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

Feda with Other Poems

Chiefly Lyrical. By Rennell Rodd ... With an Etching by Harper Pennington

Rodd, Rennell (1858-1941)

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FEDA: A Story.

II.

III.

IV.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

SONG.

XI.

XII.

13.

14.

THE END OF THE QUARREL.

JUBA'S DEATH.

A PICTURE.

A DEDICATION.

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FEDA: A Story.

Und wann ist Lieb am reichsten?—
Das ist sie wenn sie giebt,—
Und, Spricht, wie redet Liebe?
Sie redet nicht,—sie liebt!
Halm.

I.

Far on the sea-washed border of fair France,
In Southern sunlands, where the fire-flies dance
Through long spring nights till June goes after May,
Between the waters and the hills there lay
A town of cool paved streets and shaded ways,
A pleasant refuge in scorched autumn days,
Girded with gardens, where what warm winds blew
Were sweet with roses all long summer through.

The old walls crumble down, no sentry waits
To cry his challenge in her open gates,—
Her towers have seen no gleam of armoured men
Since Martel drave the flying Saracen;—
But ferns droop down from many clefts and rents,
Long grasses wave in all her battlements,

And only children laughing at their play
Keep siege and battle in the old gate-way.

Yet few things change, the grey walls moulder on,
The hills give back the cloister carillon;
The goat-bells ring from ridge to rocky ridge,
And through the valley by the wattled bridge
In slow procession up the mountain path
The reapers bring their evening aftermath.

One half the crescent of its red-rocked bay
Sloped gently down from where a convent lay,
With many a shrine, among dark olive trees,
And pathway winding to the parted seas.
There oft at eve the fisher-folk would climb,
When suns were setting, and the Ave-chime
Rang welcome home, to where the cypress waves
Above a sleeping sisterhood of graves,
And watch their shadows lengthen out and fall
Across that wonder of the cloister wall,
Where some old Tuscan who had strayed so far
Had drawn their Saint of little Castellar.

Such quiet cares the white-robed sisters had
Who lived forgotten of the world, and glad,—
To trim the lamps before their Lady's feet,
And keep the flowers in her chalice sweet,
Or bind her wreath with gentle willing hands.

And some came thither out of far off lands,
To lose the world a little while, and stayed
And laid their sorrows in that cypress shade;
And some came there to bury deep their dead;
And some to whom life was a book unread,
That in the after-world their lips might kiss
The Master's feet without one taint of this.

The peace of God was on their lives,—no day
Brought any tiding from the world's highway;
Far out to sea they watched the great ships pass;
The first spring violet in the cloister grass
Was such a thing to them, the first lark's song,
Who lived with fisher folk the whole year long.

There came one thither on the tide of time,
Half-child half-woman, when the spring's young prime

Was starriest with narcissus, ere those vales
Grew mad with music of the nightingales,—
Came there, and lingered, till a golden moon
Grew full-orbed in the singing skies of June,
And fire-flies dimmed their lustre in the tree:
Till all the peasant-folk would watch to see
A slight white figure pass, who seemed to wear
The whole sun's glory in her golden hair,
The sea's deep colour in her wide blue eyes,
And loved the greeting of her soft replies,
And all the troubled beauty of her face.

For she had come to that enchanted place
With a child's first great sorrow, having known
One life to love that twined about her own
Far north in their Loire valley,—and he was dead,
And she, with strangers all uncomfortèd,
Stayed in that convent on the Southern shore.

She had the features of one gone before,
He had said, the kind grave man who seldom smiled.
But only loved her, loved her: and the child
Heard in a reverend wonder;—far apart

In the green vineyard country, heart in heart,
They two had lived together all her days;
His love had been her faith, and his least praise
Her earthly gladness; the world's storm and strife
Had come not near the whiteness of her life.
There he, half dreamer half philosopher,
Had bared the treasure of his soul to her,—
Bestowed on all her wonder-time of youth
Whate'er on earth is consecrate to truth,
Through holy thoughts of great lives dead and gone
To heights of hope still waiting to be won,—
Those harvests gathered from the thousand years
In love unrecompensed, in untold tears
By hero teachers of the hero time,
And hero singers of the world's grey prime.

But as days gathered, and the young child grew,
She learned the secret of his heart, and knew
The shadow of a lost gladness darkening still
That wore the little thread of life, until
His thoughts would drift farther and far away,
His eyes would wander strangely,—so one day

They called a frightened child to his bedside,
And he just smiled, and smiling on her died.

Then they had brought her southward; she was grown
Almost a woman, very fair, alone
In a dark shadow that she knew not of,
With those dead years, and nature and her love.
And she had no one in the world—save here
The mother's sister—simple and severe,
The abbess,—one indeed who meant her well,
Only she hoped Féda would learn to dwell
Contented here, when the young dreams were flown,
And never miss a life she had not known.
She little guessed how strange a dwelling place
Had genius chosen in that young child's face
And flowerlike frail form, what wild unrest
Of wonder-dreams, what longings unrepressed
Burned in her, whispered by that voice which stirs
The quick heart-beat of God's own choristers.

Wayward and loveable,—she would not heed
Those books the white-robed sisters bade her read.

She only said—“I pray you bear with me,
“Who was not taught to see as others see;”
Would answer low, with lips put up to kiss,
“Because it was my father taught me this.
“I know he would not tell me wrong,” she said,
“It is so little while since he is dead,—
“And you will leave me free a little yet,
“To dream my dreams, and wander, and forget.”

So first they did not reason with her mood,
And left her free to wander where she would,
Having no fear because of her sweet face,
Among the quiet dwellers of that place.

And all those woods were hers to wander through,
From summer-dawning to the even-dew;
Those hills, where still the orange-gardens told
The old-world fable of the fruit of gold,
And all the loveliness of earth was there:
Such flowers to bind in garlands for her hair,
Such skies to wonder at, such songs to sing,
Such changeful dreams for her imagining.

And so it was Féda was grown to be
Known to all dwellers by that summer sea;
Perchance the shadow of the convent cast
A kind of reverence round her: where she passed
Not one would dare to follow, lest he scare
That gentle presence. And since she came there
Men whispered there had been no blight to spoil
The orange-blossom, but the golden oil
Swelled larger berries on their olive trees,
And stormy nights broke never near those seas.

Only at times the labourer on the hill
In the orange groves when noon lay very still
With drowsy scent of blossom, pausing, heard
A sound that was no song of any bird,
No reed of shepherd piping to his flocks,
A voice that rang through the wave-hollowed rocks
Fresh, ever-changing, rising—falling,
To hear the echo answer back its calling,—
And crossed himself at those sweet carollings,
And told his fellow, “the white lady sings.’

For she would sit and make song after song
In some far olive wood the whole noon long,

Striving to answer in her song the speech
Of birds and waters, if she too might reach
The hidden heart of nature—learn to know
The charm revealed through music long ago
To that old singer of the dawn of days,
Who made such melody in mountain ways
That down the shadowy hollows, stealing, came
The frightened woodland things with eyes aflame,
And listened ever and grew less afraid,
Till on his knees the white doe laid her head,
And stared out sorrow from her brimming eyes;
The lark dropped silent from the songless skies,
And pressed a throbbing bosom on his feet;
The lizard lying in the noonday heat
Looked up to wonder; the loud stream grew still,
And brought no story from the silent hill;
No least wave fretted on the glassy seas,
And all the branches of the windless trees
Were set with little heaving throats of birds,
That sat and wondered why the song had words.

So in her singing she forgot her care,
Till that midsummer noon when Adrien found her there.

