A CHARACTER.
A.
He is a man whose complex character
Few can decipher rightly; but for me
I have found the key at last!
B.
What make you of it?
A.
As mournful and as blurred a page, perchance,
As ever pained the seeker after truth:
Listen! this man, when like a factory slave
I toiled for some bald pittance in the city,
Came to me (unsolicited, remember),
With words of cheer, and honeyed courtesies;
His tone was soft as dulcet airs of May;
His heart the very fount of sympathy!
“What,” said he, “shall you grind your genius here,
Down to the last faint edge; waste your rich thoughts”
(Mark you the subtle flattery of this language),
“Upon a thankless, ignorant, brutal fool,
Who plays the patron with the grace of Bottom,
His ass's head from out your flowering fancies
Grinning in dull and idiot self-applauses:
By every gentle muse this shall not be!”
Straightway, with hand caressing as a woman's,
He led me from hard desk and stifling air,
Forth to his bowery home amid the hills,
There fed me, sir, on kindness, day by day,
Until this starved and tortured spirit grew
Healthy and hale again! No wish had I,
He did not hasten blithely to forestall!
He called me “brother,” drew from shy reserves
Of knowledge, feeling, poesy, full stores
Of all my wealth—by heart or brain amassed—
Ha! by Apollo! what rare times were those
We spent in 'rapt communion with the bards
Each worshipped, and what jovial laughter shook
The flying night-winds, when our graver books
Were cast aside, and he an artful mimic,
A famed raconteur, many a humorous scene
Enacted with such raciness of wit
Despair itself had checked its tears—to smile;
In brief, by every wile a man could use
To knit his fellow's heart-strings to his own,
He made me love him! other friends were gone
Forlornly mouldering in far churchyard shades
And therefore—undivided, ardent, sure,
Affection centred all its warmths on him!
And now, when wholly his, I would have dared
For him all danger (you will scarce believe it),
But suddenly, as sometimes on calm seas,
The watcher from some lonely headland views
A gallant bark sink swiftly in the deep,
Dissolving like a vision—thus his friendship,
Its glittering flags of promise flaunting still
The tranquil sunlight, sunk before mine eyes
And left me gazing like a man distraught
Across the mocking solitude!
B.
What more?
A.
What more? Why, truly, sir, the tale is done.
'Twas a sharp close, I grant you, to a dream
Which rose so fairly; yet there's comfort in't!
B.
Comfort!
A.
Ay, ay! rare comfort in the thought
That tho' my years should reach the utmost verge
Of mortal life, I shall not dream again!
But pshaw! push on the bottle, 'tis the last
Of a full bin that constant friend of mine,
That loyal, noble, pure Samaritan,
Gave me, with vows of everduring love,
Three months ago at Christmas! Stay, a toast:
“Fair health, long life, immortal honor crown
The man who's constant only to—himself!”
