A Sculptor and Other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

The dying man tost from side to side;
The nurse stoopt down in the twilight dim,
And smooth'd his brow to quiet him:
“He may dream of his mother's hand,” she said,
“By the touch of mine on his restless head.”
But he, with eyeballs staring wide,
Clutcht at that gentle hand of hers,
And moan'd, “O voice of the sea, the sea!
The curse of its voice! the curse! the curse!”

The house where he lay was far enough
From the roaring and beating of the sea;
Far away from the blast, said she,
That shrieks on the foam-fleckt crags. But he
Answer'd in accents hard and rough,
“Woman, I tell you wave on wave
Dashes along with a dread white crest,
Taking its spoil of my last long rest;
I shall hear the sound in my very grave.”

Pale was the nurse with wordless fright:
All the seeming-endless night
She had listen'd thus to his agony—
“Terrible, pitiless, ghastly sea!
She is drown'd, drown'd, drown'd, I tell you; She:
I lov'd and slew her, lov'd and slew!
Her eyes were bluer than the blue
Of the sea, and truer than the true
Of its tide; and I slew her by the sea.”

“Is he mad, or does he dream?” thought she.
“Forbid it God that true it be.”

“You don't believe, or you half believe?
I am quite calm now: will you listen to me?
Think you are going to receive
My last confession—is that the phrase?—
I'm telling you now because the day's
Adawn and I'm wearied out with pain,
And I think it must all be o'er at night.
No secret, child: it's ten years quite
Since I stood in the dock and they maunder'd on,
And said I was mad; and they shut me up
In a madhouse, not to come out again
Till her Majesty's pleasure—Give me the cup—
That's good—thanks, thanks; but, five years gone,
They sent me out on my pleasant way,
Old, and wrinkled, and bent, and gray;
(But I'm only forty, Nurse, to-day!)

And every one's dead—there were only two
To die, two only, Maggie and Hugh.”

Soft she said, “Let the dead past go!
God is tender and good, we know;
And it says in the Book, more white than snow
The blackest soul may be again;
That Blood blots out of blood the stain.”

“Poor little nurse-evangelist!”
He said, with a lip-curve sadder to see
Than eyes all veil'd in thick tear-mist,
“No good in preaching like that to me.

“‘Why did I moan all through the night?’”
'Twas a kind of physical need to moan
And talk of the sea and her, that's all:
But I'm not a penitent, to delight
Your good lean priest, and have him fall
On his knees a-thanking God: I groan
And sigh and shudder, from weakness, Nurse,
And not from penitence or remorse.

Hugh and I were early reft
Of the good gold, parents' love, and left
To struggle on as best we might,
Win or fail in the great life-fight.
How could he fail? He workt and plann'd,
True of heart and true of hand;

Builder and architect, so he.
He us'd to laugh and say to me
'Twas I must write the family name
High on the walls of the Temple of Fame.

I was a painter; one of those
Who were seal'd of the tribe pre-Raphaelite:
He thought me the greatest of the lot:
“Did any one else?” Well, I suppose,
Not many set me on such a height
As Hugh and she—but it matters not.

Hugh was one of your grandly made
Fellows, all strength of body and mind;
Tall and broad, none could make him afraid;
With a powerful arm and a manful tread,
And a heart that was kin to all mankind.

She—well, she was shy as sweet,
And, because she lov'd my brother, not me,
Would look not up at the sound of his feet,
But blush till she grew thrice fair to see,
A crimson blush that pal'd at tip
Of her wonderful little delicate ears
To the tender pink the young dawn wears:
And then she would talk to me and laugh
The loveliest laughter, till I went half

Mad for her love, and had let all slip,
All that I ever had deem'd of worth,
Anywhere, everywhere, Heaven or Earth,
For the light of her eye and the smile of her lip.

I can be just now and analyse
It all; look on with another's eyes,
And see how Maggie Rivers thought
She might be just a sister to me,
Because as a lover she lov'd me not—
Maggie! Maggie! the sea! the sea!
The white waves howl and leap around me!
I'm a fool, Nurse—there—so let me be.