II.

He who should sail at earliest dawn of day,
Thence steering ever eastward and away,
Would make at sunset in the even-rose
A land that lies under the Alpine snows,
Of pine-woods leaning to a townless shore,
With mountain ridges rising o'er and o'er
Deep creek and islet, where the tideless sea
Breaks white about the shores of Italy—
And dropping anchor at their feet, behold
The sweeps of hill-slope burning into gold,
Afar the forests mystically blue,
Rocks flaming upwards with the sunset hue,
Dark cleft and gully deepening into caves,
And the day dying in the wine-red waves.

In such a little arm of rock encurled,
A still untravelled corner of the world,
Set round with many a trellised vine and flower,
Stands the half-ruin of a fortress tower
Of long-forgotten days. Some old corsair
Perchance had made his little kingdom there—

There like a sea-bird nested on the steep
Had watched his windy empire of the deep,
While down beneath him in the sheltered bay
The crimson dragon of his war-ship lay.

So there were two came once at dawn of day,
From over the dark waters,—watched the mist
Roll upwards, and the mountain peaks cloud-kissed
Break with their forests from the twilight shroud,
And the young sky grow faultless of one cloud;
And they had climbed the rocky rise, and found
The broken castle in its garden ground,
Rich with a wild inheritance of flowers
Forgotten hands had planted round the towers.

And by the door a fisher's net was hung
Where the vine wandered round the porch, and clung
To a worn sword and crescent rudely graven;
And they had called the place the “Quiet Haven.”

They hardly knew what years had rolled away,
Nor what they had begotten since the day
When the old lonely dwellers of that place
Came forth and gladdened at a stranger's face;

Since they had stood together hand in hand
That sundown gazing from the extreme land,
Watching the stars grow bright along the shore,
And Adrien said, “We will not wander more.”

He was the elder, Adrien—tall and fair,
And strong of limb, with sunny English hair,
Fronting deliberate with such honest eyes,
Eyes soft as woman's, that could ill disguise
The thoughts they flashed with, very deep and kind,
Leaving a sense of sympathy behind
Where'er they lighted:—not in years alone,
A few years, yet far older; he had known
The great refusals, fought and overcome,
Chosen the better part, and now his home
Was all the wide world; he had dared and passed
Through storm and failure, and stood free at last.

His was the self-less spirit; while on earth
The shadow falls that curses in the birth,
While one lies pillowed in eternal ease
With heavy eyelids, so he hardly sees
The children's hunger and the brave man's need,
And mother hearts that labour on and bleed,

Perchance that he may lay a loveless head
On ever softer pillows:—while men dare to say
God wills the world so, and not we who pray
He may but keep us in the easy way;
While yet is twilight over lands that weep,—
The weak keep silence and the strong men sleep;
While man and man on earth dwell side by side,
With the great gulf between them fixed—more wide
Than sundering mountains, or the sea that parts,
That old inheritance of alien hearts:—
While something whispers in the ear, “Be true,
We shall not always be so lost, so few:”
On earth will be such restless spirits still,
Fools, dreamers, poets, heroes—what you will!

They come at times with fearless voice and high
To look the mad world in the face, and cry
Out on its mock ideals, and to part
The veil and drive one arrow to the heart,
To strip the spectre of his robe and crown;—
Then what a storm of tongues will hoot them down,
And cry blasphemer, being well content
To reason their God's ways were never meant

To take too much in earnest.—Well, what then,
If God be with them, and we be but men!

So it had fared with Adrien, for his hands
Were sacrilegious; he, the lord of lands,
Had set the dangerous precedent, resigned
His birthright; he was one who undermined
Old institutions, smiled at social needs;
Godless no doubt,—none such have any creeds!—
A poet if you will, but then how sad
To write so sanely and to be so mad!

Mad! Well, then welcome madness, for God's sake
Let's rave together! If he strove to take
The whole world's burthen in his arms to bear,
The whole world's sorrow in his heart to wear,
It was a splendid madness,—a high dream.

But he had drunk of that eternal stream,
That whoso tasteth thirsts through all his years,
Because its waters are so salt with tears;

The stream whose course is through the whole wide earth,
And mirrored therein are the death and birth
Of Beauty and Joy and Sorrow, and things to be
Lie where its waters mingle with the sea.
He saw one truth in all the world, above
Codes and philosophies, that Law of Love,
To whose control God slowly moves the world.
No life on earth that has it not impearled—
It may be under ocean weeds, and deep,
Lost in the hollow where the tide-drifts sleep,
Or stifled in the turbid whirl of storm,
Yet living surely, gathering to inform
The souls it dwells in. And he knew the price
Of Love on earth is weighed in sacrifice.

Therefore he broke his prison's gilded bars,
And into night not bright with many stars,
Like a caged bird set free, his spirit flew,—
The cage-born bird that flits the deep wood through,
From tree to tree from cottage eaves to eaves,
And fears the freedom of the forest leaves,

And flies and flies and dare not furl its wing,—
So is it alway unto those who sing.

Thus, half mistrusting freedom, he had grown
A wanderer over many lands, had known
The ways of many peoples,—he had found
Much love in lonely dwellings, by the sound
Of melancholy Northern seas, in lands
Of man forgotten, and on Southern sands
In Arab tents, and in the village homes
More favoured, he was known as one who roams,
Who comes and goes, and ever leaves behind
Some good remembered.

His was the rare mind
That grasps the general, lives its life outside
Of use and accident, and stares dream-eyed
On calmer outlines in a statue-land,
That holds blind Faith for ever by one hand,
Sees hardly, only strains towards the light,
Because man's wrong can never be God's right!

Oh, the large heart of youth! He had assailed
Too boldly, madly, and those half-means failed;

Now the wild flame of youth's desire was spent,
That willed things unattainable; content
To do the thing he knew within his reach,
Not strain for any star in heaven, to teach
The faith of truth, touch hearts to love, and souls
With soft reproof, to aim at lowlier goals,
Yet work as surely in the same high quest,
With human means, and let God heed the rest.

He, wandering once with Anton—with the friend
Who would have followed to the world's far end
For Adrien's sake—by chance had fared that way,
And found the little tower at dawn of day,
Cut off from all the world, and they had made
Their dwelling here, unknown and unbetrayed.
Our hearts are fettered by the hands we love;
There seemed no better way to pass above
Desire, than after many years of strife,
To build this little wall about their life;
Here, hand in hand through peaceful fall of days,
Here, in the far-off world-forgotten ways,
Self-centred only in their work to tell
The secret that the angel whispers well.

The younger Anton was half Southern born,
A painter's son, the child of many tears
Left in a lonely world too soon—long years
Since Adrien found him with a breaking heart,
A boy and friendless, severed from the art
That was his nature, and had seen and known
The dawning power, and made that love his own;
They had been more than brothers, friends that knew
The other's heart was wholly tried and true.

It had gone well with Anton since they met;
The road had been so smooth, and no regret
Of that past youth had ever made less loud
The ring of his gay laughter, left a cloud
Across the southern beauty of his face.

At times he wandered from their dwelling-place,
And went awhile into the world, but soon
He wearied, and came back before the moon
Had waned, whose rising called him forth;
It seemed so grey, he said, in their cold North.

Fame had not failed him, but it did not mar
His restless effort, for he felt how far

The summer skies are from the lark's desire,
What heights were still to conquer, and the fire
Burned upward ever, and men's praise or blame
Had moved him little; it was not for fame
He laboured, but for Art's sake, heeding not
How far the rest remembered or forgot.

