perfect spring,
Beseeching love with eyes, if not with lips;
And the fair girl who moved beside him felt
Delicious tremor, and a conscious fear
Of her own beauty, while her faltering steps
Seemed wandering through a fresh-born world, her breast
Breathing strange air, the warbling of the birds
New eloquence, and earth and sky and sun
Quick with a life that had not been before.

Thus, all too soon, they reached a lovely nook,
Where the loud river, storming down a stair
Of giant boulders, smothered its complaint
In meeting woods, whereon a film of mist
Slept like the bloom upon a purple grape.
There sat her father, busied with his brush,
Seeking in vain to catch the subtle play
Of light and shadow, as the great white clouds
Sailed over, and between their frowns a world
Of gradual hues, a million tinted boughs
Answered the sunlight. A famed artist he,
Not courting Nature in her bolder moods,
But wooing such fine changes of her face
As man may never hope to win, albeit
With failure such as most would deem success.

A glad smile chased the sadness from his brow,
Hearing the ripple of his daughter's laugh
Behind him; but still gazing on his work:—
“Well, Sunbeam, and what sport?”

“Look, father, look!
“For this we have to thank a friend in need.”
So saying, she displayed her spotted prize,
Bending her blushing face to point how here
And there the living splendour of his sheen
Had faded; while the father jealously
Took measure of her comrade, as he rose,
Encumbered by the girl's glad arm, to greet
The stranger; who, with easy dignity,
After due deference paid to riper years,
Described that morning's chance, his neighbourhood
And calling, and with modest thoughtful praise
Of the half-finished picture took his leave.

But once he paused, ere yet the lovely nook,
Now lovelier for its tenant—as all things
Are fairer for the presence of a girl—
Was lost to view; and pausing, saw her form
Stooped o'er her father's shoulder as he worked;
Her form, but not her face; for that—O joy!—
Was gazing toward him, just as long a space
As love could wrest from shyness; then 'twas hid
Quick as a bird's head turns—and one great gasp
Burst from the heart of Westren, like the leap
Of the whole blood when from a deadly wound
The shaft is drawn, flooding his frame with fire,
And lighting up a fever in his cheek,
Which raged throughout the day, and all that night
Scared slumber from his pillow.

But what excess
Of balm, what overflowing of content
Ev'n to dismay, what slaking of his thirst
Almost to drowning, had he stood at dawn
A spirit in her chamber, all unseen;
Yet seeing all; had watched that maiden shape,
Cast lavishly in Nature's choicest mould,
Rise from her wakeful bed, and open wide
The casement, and look forth upon the stream
With hot pale cheeks and tired eyes charged with tears;
Then fling herself again upon the couch,
And sigh and smile, and press with dimpled hand
Her tender-housed young heart, low murmuring
“Ah! love, ah! love, I would not have thee gone!”

Small need to tell that daybreak found the man
A restless pilgrim to the spot, where first
Their eyes had mingled in the warmth of youth.
How scant of flowers the blackthorn seemed; how chill
The meadow-mist; how void of sense the chirp
Of bird and ceaseless rattle of the stream;
How changed and empty all!—Small need to tell
The maiden's fear and longing, as she roamed
That day, no further from her parent's sight,
Than timid nestling trying its young wings
Near to the home it longs yet fears to leave.
The rabbit rustling through the withered fern,
The leaping squirrel, or the laughing jay,
Would send her fluttering back, with frame that thrilled
As if 'twere all one heart, and icy hands
Palsied with nervous pleasure. Smaller need
To tell how rose and lily lost and won
Their thrones within the empire of her cheek,
When, with the tumult of his heart proclaimed
From out his eyes, the master of her life
Stood once again before her.—Love like theirs
Is reinless as the lightning, and will cleave
Its way through heaven and hell.

And so there came
A moment, when the pleading of their eyes
Grew giddy-blind, and the two gazing souls
Swam into one another, and the strength
Of man and maid, and all the heart of life,
Death and for ever, mantled to their lips
And sealed them in a long devouring kiss.
As when two streams, whose rushy sources lie
Wide-parted on the moorland, trickle down
For many a lonely mile, till far away
They hear each other's voices calling low,
And gather speed and volume, bearing still
Nearer to one another, till at last
With one glad leap they mingle, and flow on
Through barriers of rough rock, through marsh and wold,
Through flowery meads and music-breathing woods,
Till the salt tide turns all their life to tears
And the great deep receives them.

All our fate
Hangs on an unknown moment. As a child's
Light laugh may rouse the slumbering avalanche,
So some weak thing—a passing shower, a snatch
Of song, a glance, a step—oft wakes our doom.
How stern soe'er the law, we know it not,
We still must wrestle with a phantom foe,
We still must bow the head, as oft in tears
As thankfulness. The balances of God
Are fine beyond all reckoning, howsoe'er
Fraught with eternal issues.