Hugh came to me one day and said,
“Evan, Maggie has promist to be
The nearest of all the world to me.”
And I lookt up with a sick white smile—
“Joy to you, my brother!” while
My heart for a moment felt like dead.
But life came back with the horrible feel
Of a million little pricks of steel;
And then one awful grip of pain
Caught me, and made me mad, mad, mad—
That is the thing they call'd me when
I stood in the dock before those men—

But, that day, I heard the myriad
Spring-sounds upon the delicate air

That was round the martlet's procreant nest,
And I saw the sights that, everywhere,
Made up one sight of beauty; and, blest
I saw my brother standing there
With the head of the Spring-goddess on his breast;
And he was the Spring-god, and all was fair.
Should I remember if I had been mad?
Should I remember? There's the test.

He said—what was it he said?—I know—
“Brother and sister,”—and, in the glow
Of beauty, hers and his, when he bade,
She lifted her lips to mine, and I took
Their joy that once, and the whole earth shook
And reel'd, and I stood there, blind, deaf, dumb,
Only knowing a belt of fire
Was round my heart, and hell was come
In the heaven that was my soul's desire.”

He ceast a moment and, in the lull,
Came over the nurse a wonderful
Horror and shuddering as, all amaz'd,
Upward her frighted eyes she rais'd.
And from the sick man's lips a half
Sob came that was like a birth-chok'd laugh.
Then said she, “Let me pray, for the pow'r
Of the Evil One is on you this hour.”

Then roll'd out the sneer-set words of his,
With a terrible mocking emphasis;
“Don't you know it's the fashion to call it a lie,
The evil's personality?
A dream of the foolish times mediæval
To cross and cry for fear of the devil?
What is it then? an essence? a thread
From a queer kind of loom, that, wov'n in your stuff,
Will warp it and spoil it?—That's enough.
Perhaps I shall know to-night—well said—
Absurd polemics, good Nurse! pshaw!
You look at me with a grim white awe
In your face. What care I? Not a straw.
I can meet this death—must—face to face.”

But the nurse, as she strove in vain to chase
The horror back from her eyes to her heart,
Said, with an irrepressible moan,
“Oh, keep your story for God alone!”

“God!” said he, as he jerkt apart
Her hands, pray'r-claspt unconsciously,
“What have I got with God to do?
I mean the story only for you.
Sit there still and listen to me.

A full month's time was yet to be
Ere she came, array'd in bridal trim,

To make the house a home for him;—
Do you hear it now? Will you hear that sea?

I was a painter: I told you this?
Well, how I painted my masterpiece
Is yet to be told. Did I paint it, though,
Or only sketch it? I hardly know;
I think it was painted: wasn't the gown
Short, scant-folded, of russet brown?
What does it matter? leave it so.

You know the story of Margaret,
The girl who hugg'd the Covenant
Close to her heart and died—and yet
What did she die for? Truth or Cant?
My Margaret—no, not Maggie, no—
But Margaret Wilson, mine, I say,
Not Scotland's Margaret, nor History's, she
Who came,—was it in a dream?—to me,
With a steady step, in the early glow
Of her young life's just unfolden May;
She died for Truth, or died to be true—
That's better, I think; and Maggie too,
She died—was that for the Covenant?—
No, I'll not stop; my brain is clear
Though they call'd me mad—but—things that haunt—
Maggie, Margaret,—Nurse, you shall hear.

They drest her up one party night
In a Scotch girl's dress and fetcht a stake

And bound her, waist, wrists, ankles, tight:
And she lookt a Martyr for Truth's sake.
And this was done for the brief delight
Of folk who had come to merrymake.
But she—did the ghost of the dead Scotch girl
Come back to earth for a little space,
And shine through the flesh of Maggie's face,
And tell us that evil were vain to unfurl
The flag? or did That for which men die
Or live, look out through that body of hers?
I know not; I only knew 'twas I
Must shew her thus to the universe.

A three-hours' ride from where we dwelt
The sea beat high upon a shore
Where, stark and strong like giants of yore,
Rose the great rocks the sea would pelt
With foam in its grim horse-play, or roar
At the foot of, until one, gazing, felt
A desperate wish to leap to its breast
And ride, or be tost, on its mighty crest.
Often I us'd to visit that beach
And look and think, until it seem'd
My Margaret Wilson stood there too,
She and I, and never a word of speech
Upon my lips or hers; and the blue
Great sky was above, and, underneath
Our feet was—was it the sea or death?