Yet there was something wanting—he was made
Of strange, conflicting elements; men said
His art was cold, too calmly perfected
And passionless, and hard to understand.
He, too, had dwelt in Adrien's statue-land;
And it was all ideal, far removed
From daily life of men that lived and loved,
Half strength, half-weakness, only shadowing truth;
He needed some strong purpose in his youth,
To gather many wandering aims; too long
He waited upon Adrien's word, not strong
To trust his own heart's prompting; life and art
Had failed to find communion, and apart
It lacked the “natural touch”—maybe his hour
Was not yet come, only the dawning power
Was there in Anton;—then a form and face

Like some young god come down to run the race
With the lithe athletes, far away out-borne
Beyond their reach to laugh his laugh of scorn,
And pass his way, inconstant as the foam,
Except to Adrien and their haven home.

So here they dwelt outside the world and free,
Even as one who fares in the wide sea,
But steers for ever by the extreme land
So near that he may almost reach his hand,
And snatch a bud of the overhanging rose,
Or hear the children laughing, and he knows
The gladness of the earth, and heeds no more
The cares and passions of the peopled shore.

III.

There was a village on a jutting crest
Of olive-gardened mountain, a sea-nest
Of mouldering walls that fenced one climbing street.
Only poor fisher-folk, whose little fleet

Sparkled at sundawn over all those seas,
Reaping the harvest of the calm; and these
Were all their neighbours, and in all his life
Old silent Nanno and his shrill-tongued wife
Had fared no further from the ruined tower.

His joy was just to sit hour after hour,
And watch while Anton painted, till at last
Annita's voice came like a thunderblast,
Waking the echoes, ever and again
Enlarging on the idleness of men.
Worthy Annita, you had done her wrong
To judge her by the temper of her tongue;
A scolding, honest soul, although she held
Mankind in little honour, and compelled
Submission; he was grown too deaf to feel
The piercing eloquence of each appeal
To this or that Beata,—for she showed
In this her preference of her sex, bestowed
On each their separate functions in her prayers,
Invoked the lesser saints for household cares,
Made this one patron of her shrill surprise,—
Called that to weight her anger,—in her creed

Not one male saint intruded, though indeed
The padre had some reverence, but he too
Was just a man, and like them all, she knew.

There were two pictures in the valuted hall
Of Anton's half completed, broad and tall,
A year's full labour, in the hero mood
Of the dead mighty masters; long renewed
Unceasing effort;—and therein was told
The story of that after-world of old,
Of singers dreamed who dimly understood
The night of evil and the light of good.

The first, a vision of the Blessed Isles;—
The ripples break in everlasting smiles
On seas more azure than the skies above
Warmed by the summer of the land of love;
Deep banks of flowers broaden to the bays,
The groves are green through pleasant length of days
For gentle presences for ever young;
And highest songs of poets here unsung
Fall with a sweeter cadence, and fair dreams
Of kindred spirits mix like mountain streams

That flow in long communion to the sea,
And deepen into knowledge, silently;
And loyal eyes meet eyes, and hands
Grasp hands, and voiceless each one understands.
And all that wrought in patient love on earth,
And all who held their lives of little worth,
And all that suffered, and the long oppressed
Lie gladly in those meadow lawns at rest.

And then the other—the pale world of hell,—
Grey rustled there the knee-deep asphodel,
O'er dreary waste lands bounded by a mist,
And flitting things that wander where they list,
Like dead leaves fluttered on a lifeless breeze,
Glide hither, thither, through the yellow trees.

There in the midst, almost a child, she stood
Young-eyed as one that died in maidenhood,
The sad pale queen, sad to be young in vain,
And pale for wasted pity and dead pain.
And round her feet and near and far away
Phantasmal forms of lives that lived their day,
And died to all save consciousness of death

Who tasted Lethe with their dying breath,
And lost the souls they knew not;—for between
The nearer rocks and this folk and their queen
That slow-streamed river wound.

But near at hand
Were gaunt grey rocks, and wastes of barren sand,
The hither shore, where those whose sin was great
Wail by the margin in the doom of fate;
They may not traverse that forgetting rill,
But in death's midway must remember still.

These forms were dimly shadowed, and so much
Was still to do, in each the little touch
That makes or mars perfection, wanted yet.

All round the grey old castle walls were set
With Anton's studies, and in the midst the clay
Fresh from the master's moulding of to-day,
The Psyche, faith-redeemed and winged and free
And loving, into immortality.

And Adrien praised, and Anton was content,
So through the vine-porch arm in arm they went

One eve of summer; all the sky was red
With promise of fair weather, and Anton said:—
“To-morrow is the day of Rosalie,
“And I shall go over the hills to see
“Their feast of roses in the little town;
“The moon will be at full to light us down,
“Come with me, you will find, I think, a song
“Among the mountain faces, and too long
“You stay among your books; we shall not miss
“Just one day in Portello, spent like this.”
But Adrien said, “I have a mind to sail,
“Or drift or row me, if the wind should fail,
“A few days journey by the coast; this June
“Grows stifling under roof, and now the moon
“Is at the full; so be there wind, how light
“I care not, I will sail somewhere to-night.”

It chanced, with sunset rose a gentle breeze,
Rustling the pine-tops and the citron-trees,
And Adrien went below into the bay,
And set the sail, pushed out and fared away,
Where the wind listed under shadowy heights
Transfigured in the moon of Southern nights,

Westward and westward, and the freshening wind
Was life and joy; and soon he left behind
Familiar shapes of mountains,—in his wake
Pales the long moon-path, and the crisp waves break
In frost of silver on his bows, and far
Faint shore-bells seem to ring the music of the Star.

IV.

Now it fell out about the morrow's noon
The wind had died away, and skies of June
Grew pale with intense sunlight,—dreamily
He drifted o'er the intervening sea
Till the clear shallows rippled round his oar,
Cast anchor there, and waded to the shore.
Seeing above how ancient olives made
Deep-columned avenues of mid-day shade;
And thus bare-kneed in his rough seaman's guise,
From ledge to ledge, he scaled the rocky rise,
Till in that twilight of the trees he stood
And heard low music coming through the wood.

He heard and followed where the guiding sound
Strayed o'er the stillness, up a rising ground,
By steep and ferny hollows, till he came
To where among the daisies such a flame
Of starry-leaved anemones burned red,
Such golden shafts from sunbeams overhead
Struck down the shadow,—and saw her sitting there,
A girl's white figure, very young and fair,
Singing the burden of a song he knew,
And wondered what so sweet a child might do,
Alone and singing in a stranger-land.
And then he saw a book was in her hand
Whose songs she made her low sad music of,
And so broke in upon her pause: “What love
“Of thine own kind, what ignorance of pain!”—
She had been lost in singing, only then
She turned and saw and crimsoned at his smile,
And all was silence for a little while
As each one wondered, only in some far tree
A loud thrush gladdened, and below the sea
In measured cadence lapped the shifting sand,
The bruisèd thyme she held in one small hand
Made all the noon-tide odorous, the glen

Was dark with emerald twilight, now and then,
Like a winged blue-bell flitting through the grass,
A tiny violet butterfly would pass
And dwell from flower to flower in a kiss.

