University of Virginia Library

Scene IV.

A Boudoir. Night.
Ferdinand and Caroline.
Caroline.
Come Ferdinand, now tell me, pray,
Why thou hast thus prolong'd thy stay
From days to weeks, from weeks to months;—
Or art thou happier when away?
If so, sir, you may leave me now!
I cannot bear an absent brow,
And eyes fix'd in a vacant stare
As yours are, on that empty chair.
Only one half of you seems here,
The other may be anywhere;—
Up in the air for ought I know
Helping the cloud nymphs to make snow:
Or at the bottom of the sea
Wondering where all its mermaids be.
But tell me truly now, I pray—
Such knowledge doth to me belong—
Why thou didst go from me, and stay,
Or staying,—why so long?

Ferdinand.
O Caroline, it matters not.
Thou art not, canst not, be forgot;
For wheresoever I may be,
My heart and soul are both with thee.

Caroline.
What! When I know that both were spent
On Saturn and on red-hair'd Mars?—

Ferdinand.
Yes. For Night's brow, like thine, is bent
But to reveal its wealth of stars.
So let thine bend, my love, no longer,
Thou canst not make thy beauty stronger;
And smile upon me once again,
Like sunshine through a shower of rain.
There! That will do! Those arch, dark eyes
With every glance seem ever proving
The peerless beauty, or the bliss,
The bliss and beauty both, of loving.

Caroline.
Ah! but thou hast not answer'd yet
The question which I just have ask'd thee;
Dost think, then, I so soon forget
The naughtiness with which I've task'd thee?
Come tell me where thou hast been roving,—
Thou who hast sung the bliss of loving.

Ferdinand.
To those who love there is no absence.
Thine image holds me like the air;
Whether I wander or I rest—
Goes and rests with me everywhere.
To those who love, the universe,
Like a great heart, is ever beating;
And every strong pulsation keeps
The one dear loved name still repeating.
To those who love, all moments are
Like cloudlets veiling o'er a star;
And everything in nature seems
Emparadised in golden dreams.
To those who love, all loveliness
Is but the image of the grace
That mantles o'er the one loved form;—
Is but a mirror of her face.
Day sings her name with thousand tongues,
And night the echo still prolongs;
Flowers breathe it to their mother earth;
Leaves lisp it by the light winds shaken;
Sighs gasp it to the heaving breast;
Tears tell it when they do but waken;
Dews hold it in their trembling souls;
Birds trill it to the morn and even;
Streams tell it to their flowery banks;
And star-beams write it over heaven.
All nature is but as a scroll,
With thy name filling up the whole.
And I, and my best friend, have been
Scanning the universe but now;—
He, thinking of I know not what,
I, thinking of thy pearl-like brow.
I cannot give his thoughts to thee;
But, Carry, I can give thee mine,—
Perchance he read another name,
But I saw, dearest, only thine.

Caroline.
There that will do. Thy verses, Ferdinand,
Are getting rather watery, like sea-sand.
Thy Pegasus hath gone quite out of breath;
Check him in time, or it may prove his death!

Ferdinand.
Hold wicked one! The dimples in thy face
Might well provoke him to another race.
Little love-cells they appear,
Large enough to hold a tear.
But what should he do—little stranger—
In those velvet halls of smiles?
His poor life would be in danger
From a thousand witty wiles.
They would pinch him till he vanish'd
O'er the soft and peachy brim;
They would fold him in love-garlands
Till he could no longer swim.
They would smother him with blossoms;
They would press him with a kiss,
Till his life went like a seraph
In a rainbow-robe of bliss.—
A tear could never live
On those fair cheeks of thine,—
It would vanish like a dewdrop
In the day-god's cup of wine.
It would melt off like an icedrop
Laid upon a burning bar;—
It would die out in that sunlight
Like a little patient star.

Caroline.
Better and better, Ferdinand! I vow
That is much better than “thy pearl-like brow.”
But are my dimples all? Have I no more
Of all the wares of beauty in my store?
I thought now I had got a pair of eyes,—
And a nose too, or else my mirror lies!
Then, I believe, I have a pair of lips,
And eke a neck, on which my black hair dips.

