Feda with Other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

And so the autumn passed, and winter grew,
The skies turned grey, and flocks of wild birds flew,
Strange voices through the twilight, overhead;
Then first there shadowed o'er his heart a dread,—
As some small cloud climbs up the noonday blue,
And the sun smiles imperiously through,
But yet the white wings muster, till at last
The whole blue heaven is dark and overcast,—
A doubt, that gathered to an aching fear
That day by day he seemed to be less near
To her, less needed, that surely in her face
The child's look he had loved grew hard to trace,

And graver ever were her earnest eyes,
Less eager questioning for his replies,
That there was something she half seemed to hide.

He could not bear to have her from his side,
And like a faithful hound with his true gaze
He followed where she went, and when the days
Grew shortest, and at night they read together
In the old painted Hall,—when the rough weather
Tumbled the waves among the rocks below,
When the whole bay was one white sheet of snow,
And the wind whistled through the creaking doors,
He thought “It is too lonely on these shores.”

He had not marked how suddenly she grew
From child almost to woman, but he knew
How every little gesture, turn of head
Or way the words fell, how each least word said
Was grown a part with his own life, a need,
A bond whence nevermore could he be freed.

It hurt him that she seemed so grateful, asked
His pardon who but needed to be tasked,

For troubling him in aught, that she remained
Child-reverent still, yet all the while constrained:
Something misgave him, for it seemed as though
Love was no nearer than those months ago
When she had answered him, “I do not know
“What love may be, but only I am glad
“When I am with you, I that was so sad.”
Something misgave him, he had meant so well,
And darker yet the silent shadow fell.

Then oft he asked her if she ailed in aught,
And gladdened as she looked at him and caught
His smile, and strove to comfort him in vain,
“When the spring comes I will be well again.”

Now Anton's winter task was well nigh done,
Both pictures fair and finished, save in one
A group he lingered over, that should be
The master-note, where fettered knee to knee,
The soul of Paris and the faithless bride
Wail by the margin of that dolorous tide
They may not traverse, and ever dimly seen

A wraith like Menelaus frowns between,
And still divides them in the twilight place.

And once again he painted Féda's face,
Because there was no fairer face on earth,
For Helen's,—and half in earnest half in mirth
He drew his own for Paris, but the king
Failed somewhere alway,—with the spring
The pictures must go North;—at last the day
Came round when he should send them both away,
And still it failed him—half unconscious then,
He made the Menelaus Adrien,

And something whispered him he knew not whence:
“Thou, if thou be an honest man get hence!”