What strange young presence in the glen was this,
Borne from what far seas hither? And her eyes
Went up to his, full of a shy surprise:
“And do you know my burden?”—“Ay,” he said,
“Though not till now were words and music wed;
“But pardon that I break your quiet so,
“My boat lies anchored in the bay below—
“I thought, perchance, to find some house this way,
“For I have sailed all night since yesterday
“At sundown;—but too strangely here we meet,
“Two aliens in an alien land, to greet
“And pass as quickly!”
And she said, “Nay sir,
“But welcome if you be some wanderer!”
—And from her basket in the olive-root
Brought out her white-bread and her store of fruit,
And set them down before him on the grass;—
“For we are bounden to all folk who pass

“By the old cloister-custom,—and, indeed,
“The town is far off, and I have no need.”

Now sits he there beside her, who so long
Had heard no voice of woman, save the song
Of some loud-laughing peasant-maid, come down
For Anton's model from the hill-side town,
And he is listening to each simple word
Intent and still—as though he never heard
Such voice of wisdom. She, so glad to teach
The country's story in her father's speech,
Talks on and on, and in a little while
Each heart went to the other, smile to smile,
And eyes to eyes made answer,—each one learned
The other's story, till a red sun burned
Among the gnarlèd trunks, and skies grew gold,
While yet they stayed together, while she told
Of her old home, and how she came to be
Here in the convent by the Southern sea.

“My home was set far in the pleasant ways,
“Where summer lingers and late autumn stays

“Till all the grapes are red on all the hills,
“Where the long valleys ripple down in rills
“To a wide river slowly wending west;
“And here and there along a grey rock-crest,
“About whose feet some clustered village clings,
“Are antique palaces of great dead kings;
“Turret and gable and high oriel traced
“With sculptured flower-work, and half effaced
“Strange imagery above the carven door,
“With drawbridge down for ever and evermore;
“Then far, far inland, over hill and plain,
“Is all green vineyard country of Touraine.
“Westward, beyond that city of dismal fame,
“Where once across the quiet hillside came
“Carrier, the murderers' hireling—came and slew
“The fair young promise of the land, and threw
“Dead men and dying and living side by side
“Into the bleeding river at flood-tide,—
“The sad, grey town that wears those memories still,
“A road winds by the water, skirts the hill
“Above the silvering aspens on the marge,
“So you may see the deep, hay-laden barge
“Drift down the noons of summer in a dream:

“And soon a way leads inland from the stream,
“With poplar-trees in melancholy line;
“Just by the corner is a rock-hewn shrine
“Where Mary mother ín her faded wreath
“Looks sadly at a written rhyme beneath:

‘Si l'amour de Marie
Dans ton cœur est gravé,
En passant pas n'oublie,
De lui dire un Ave.’

“I see it always, how the road runs straight
“Up to the yew that shadowed o'er our gate;
“And then beyond the shadow of the yew
“Two walls shut in an orchard avenue,
“A long sweet grass-grown way—where in the spring
“The walls are pink with fruit-trees blossoming,
“A long straight way, and always as you pass
“You scent the violets hiding in the grass;—
“And then the bridge that arches o'er the moat,
“Where such gold leaves of water-lilies float;
“And last, beyond a wilderness of flowers,
“You see the gables and the three grey towers,

“With windows peeping through thick ivy leaves,
“And moss grown golden on the slated eaves,
“And all my swallows had their houses there;
“One pointed turret was a winding stair—
“Almost a little castle, guarded round
“With that deep moat—and in the garden ground
“Were all the simple flowers that to me
“Seem ever sweetest, growing wild and free:
“Dark crimson dahlias and blushing stocks,
“And sunflowers and groves of hollyhocks,
“And trellised walks with roses overgrown,
“And all those beds of flowers were my own—
“It was the sweetest garden ever seen,
“But all would seem so changed now.”

She had been
Lost in the telling, and then sudden grew
Conscious he listened and looked up and knew
And clenched the little rosy fingers fast,
And dared not meet his eyes, and so downcast
Said, “But I weary you.”
Then swift up-springing,
For far away the even bell was ringing,—

“It is the Angelus, I must not stay,
“By now they wonder why I am away.
“Farewell, good stranger, since you do not tell
“The name they call you by.”
“Yet not farewell,”
He answered, “Let me find you here once more,
“Since we are strangers on this Southern shore,
“Too strangely met to part again so soon.”
And so he bound her to the second noon;
“And I may keep the book in which you read,
“To hold you to your pledge?”
“Keep it,” she said,
“If you would read it, only reason not
“That what I promise is so soon forgot.
“Farewell, and when we meet you too must tell
“The story of your life,—farewell.”
“Farewell.”

She had the walk of some wild wood-born thing,
Erect and free, and ever she would sing
Upon her way; and long time Adrien stood
And watched her figure fading down the wood;

Then first he felt for many a day gone by
A sense of loneliness, and wondered why.

But in the book he read her father's name;
A name well-known once till a cloud of shame
Had darkened o'er its promise; all grew clear,
The story he had wondered so to hear,
Their lonely lives together—all that she
Had never known,—and it was so—for he
Had made a life's atonement in her love,
And so forgotten had passed out above
Man's pardon or dispraise;—all this was so,
But the hard world would never care to know.

Is there a sin in all the world so wide
Love might not veil it o'er and wholly hide,
As all its dead are hidden in the seas?
God knows the earth is full of lives like these,
And many a heart grows white again within,
Washed of its one deep staining and the sin
Which men forgive not and which God forgave;
Peace upon earth! But even in the grave

The dead men sleep not, o'er our ways are cast
Such sunless shadows darkling from their past.

Then he went seaward, and he pondered long,—
Ah me, he thought, and in a while her song
Will fade, and leave her little life forlorn,
No hand to shield her from the breath of scorn,
To ward between her and the world's hard ways
And keep the secret buried all her days.
And ever in his heart such pity grew
For this frail child and the strange tale he knew.

And still the sunset flared across the sea,
But the warm air was windless, lifelessly
His painted sail was drooping from the mast,
The oar's plash broke the silence as he passed
That tiny haven, and in tears of gold
The water from his lifting oar-blades rolled;
Day's end was fair as ever poet dreamed
In orient worlds of summer, and there seemed
A strange new beauty touching common things,
A presence in the air of unseen wings

Sailing from yonder sunset, wafting near
Through the enchanted silence in his ear
A promise of things dimly seen,—and far
Over the rose-flush rose the best loved star.

Then night fell suddenly, not far away
The village lights were mirrored in its bay,
And down the still air fell the convent chimes,
Completing that strange concord which at times
Attunes our mood to Nature's mood, and brings
Mystic fraternity twixt souls and things.
He saw the line of towers dimly traced
In shadow-land, as by enchantment placed
Between two skies, the mirrored and the true,
And, nearing, marked the cypress avenue
Closing the cloister stations, and a light
Over the fast-closed gate, “Sleep, child, sleep well, good-night.”

V.

The after-morrow he sailed back that way,
And left his boat at anchor in the bay
Till darkness gathered with the even dew;
And so on many morrows, till he knew
She would not fail at noontide when he came.

And he had learned to call her by her name,
Baptised Félicitá, and short, Félise,
Or Féda, as her baby lips would please
His love, who taught them lisping. She was born
At Florence, in that quarter, on the morn
Of St. Felicitas, the saint who gave
Her seven sons into one fiery grave
For the faith's sake, and followed, giving praise
That she had seen them nobly end their days
In the old time of struggle. Therefore she
Was called Félicitá and it should be
A happy omen for the child, they said.

And in the Lily city, too, was laid
The life that died for her to live; since then
They never went to that first home again,
But it was ever to him as a shrine
That held the memory of some divine
Past presence, where he dared not walk alone.