So these two
Became one flesh, one heart, almost one soul
In wedlock's soft constraint, and seemed to move
As in some vivid dreamland, where delight
Is law and sweetest sin no more debarred.
And little wonder, if the tender maid,
Rapt in a space so short from cool repose
To burning tumult, from the morn of May
To July's noon, oft felt the power of love
Brood like a thundercloud, yet cleft by rays
Of hope, and soon to pass and leave the sky
Untroubled.

But one night, the waning moon
Hidden beneath a brow of cloud, that lowered
For leagues along the black horizon, girt
Each with the other's arm the lovers sat,
And listened to the sadness of the sea.
They watched the myriad links of liquid gold
Quiver away, until the deep was all
One heaving darkness and a world-wide moan
Swept o'er it like the spirit of despair.
Then Westren felt a strong convulsion shake
Her gentle breast. “Love, let us go,” he said,
“You shudder, and the night grows dark.” But she,
For answer, threw her arms around his neck,
Her head upon his heart, while passionate sobs
Waylaid her utterance. But when that swift storm
Was over, and she raised her tearful eyes
To close beneath his kisses, lingeringly,
With much self-blame for foolish doubts and fears,
She told her mood.

“Forgive me, dearest one,
And God forgive me; but a dreadful doubt,
Ev'n when my heart was fullest of fond thoughts,
Chilled through me, like a blast of cruel wind
Nipping the bloom of spring; the awful doubt—
Father of love, forgive!—if love indeed
Be worth its heavy cost. Darling, to think
That one of us must stand some day and watch
The other pass for ever out of reach,
Helpless, then fall beside the dead, and feel
O such a loneliness, O such a waste
Of anguish, that my heart foreboding it
Reels, as the weak brain reels when it essays
To grasp eternity. Is God in truth
A niggard creditor, Who doth require
Strict payment for the joys we call His gifts,
For children's smiles the pangs of motherhood,
For youth's bright fitfulness the fogs of age,
For wedded love the widow's wintry heart,
For every bliss a pang—a lifelong score
Of pains and tears, remorse and weariness,
Till death discharges the grand debt of life?
Is God less generous than ourselves, or weak
To do His will; or is this loving heart
No image of His love, this straining brain
Helpless to comprehend?—Then wherefore life?
Not for man's pleasure; pain and fear forbid;
Not surely for God's toy?—Kiss me, dear heart!
My soul is strangely troubled, but the cloud
Is melting in the radiance of thy love.
See, how the moon breaks forth and strews the waves
With glory; so thy presence gilds with light
The deep and darksome trouble of my soul.
To feel thy kiss is worth more agony
Than life can hold.”

Then Westren, his strong arm
Enfolding her, as when a father folds
A cheering arm around his frightened child,
Spake words of manly comfort, not unmixed
With reverent faith:—“for Christ Himself hath known
That utter desolation, and the path
He trod can never more be wholly dark.
And for love's cost—unless a tree or stone
Deserve our envy, all that makes us feel
Exalts us, and is welcome though with tears.”

So passed the one dark storm across their moon
Of wedded rapture; and next night they lay—
O sweet and strange delight!—in their own home,
All doubt and tumult calmed, and both their hearts
Steeped in content. What sure repose of love
Glowed from the man's dark eyes, as deep he drank
The twilight of the girl's; what perfect peace
To lay his head on her pure breast, and feel
Her soft arm clasp his neck, her golden hair
Fall light as gossamer o'er brow and cheek,
While through the open lattice came the scent
Of honeysuckle, jealous of her breath,
And mingling with her sighs the stream's low voice
Made slumbrous music.

Then what new delight
To waken to her presence, watch the heave
Of the white bosom as the eyes unclosed,
Kiss the soft peach-bloom of the rounded cheek,
The snowy loveliness where cheek joined lip
And health and joy and womanhood were met
In dimpled union. What refreshing bliss
To lead her through the garden, bright with flowers
And sunshine, ringing with the songs of birds;
To see her, at the cheery morning meal,
Peep round the urn, the better to enjoy
The fulness of his face. What calm of pride
To guide her through the village, every hand
Doing her kindly reverence; and to note
The happy wonderment of those who came
To pay due homage to the pastor's wife;
And mark the smile that lit the sick man's brow,
When, laden with sweet flowers or dainty food,
Always with gentlest words, her radiant form
Shone like an angel's through the gloom of death.

And then the precious evenings, all too short,
When reverently they communed with the souls
Of the great dead, who live for evermore,
To light the generations on their way,
And hold a candle to the heart of Man;—
The Hebrew seers, the subtle brains of Greece,
The mirror-mind of Shakespeare. Or they dwelt
With no less love, if lightlier, on the page
Of bards whose voice and pinion is to theirs
As linnet's to the lark's. But most they joyed,
With twin intent and sympathetic hands,
To spell upon the ivory keys the thoughts
Of those rare souls, whose poesy is writ
In world-wide language, eloquent of moods
Too vast, too deep, too delicate for speech;
Heart-searching strains of harmony, to which
The measured music of melodious words
Is stammering discord; Handel's stately pomp;
Mozart's clear gracefulness; the piteous wail
Of Schubert; and the monarch of all song,
Master of all the human heart can feel,
Infinite pleading, awful tenderness,
Titanic power—Beethoven's stormy soul.
Oft would they rise from this with throbbing frames
Drained of emotion, and would wander forth
To lose among the summer stars the sense
Of human greatness.