Ferdinand.
Dips like darkness on a snow-wreath
Resting on a mountain-side,
Which it glooms, but cannot cover;
Which it veils, but cannot hide.
Dips like brown bees on a lily,
Which they cannot darken quite;
But which seemeth for their presence
All the fairer, purer white.
Then thy eyes are like the heavens
When no cloud their beauty mars,
And their lovely deeps are lighted
By a countless host of stars.
Oh! thy eyes are dark, my beauty,
But one has not long to seek
For the light that cometh from them,
Like the morning from a peak,—
For the light that is within them,
And whose depths it does not break,—
Pure and lovely as a swan's neck
On a deep and shadowy lake.
Then thy lips are like the splendours
Which the Northern climes adorn
When the ruby tints of evening
Meet the ruddy hues of morn.
Oh! thy lips are rich and lustrous,
As though the sun had just caressed them;
But one cannot speak their beauty
Till one has—just thus—thus—pressed them!

Caroline.
There! if thy breath is not already spent
Thou oughtest to grow grandly eloquent,
For on these silly waxen lips of mine
If my glass tells me truly, there is wine
Would turn a harder, heavier head than thine!
But, Ferdinand, be serious now, I pray;
Think not I am that ever foolish thing
Who can give heed unto the lightest lay,
And believe all that flattering voices sing.
O, Ferdinand, I have a heart and mind!
The one to seek, the other to love duty,—
A soul akin to all that is refined
In the wide realms of wisdom, love, and beauty.

Ferdinand.
I know it, dearest; therefore, I
Bring to thee no feignèd sigh.
I know it, love, and therefore bring
Only pure drops from the spring,
The inner fount of feeling.
All the words I have been speaking
To reveal my soul's delight,
Are as true as daylight breaking
On the darksome dreams of night.
All the figures I've been using—
Though it might seem but in play—
Fit thee, dearest, just as well as
Garlands fit the Queen of May.

Caroline.
I know that thou dost love me, Ferdinand,
And therefore think all thou sayest true;
For love, without belief, is but waste sand
Compared with all the star-wealth of heaven's blue.

Ferdinand.
Yes, I love thee! Can I help it
When thou art as dear to me
As the ruby-breasted robin
To a leafless, wintry tree?
Oh thou art the one wine-bubble
On the goblet of my life!
Oh, thou art the one sweet rainbow
Bending o'er the clouds of strife!
Oh, thou art the spring's glad smiling
While the glooms of Winter linger!
Warm as living kisses lavished
On a dead man's pallid finger.

Caroline.
There, take that rose-bud with its leaves tight pressed,
Keep it but one short hour upon thy breast
And all its beauty will melt out of sight,
Like a wing vanishing in clouds of light.
There! Take it—type of all that we caress—
Poor hackneyed type of human loveliness!

Ferdinand.
Oh, Caroline! the future ever seemeth
To us, who on the barren present stand,
Like a great rose-tree brightly beaming
In God's right hand,
Grand and entire, where nothing is amiss,
A perfect globe of concentrated bliss.
And all our happy dreams and moments are
The scattered leaflets from this flower-star,
Coming to us, one by one,
Till the last poor leaf is gone;
And the stem all stripped and withered
Is the present in our hand,
While the rose-leaves dead and buried
Lie beneath us in the sand;
And we wonder, wonder always
Why our great and heavenly Sire
Did not give us the bright fragrance—
Did not give it us entire;
Wonder that he let us pluck it
Till its beauty was no more,
Till there was no other future
Than a bleak, unhappy shore;
Till we gather up our life-hopes
In a single shivering breath,
And exclaim, Ah, me! how goodly
And how fair a thing is death!

Caroline.
Nay, believe me, Ferdinand,
There are no moments such as those—
No moments when the future does not hold
Some opiate for our woes;
For when earth hath donned her mantle
Of funereal snows,
Another Spring, another Summer,
Bringeth another rose.
And when we weary of this round
Of good, and bright, and fair,
And when our hearts are but the echo
Of a whispered prayer,
And when all time seems but the shadow
Of a rich, ripe Autumn even—
Ah! when we tire of earth,
We turn ourselves towards heaven!