“And yet,” she said, “I seem to know each stone
“In Giotto's tower, and every winding street,
“And every name in Florence sounds as sweet
“As music and as home. And, oh! to see
“Just once my city,—only once to be
“In San Miniato's graveyard, looking down
“Across the stream, the bridges, and the town,
“Over the roofs and gardens, right away
“To the far Carrara mountains,—some blue day,
“I might be almost happy—so it seems—
“If they be happy that fulfil their dreams.”

Oh! those were goodly days when each one learned
To know the other, till his whole soul yearned
To lift the shadow from that young child's heart;
And many a noon they met again, to part

With “till to-morrow,” in the even dim:
And needed that to-morrow; then with him
That unknown sense of loneliness first grew,
Nor passed when many gathered, and he knew
For him was now but one face fair of all
Fair faces, one voice seeming musical,
One only in whose presence was content.

And so the sunny June days came and went.

She was an endless wonder; most he loved
The whiteness of her heart, so far removed
Above the world's mistrust, that she could bring
Her books to read with him, or sit and sing—
Those bursts of song the mountain echoes stole—
In perfect open innocence of soul:
The world had never touched her, pure as truth
And trusting all, and unashamed of youth.

So wise in years, so innocently young—
When he would chance upon her as she sung,
He seemed to see around her, sitting there,

Mute angels, listening for some new sweet air
To sing in the high heavenly place.
Then oft
She told him of their life, with voice grown soft
Almost to weeping, and grave eyes bent low:
It was so lonely there; “How should they know
“Or feel what I feel, who but come and go
“Between blank wastes of nunnery wall, soul-bound
“From morn to eve, in one eternal round
“Of prayers and aves, and so wholly miss
“The essence and the end of prayer in this
“The symbol, and they think to make me stay
“In this pale sisterhood for ever and a day.

“Oh, my good friend, I think I have such faith
“As his was, such as trusts in love, and saith,
“‘Be glad to live, nor care to question why;’
“We cannot reason out that mystery—
“We only know that ever, day by day,
“Old wrongs and shadows slowly wane away,
“That naught recurs as it has been before,
“But always better; that the light is more,

“And human lives win slowly through the gloom,
“From that sad sentence of eternal doom
“To hope of fair things far away;—for me
“Are endless wonders, that they cannot see
“Walled in their narrow bounds; when overhead
“The morning sun streams in upon my bed:
“It is the sun that wakes me, not the stain
“Of the Saint's passion pictured on the pane,
“But in their cells the very window-bars
“Are set so close they never see the stars;
“And I am weary when they only say,
“‘Child, if thine heart is troubled, kneel and pray.’”

Then there came round the festa-morn whereon
Their patron saint was honoured; she was gone
Home to her convent, and for three long days
He would not see her,—so he went his ways
Among the villages and up the brow
Of the sea-mountains. He was quite sure now
That he had found out love;—her wistful face
And all her ways, and every maiden grace
Of speech or gesture had become a part
Of his own life, and there was in his heart

A strange unrest of gladness; a great light
Had broken in upon his days, more bright
Than he had known or dreamed of, and the world
Put on new glories, and the dawns unfurled
A lordlier pageantry, and everywhere
Seemed waves of joy that thrilled through the quick air
Intense and real, and the fields and trees
Had a near meaning, and far o'er the seas
He smiled to watch the little sails go by,
Sun-gold between the water and the sky,
And sang, “sail on, your seas are not so wide,
“But love has havens on the farther side.”

Then once he saw her, for the convent town
Was decked with flowers, and the nuns came down
In long procession, and the streets were gay
With banners, the sea-folk kept holiday—
And all the boats along the shore were dressed
With flags or branches, and the grey priest blessed
Their nets and tackle and the fishing gear,
As was the custom there since many a year.

He saw one figure, as he watched unseen,
Bearing a wreath of woven evergreen,
A white rose here and there,—she rather seemed
Some old-world daughter such as Anton dreamed,
Bound for a rustic altar in the wood
Of Faunus or Pomona, as she stood
Leading the music with that voice of hers,
Among the incense-bearing choristers.
Then they swept onward, and the chanting died
Among the echoes on the farther side,
And she was gone.
How long the hours seem
When love is waiting; and how like a dream
That flits to waking ere we hold it fast,
They hurry when love enters in at last!
So, slowly, slowly the long days went by
Till once again their trysting time was nigh.

Yet morning waxed to noontide, and the noon
Waned slow and sultry, and the living tune
Of song-birds silenced in the midday glow;
He heard the chiming hours come and go
Across the drowsy silence, long, so long

From chime to chime; and then again the song
Of some loud wood-bird rang reveille out clear,
Till every tree was singing far and near.
And still she tarried, and he reasoned not—
For love is humble, and she hath forgot,
He thought, maybe that the three days are past,
But she will come to-morrow; then at last
In the long shadows that the even cast,
He saw her white dress flutter through the trees.

And now a red sun kissed the margin of the seas.

VI.

And they are sitting in the olden place,
Under the gnarlèd olive tree; her face
Is even graver than its wont, her eyes
Are wet and wistful, and the fierce thoughts rise
As Adrien listened to the tale she told

“For we shall never meet here as of old,
She said; “I wonder shall we any more

“But I must live my days out on this shore,
“Through many a weary year. It must be so,
“For I have nowhere in the world to go,
“Being a woman and so young, dear friend
“I knew that soon these better days would end,
“And if a little sooner, well, the loss
“Is mine. Someday, somewhere, our ways may cross,
“When I am free, who knows? and I shall spring
“To greet you, and, may be, you'll bid me sing
“The songs of the old, pleasant noons we spent.

“It was his birthday; the first day I went,
“And we were used to be so merry then,
“In the old home up North, and therefore when
“His day came round, the first he was not by—
“I had no heart to tell the abbess why—
“Only I wanted to be all alone,
“And keep my day of memories for my own.
“And on that morn the abbess bade me stay,
“Too long already I had had my way,
“And Sister Agnes waited me to read;
“And then I answered that I had no need
“For Sister Agnes; that his books I brought

“Were all I cared to read in; that I thought
“I wanted none to read with me; and then
“The tears came when I thought on him again.

“But this it was that angered her, she said
“Better was prayer than weeping for my dead—
“Since sorrow brings no loved one back again—
“That God might sooner ease him of the pain
“They doom their dead to—I should feel it best
“To bring him nearer to the perfect rest.

“And then I answered, but if God were good,
“I knew there were no pains for him who stood
“Above their blame or censure. Oh, my friend,
“I see no hope for any prayer to mend
“The earthly sorrow; when our hearts are set
“In throbbing blood, to bid us not regret!
“There was one voice on earth, to us was sweet;
“What shall atone for silence,—shall we meet
“Among the myriads in the unknown land?
“We miss the pressure of a parted hand—
“Shall that console us, can we quite forego
“The only life we yet have learned to know,

“Resign so wholly the near need of love
“For stranger glories that we know not of?
“And do they think, if any love or prayer
“Could bring me nearer, I should leave him there?

“But she was angered, meaning to be kind,
“She said I had strange fancies in my mind,
“And wild rebellious instincts; it were best
“These wayward impulses should be repressed;
“And so she bade me lay my whole soul bare
“At next confession, when the priest comes there.
“And they have taken all his books away,
“As full of dangerous doctrines; and they say
“I may not wander as I used to do,
“Alone, among the mountains. Is it true
“That any here could harm me? Oh! my friend,
“Our pleasant readings in the wood must end,
“And it were idle to rebel in vain.