Dearly too they loved
To thread the narrow over-arching lanes,
Seeking some rare wild-flower, or scramble up
The steep hedge-bank for prize of moss or fern;
Dearly, when skies were fair, to track the course
Of moorland stream, and take their gipsy meal
Where the exulting eye could roam o'er leagues
Of naked loneliness—a billowy waste
Of russet grass, peat-ruts and spongy tufts,
Heaving away to hills whose rocky crests,
Storm-hewn to shape of beast or heathen god,
Scowl at the ocean crawling far beneath—
A desolation wearing on its face
Marks of perpetual warfare; grisly scars
Dealt myriad ages back by fire and ice,
And wounds fresh-furrowed by the torrent's share.
A silence like the hush of a dead star,
Save for the whisper of some tiny life,
Some exquisite, translucent, wingèd thing,
That slept all winter through the thunder-clang
Which shook the very tors; as oftentimes,
In Nature's tender irony, a spire
Of fairy grass takes shelter where the pine
Dares not to rear its head.—Then home across
The saddened wilderness, until the glow
Of furze and heather, and the hoary blue
Of bracken, and the evensong of birds,
Broke the weird charm.

Nor were their least delights
Rare visits to her father, in that hive
Of cares, that crowded loneliness, that heart
And brain of earth's profusest energies,
Whereto the veins and nerves of the whole world
Converge, where life fulfils its worst and best,
And loudest beats the mighty pulse of Man.

There would they hear the master-works of song
Souled forth as if the master's own right hand
Were swaying their full tide; now wakening
The shiver of the violins, the plaint
Of the slow horn, the clarionet's sweet sigh,
And yearning sorrow of the double bass;
Now rousing all to fury, and again
Lulling the storm of music to a moan,
As of some weary spirit wandering forth
For ever homeless o'er the deep of pain;
And then a dance of fairies, light as dew,
Mad whirl of witches, or voluptuous maze
Of black-eyed girls beneath an Eastern moon;
And then a blast of strange sepulchral woe
Freezing the blood with nameless dread; and last
A strain so jubilant, sublime and strong,
It seemed as though eternity were made
One triumph-arch, through which, while Heaven and Earth
Rang with applause of millions, God Himself
Marched.—But dull words are vain; music is all.

So Westren deemed; and oftimes, homeward bound
From such repasts, broad themes of melody
Still rocking through his brain, would chill his wife
With silence unawares; feeling himself
A worm within a well, and those great lords
Of song enthroned upon the mountain-tops,
Too high almost for worship.

Kindred joy,
But reverence less bewildered, as the art
Of sound is rarer than the art of speech,
He felt, when Shakespeare's worlds of mirth and grief
Lived on the stage before his brightening eyes,
Gesture and garb and scene conspiring all
To emphasize the wondrous poesy.

From these delights returning to their home
Embosomed in the moor, they felt fresh joy
In Nature's outer loveliness, a joy
Which palls for those who never quit her side,
A joy distinct from close communion held
With Nature's soul, or never-tiring quest
Among her boundless marvels. Even so,
His knowledge of her spirit's worth undulled,
A lover's relish of his mistress' face
Oft fails for lack of absence.

Thus they lived
For years, one flesh, one heart, almost one soul,
In wedlock's soft constraint; and two fair babes,
A boy and maiden, filled their home with glee
And winning ways and tender hopes and fears;
And grew, like flower and sapling, to such grace
Of girlhood, such fine manliness, that life
Was one long May-day.

So the Pastor reared
A perfect home; and, alway thanking Heaven,
Shed sunshine wheresoe'er he went, and cheered
The wretched with the warmth of his glad face,
The poor in bliss with bounty of his store,
And preached a God of mercy, love and joy.

But tremble to be happy!—Human joys
Are but as glittering rain-drops, lightly poised
On life's black, naked tree; a sweep of wind—
A shower of tears—and all the tree is bare;
A few calm, cloudless days—and heaven is loud
With thunder, and the angry brow of Fate
Frowns as of old on man's brief happiness.
Within yon fruit-fair cheek the worm Disease
Lies coiled; beneath yon smiling water lurks
The monster Death, and sits with open arms
At foot of yonder precipice.—Climb on,
Poor mortal, with strained hands and bleeding feet,
Climb on!—but ere thou reach the top, ev'n while
Thou pausest to take breath and gaze with pride
Upon the hard-gained height, comes One unseen
And hurls thee to the base.—Let earth's proud lord
Cast off the mail of faith, gird on the proof
Of fact, hedge round his life with gathering power
And cunning, yet the bow at venture drawn
Will pierce through all; and who shall name the hand
That drew it, or if any hand there be?