And the wild gulls flapt their wings and scream'd,
And the sea came up and toucht her feet;
And I saw them come to her and urge—
What? the pity of it? the dear life's sweet?
And I saw them go and the sweeping surge
Swirl round her limbs and then retreat;
And again and again they offer'd—what?
Life? It was Life the girl had got.
And the sea came up with no rebuke
From the lips of any thaumaturge,
And swept her into heaven—

I look
And see a face a moment bare
From the glaucous depths, and I see the hair
Float out like trails of the brown sea-weed.

Am I mad, mad, mad? No, Nurse, indeed:
‘My pulse as temperately as yours
Doth beat.’—That's Hamlet, Hamlet the Dane
With a bee in his bonnet; so, that's plain.—

Now, if I only could have a weed
And a man to talk with—that's what cures.
Madness! Death's coming up like the tide,
And pity it were to miss the end
Of a grand sensational tale because
The man who was telling the tale, my friend,
Let his jaw drop, eyes stare, and died—
So much for Buckingham—That's where I was.

We came down to this beach, we two;
Maggie, not Margaret, Maggie and I,
Hugh's Maggie, who was to sit to me
For my picture's sketch by the old gray sea;
The picture that should proclaim me him
Who had read God's runes and writ them for men
In language that whoso ran might read,
Clear and plain, not vague and dim.
What shall be the rune-reader's meed?

I tied her fast to the stake I had set;
I bound her, ankles, and wrists, and waist;
And the evil tide was far, far out,
It would not turn for a good while yet.
The low little rocks were slimy and green,
And the ugly barnacles could taste
The air that was blowing light about
Her snood-bound hair: I lookt, and lost
Myself in a sort of maze between
Sea and sky; it was strange, so lone a place,
So drear and wild, on the English coast.
You never saw a human face
Down there, nor heard a human voice;
Though folk in search of the picturesque
Might have here found plenty whereat to rejoice
And set forth, somehow, at easel or desk.

The waves went curling and rippling light;
But a voice was singing under their foam,

Their laugh-like, delicate, cresting foam,
The psalm-tune—you know it—Martyrdom—
The grand old psalm-tune, Martyrdom.
She stood and mov'd not: the little white
Clouds tost in the sky like the blue sea's foam.

I said, ‘You are mine now, death's or mine;
Love and wife.’ And she lookt at me
To understand; and I told her all,
Saying, ‘Take your choice, my heart or the sea.
Choose and quickly; no use to call,
For none will hear. Is it I or the brine,
The bitter, deadly glaucous brine?’

Brevity is the soul of wit;
Why should I make my story long?
I know the tide came swift and strong;
I know no man could fight with it,
And what could a fetter'd woman do?
Lie and say, ‘I promise you
All you wish if you set me free?’
Or lie to Hugh and God for me?
That? She lie? Do martyrs so?
Just one exceeding bitter cry
Went from her lips, and then she grew
Quite still, and settled herself to die.

The air was warm, the sky was blue,
And, at first, the sea rose calm and slow.

The shore stretcht out in a headland small,
A ‘beaked promontory’ small,
Whereon if I stood, I could see her plain.
I climb'd the place: I recall the pain
As I struck my knee against a stone,—
Should I remember that at all
Had I been mad?—The place was o'ergrown
With stubbed heather soft that felt.
I sat me down and lookt. A belt
Of sea had cover'd the barnacles,
And I saw no green slime now; and bells,
Church-bells, I think, were in my ear.

And she was there, and her face shone clear
As a star within the grisly blue,
And her little snood was loost, and brown
Bright hair was all about her—I knew
And saw, and I left her there to drown.

What is it someone somewhere saith
About being faithful unto death?
Well—well—the native savagery
Of the sea—I told you here the sea
Was wild and strong?—awoke at last,
And a little tempest sang i' the blast,
And grew to a wild roar presently.
And—I saw only the fierce big sea,
With a trail of weed upon its breast;

And heard the waters moan and roar,
And the cry of the gulls upon the shore;
And I saw the sun slope to the west,
Saw it or felt—Let be, let be.”