“So I was patient, that just once again
“I might steal out alone, and find you here,
“And tell you from my heart how very dear

“These days were, when we read his books and talked
“Of the great lives who made them, when we walked
“The perfect way of that enchanted land
“That is where two souls meet and understand.
“Now all is over, over;—I must turn
“Back to the melancholy life, and learn
“To wait in patience and forbear, for so
“He would have had me always, and I know
“There is no other way; and now, farewell.
“But thank you ever, as no word can tell;
“And you must think of me sometimes, when far,
“As of a bird that beats against the bar,
“And knows that in the world outside is spring,
“And wants to fly into the clouds and sing.”

Then she was rising silently, and this
Was all his answer, with her hand in his
He stayed her rising, and she saw him kneel
Beside her and above, and she could feel
His breath upon her hair, his arm that curled
About her, as to shield her from the world,
His soul surrounding and upholding her:

In all the woods there was no faintest stir;
And then the long-restrained, strong manhood broke
Into the fire and eloquence of love; he spoke
Of hope renewed, and promise and release,
And golden days of gladness, and great peace,
Of fair fulfilment of all high desires
In God's great gift, the love that never tires;
Of sweet forgetting after many tears,
And long accord of kindred hearts, the years,
Young years to love in,—till his very soul
Rushed through his lips, unfettered of control,
And trembled into whispering—“Will you come?”

And all the while she listened scared and dumb.

At last she rose erect before him there,
And nerved as one whose lips appeal to prayer
To speak out truth, so in despite of dread
She looked into his eyes and calmly said:
“Yes, I will go with you and be your wife,
“And learn what I have longed for all my life;
“I say not that I love, I have not known—
“I that have lived my quiet life alone—

“What love may mean, but only I am glad
“When I am with you,—I that was so sad.

And she put out her little hand to his,
So their lips grew together in one kiss;
He wondered then how all his days were spent
Ere love made known his crowning sacrament.
Then hand in hand as lovers use they went,
Glad and half-fearful through the darkening wood,
Till by the free waves on the shore they stood.
He lifted her in his strong arms to bear
Her arms about his neck, and all her hair
Falling about his forehead, and her breast
That beat and trembled on his heart at rest;
While round and round late seagulls whirled and flew,—
This was the fairest eve that ever Adrien knew.

It is late even, all the hills are dim,
And she has gone over the sea with him;
The light wind blew, the little bark sped fast,
The wide waves roll between her and the past.

VII.

And it was living joy for her to be
Sailing to freedom on that moonlit sea;
And close she clung to him, and could not speak:
Almost he dared to think across her cheek
Blushed the aurora of the dawn of love,
And, never doubting how the end might prove,
Felt such a royal happiness within
That dazed him with excess of joy, to win
At last one thing worth winning, by whose side
What chance might come would all be glorified;
To hold her fast whose every heart-beat thrilled
Like warm blood to his own—life's life fulfilled
In strong, pure, passionate, splendid love, the crown
To which all other hopes and ends bow down,
Because this end is selfless, and above
Mistrust or failure, this that says, “I love.”

And the light sea-wind kissed her eyes to rest,
Laid like a child to slumber on his breast.

She was his own for ever, and a throb
Of joy possessed him, nothing now could rob
His life of triumph,—and he watched her there,
So sweetly young, so innocently fair,
How could she know love's mystic meaning yet!
He was so sure of gladness he could wait.

On! till the moon grew pale as a wan mist,
And the stars faded; then he bent and kissed
Gently the golden hair upon her brow,
And so she woke, and wondering: “Tell me now,
“How far we sail and whither! Oh, I see
“The morn is breaking, tell me, where are we?”

And then he pointed to the lightening East;
“I have a friend in Genoa, a young priest,—
“This is our wedding-morning. He and I
“Faced death together in the fields up North,
“In the old student days—when we went forth
“A crowd of boys with such a heart of fire,
“Knowing the time was come, the long desire
“Waited and wept for, when from sea to sea,
“From Alp to Alp, should Italy be free.

“There is so much that I have yet to tell,—
“These will be tales for winter evenings;—well,
“I fought there too, whose word is alway peace.
“Who labour to the time when wars shall cease,
“And nations learn a nobler law than fear.

“Yet there are burthens that no man may bear:
“I speak not now of kingdoms and their pride,
“And all the blood that falls unjustified,—
“No, not of lands and passions—but the price
“Of freedom must be paid in sacrifice,—
“And unto each his country and his cause
“Is where men suffer, where unequal laws,
“Not self-imposed, breed misery and keep down
“The natural heart-beat, and an alien crown
“Is one mere jewel that a stranger wears,
“And purple robes are dyed with blood and tears.

“How eagerly we mustered then, mere boys,
“Whose gentle ears had never heard the noise
“Of cannon-thunder, boys whose lives were sweet
“With all Hope's promise—how they burned to meet
“The hireling armies, in the Lombard plain,

“And fought not vainly, if it be not vain
“To win for each his natural birthright here;
“To rid the land of alien lords, and clear
“The air of threats and stifled sobs, so he
“Unslaved and unashamed may breathe it free.
“He was struck down there in the field they call
“From Solferino, the last field of all.
“Those days of madness, it was then we knew
“The war was over, and the eagle flew
“Back to his nest beyond the barrier snows.

“How that day ended! the fierce sun that rose
“On battle, waned in storm and sank in clam,
“And the cool fell on weariness, the balm
“Of twilight, the still stars came one by one
“To wonder, and the moon looked down upon
“Pale faces staring upward with blank eyes;
“That summer night was broken with such cries
“As shudder through the memory still; and he
“Lay wounded there under the stars with me
“Unscathed through all the battles.—Ah! how long
“That night was, till the misty dawn grew strong
“Over the eastward mountains, and again

“The sun burned down on all that human pain
“We saw such things about us, child, not well
“For you to listen to or me to tell.
“And yet above the corpses and the blood
“The lark uprose as ever, with its flood
“Of throbbing welcome to the rising sun,
“And the old mountains smiled on battles won
“In calm sad silence,—Then we seemed to feel
“God's presence on the dawn; he tried to kneel,
“And fell back fainting, and lay like one dead:—
“He had been the wildest of us all who led
“The student life together, but from then
“His world was changed, and when we met again
“The Church had claimed him,—once in jest I said:
“He should be priest if ever I was wed.”

And while he spoke the sun had lifted o'er
The silver gleaming waters, and the shore
Grew nearer with its dotted towns, and soon
Their boat was left at anchor,—long ere noon,
With merry jangling of the horses' bells,
They rushed through seashore villages, by dells
Of age-old olive wood, above the bays,

White fringed and sapphire, up steep winding ways
Hewn in the rock side, here and there a town
Of fisher-folk, unburdened of renown,—
Grey-walled and slumbrous,—little worlds may be
With lives lived out in silence by the sea,
Only the gulls to witness,—and they passed;
And each new scene seemed fairer than the last:
A strange new glory lighting up the face
Of desolation! Each small sun-kissed place
Seemed set to witness this his joy, and say,
“Oh well with us, for love has passed this way.”

And in the city of palaces they two
Bound fast their lives together; though he knew
She was so young still, and that love of his
Was pure and holy as an angel's kiss,
Yet so he willed it, that no taint of shame
Should ever breathe upon her gentle name
To bind her fast and justify their flight,
Not ever doubting she had chosen right.
That night, half fearfully, as one who goes
To some high shrine of reverence, and knows
A holy presence near to him, he crept

Into the young wife chamber ere she slept;
So flower-like she lay, so fair, so young,
So like a veil of innocence were hung
The soft, white curtains of her maiden bed
About the tired eyes and golden head,
She seemed to him to be so pure a thing
Love might but hover near with gentle wing,
And holier sleep breathe low his soft-drawn sighs.
He kissed her open lips, and so her eyes
Went up to his and saw love gazing through,
Then gently closed; and this was all of love she knew.

Then there came word to Anton on a day,
Why he had been these many weeks away,
How one was coming in awhile to be
Queen in their little kingdom by the sea,
And Anton's heart misgave him as he read;
“His joy will come between our lives,” he said.

VIII.

Then they went Southward slowly,—lingering long,
Through old-world towns whose each name is a song,
Those sweet old towns of story, where they stand
Tower-crowned and silent in their slumber-land;
How rest they now after the stormy years,
How weep at leisure long-owed mother tears!

The fissures widen in these yellow walls
Close-leaning, where no sun-light ever falls,
And the roofs over-lap; only out there
A Campanile bleaches in the glare
Of noon-tide, and the very doves fly down
Into the shaded side. Ah, grey old town,
How tired art thou, how effortless! The weed
Fringes thy paving boulders, and, indeed,
Thou art more ghostly than the ghosts that walk
Thy shadowy porches yonder,—though their talk
Wakes never an echo in the silent street

With the last word from Florence, or how the fleet
Came back to Pisa from the warring East,—
Or what they plan in yonder little nest
Sparkling in sun-floods on the last blue crest,
To fire the youngest of thy hero-brood,
And fret the edges of the ancient feud.

Yet these are phantoms with the streaming hair
Under the grey steel helmet, clustering there,
Ringing the crimson banner, and thine eyes
Dream, for the air is quick with memories.

They will not march through the wide gate again
For any feud or foray, nor shall strain
Of battle-chorus echo down thy dells,
Nor evermore the clang of those loud bells
Proclaim Madonna watching from the wall;
Ah fallen, fallen, yet loveliest in thy fall,
Throned o'er the hills, like a forsaken queen!

Only the mules in yon dark shadow lean,
And a monk mutters somewhat down the street,

Only a sudden rush of children's feet
Vexes thy slumber, or the homeward song
Of labouring folk at eve.

All August long
They wandered through the cities of romance,
To soft Siena in her ageless trance,
Arezzo citadelled with corn and flowers,
And Santa Fina's mountain crown of towers,
Cortona's, Chiusi's Tuscan graves, and down
The Arno valley to the silent town
Where voices wane to whispers, lest one sound
Should mar the quiet of that burial ground
Where rest her great forgotten. Such a sleep
As theirs is, one might envy, could we keep
That sense of sweet surrounding, laid beneath
In such an Earthly Paradise of death;
The heart of Pisa seems to slumber here
Safe in the frescoed cloister, and in ear
Of faint sea-winds that nod the cypress tree.

There is a time for places—you should see
Rome first at day-dawn, Naples at late noon,
And Venice in the full spring's golden moon,
But Florence first at sunset; so he deemed
Who knew them at all seasons.
Yet it seemed
The noon was long in Prato to delay,
When Florence was but such a little way,
For all Fra Lippo's frescoes in the dim
Old choir, and Donatello's marble hymn
Of singing children,—ever till the chime
Rang on toward even, asking “Is it time?”
“And is it really Florence,” she would say,
“Home to my Florence that we go to-day?”
“And are we really on the road at last?”
While vineyard hills and villages fled past;—
And then the throb of joy to be indeed
In her own city of the lily-mead,
Where still among the palace piles and shrines
And hurry and din of laughter, one divines
The scent of lilies in the evening air,
Hears yet the lute-strings ring across the square

Of nobles, to full Tuscan tones that reach
Nearer the heart than any earthly speech.

The world is sunset's,—one first frightened star
Shows over ancient Fiesoli, and far
As eye may follow down the crimson west,
A golden river winds away to rest
Among the ruby mountains. 'Tis the hour
Of Ave, and each stone in Giotto's Tower
Shows a more perfect jewel,—while the doves
Fly to their roosting, and a voice like Love's
Whispers across the silence; down the stream
That shaft of flame that is the last day-gleam
Wanes, lingers, dies; the parting orb that kissed
Yon mountain edges draws a purple mist
Over dark cypress clusters and the wood,
Fringing the silvered marges, red as blood
Those clouds are still that see Him overhead;
A boat is drifting down the river-bed,—
Again the lute strings and the plaintive air,—

Yonder's the tower of Carmine, and there
San Miniato on the twilight hill.

All this makes Florence: so she had her will.

IX.

At last one autumn evening they were come
Over the hills above their castle home;
Far down beneath the little tower glowed
In sunset, while he led the mule she rode,
And down the path the merry mule-bells rang;
And forth to meet them from the vine porch sprang
Anton, elate and eager,—and they met;
A splendid light of manhood, taller yet
Than Adrien, with his reckless Southern eyes
Gladdening with welcome, warming with surprise,
And that rich voice of his broke loud and strong,
With “welcome, sister, I have waited long
“And stayed pursuit,—and here at last you ride

“Into your silent realm at eventide.”—
And lightly from her seat she leapt and took
His hand and thanked him with a gentle look,
And Adrien watched his wonder and was proud.

Then up came old Annita, shrilling loud,
With “Blessed Santa Lucia, help my eyes!
“Is it God's angel come down from the skies?
“Or are they all such angels in your land?”
And womanly and quick to understand
She did her gentle service,—while no less
Grey Nanno smiled his willing helplessness.

There then they three took up the quiet life,
And all did homage to the young girl wife,
And watched and waited on her as a child,
Deeming it full repayment if she smiled.
And in the distant village homes her name
Was rumoured as a saint's, and when she came
Young mothers brought their youngest to be blessed,

And children crowded round to be caressed,
And the rough seamen whispered soft and low
Lest one forbidden word should overflow,
And there was something added to their days,
The touch of sympathy, the word of praise,
A better influence, a joy, a light;
Then Adrien knew that she had chosen right.

And most of all it gladdened him to see
How Anton learned to care for her, and she
Grew less afraid,—ere long that wistful face
Was grown the Psyche's, and he seemed to trace
Fair forms like hers among the wandering souls,
In Anton's Happy Isles; pale aureoles
Round just such waving hair, and they would sing
Together, and by such a little thing
At night if Anton whispered, “Lest she wake,”
He felt, he learns to love her for my sake.

So the days shortened, and long eves fell soon;
Still night by night, under the autumn moon,

They rowed on the calm waters; she would bring
A lute that Anton strung for her, and sing
Song after song when all the world was still,
Only the oars would plash, and hill to hill
Repeat the air in echoes; then it seemed
That life was sweet as ever poet dreamed
In present gladness, with the skies profound,
Star-lovely, over them, and all around
Ripple of water, sea's breath, and sweet sound.

SONG.

A night wind, low and tender,
Is fretting the silver sedge,
While the moon in a mist of splendour
Lifts over the mountain edge.

It marks with a soft insistance
The kiss of the earth and sky,
And reveals in a dream of distance
The hamlets perched on high.

Do you wonder what they are dreaming
In the mountain homes up there,

Where the first moonrays are streaming,
And the far-away seems near?

Do you think they muse and wonder
At the distant lands they see,
And say, “In the vales low under
“Are there folk who love like we?”

X.

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!”

XI.

Then winter vanished in a mist of rain,
And the world smiled to see the spring again:
Then first of all the flowers on the hill

The violet came, and soon the daffodil,
And in the valley by the torrent bed
One morning you might find the drooping head
Of a white narcissus-star above the grass,
Till in a little while you dared not pass
For fear of trampling them, and you would see
The crimson cup of that anemone,
The flower they say that sprang on Calvary,
And when long after Pisan galleys bore
The holy earth to this Italian shore
For all her dead to rest in, hither too
The seed came, and took heart in alien skies and grew.

And yet she went not as her wont had been
To find new flowers at morning, but between
Day-dawn and even bent above her books,
And went her way with over weary looks.
She needs a woman's sympathy, he thought,
Who waited on her least desire, and caught
Each rustling of her dress along the stone
Or faintest footfall far; too much alone
We dwell here—seeing how she clung
To old Annita—for a child so young.

And in a little while it chanced there came
A letter from the North that told the fame
Of Anton's pictures; he had found at last,
They said, the note that failed him, and surpassed
Himself; his rumour was in every mouth—
“And yet,” they said, “you linger in your South,
“But in the springtime you must make amends.”

Then first of all since ever they were friends
One felt a touch of envy, no mere whim,
To watch her as she played at crowning him;
But a vague feeling he could not repress,
A fear he failed her somewhere, for success
Is ever sweet to woman; well he knew
The way to fame was easy for him too
Would he but choose it: but that might not be.
And what of Anton, could he choose but see
Why seemed her praises a reproach to hear?
He dared not look into her eyes for fear
Of reading what he dreaded—and that day
He kept from sight of her, and turned away
When she came near to watch his work, and still
His mind was troubled with a boding ill.

He would have died sooner than not be true
To Adrien; and deep in his heart there grew
A shadow darkening, as he thought, a fear
For the undoing of two lives more dear
Than anything on earth; and it was so
His finer instinct could not choose but know
The meaning of her change.

And it was this
His life had wanted, all he seemed to miss
That human touch, long out of reach, above
His art, was just this very need of Love.
Then all the best that was in him took fire,
Late learning Love, burned into one desire
To help her somehow, as Love longs to give
Its all on earth to one of all that live.
Only for him was nothing left to do
But leave her ere it be too late; he knew
There was no other way that he might choose,
And now seemed nothing left to win or lose
By all his triumphs, now men's praise or blame,
Success or failure were grown much the same.

She was so young, so innocently pure,
He dared persuade himself he was not sure
Of all he feared to picture; but that dread
Mastered his self-control, therefore he said:
“My work is ended now, and I shall go
“North to our land this summer-time,—we grow
“Too straightened here.”

He only heard her say:
“We shall be lonely when you go away.”
But Adrien thought, so best, when Anton goes
She will be less constrained; and when she rose
And came to ask him aught, and laid her hand
Upon his shoulder softly, and would stand
Waiting his answer, with love long deferred,
He pressed it softly, as a little bird
One must be gentle with, and drew her close,
And thought it will be well when Anton goes.

Ah! what a world of things he recked not of
When he mistook her reverence for love.

XII.

Yet Anton lingered, and the weeks went by
Waiting to cast his Psyche. May drew nigh,
With still seas and returning nightingales,
Yet now they never set the painted sails
At moon-rise. Now she seldom cared to sing
As once she used, but it was grown to spring,
And still her cheek was paler. Yet he stayed
From day to day, and evermore delayed
The statue's casting; and now May was gone.

It was the day before the day whereon
He should go Northward; he was grown aware
Something had changed him, he could hardly bear
The look of Adrien's eyes, so trusting still,
So innocent of any boding ill,
Of any cloud between them, while he knew
His own heart's heart half loyal, half untrue.

And he could look into her soul and see;
For souls that love are quick to sympathy;

Her faith had all been centred on one truth
In fervent worship, all the dreams of youth,
All first ideals, all things holy and high
Seen with child-adoration, seemed to lie
With her as woman, dedicate above
To woman's self abandonment in Love.

The child of love, and nurtured on romance,
Rich with so fatal an inheritance,
Kept from the world's unfaith, a life apart,
Unwarped from trust and judging from the heart,
The one thing waited for was over-past,
And she had found out love too late at last.

Then he went forth and wondered all that day:
These many weeks he had known he must not stay,
But courage failed him, he had still deferred
The hour of parting, now he only heard
A little voice that cried—“too late, too late,”
“What hast thou done!”—And then in fierce selfhate
He cursed his weakness, he had meant to hide
His secret,—and, he thought—the world was wide,

Why were we thrown together—just we three
Of all that live and love? Why need it be
This one of all on earth, this only one?
Oh, fool! what hast thou done, what hast thou done!

We were so well together once, and fate
Has set between us—ah no, no, not hate!
Not hate, but needs division, oh, my friend,
My master, angel!—and is this the end
Of our ideals? Wherefore, oh, my God!
Was this the goal to which we slowly trod?
We—hand in hand—to where love cannot be
In the world evermore twixt me and thee!

He found a shepherd on the hills, and stayed
And talked with him a little while, and played
With the young kids; he could not be alone
With that intolerable monotone
Of Grilli in the ilex trees;—until
It grew near even, and across the hill
He watched them enter by the village gate—
And the far waves moaned to him, “Too late! too late!”

Alone still, hollow-hearted, seeing naught,
He wandered up and down, and thought, and thought
How should he live the morrow through and hide
This cursed thing from Adrien, and, blank-eyed,
Stared through the tree-trunks, where the setting sun
Burned red, and the waves wailed, “What hast thou done?”

And the sun stood one moment on the wave,
Then slowly sank, and day was in its grave;
And hope and faith and all things seemed to die.

But suddenly he came under the clear sky
Out of the gloom and mystery of the wood,
On the free hill-side; and awhile he stood
Just where he met them that first autumn eve;
Now he had done what tears could not retrieve
Or penitence atone, or years undo;
Had come between the trusting and the true,
And cursed the hand that blessed.
And cursed the hand that blessed.

Then faint and far
Beyond the rose-flush grew the evening star.

And the sky changed, the hills changed, and the sea,
Only that star beamed downward stedfastly,
Beamed through the twilight, till at last there stole
A white ray down that pierced into his soul,
Unbarred his heart, and made all wild thoughts cease
With sense of calm and permanence and peace,
And seemed to say, “one right, one light, one wrong,
“Too late is never though deferred too long,
“Do I not outshine many storms!”

And so
He changed his wavering purpose, he would go
To Adrien, speak out manfully and true,
And tell him all he dreaded, all he knew,
In expiation;—and then go his way
For ever if need be, or till some day
They bade him come again—his mind was set,
And he was quite calm now—so they two met.

And what he said!—only a long while they walked
The shore that evening, and talked on and talked
Gently and bravely, and so at the last

Took hands as men do who are moved, and passed
Together silent up into the tower.

And it was moonrise in a little hour.

Then Adrien; “Since to-morrow parts us two,
“Let us go out as we were used to do
“Once more across the sea, which has so long
“Cradled our dreams—let us sing one more song,
“We three together! Once more let us steer
“Along the moonpath as we did last year,
“Into the old dream-havens!”

And so they
Went down the rock-path to the little bay,
And it was sultry under a clear sky—
Scirocco air, or thunder gathering nigh;
And the world seemed not sleeping, only still
And waiting; slowly through a rift of hill
Rose the wan moon beyond, and weirdly rang
The lute strings pausing to the song she sang:—

Sail and row! sail and row!
Where do the ships in the waters go?

Cloud or sun, cloud or sun,
All the ways of the ships are one.

Night and day, night and day,
Love's land looks over the waves alway.

Star and moon, star and moon,
Will guide us into the haven soon.

Moon and star! moon and star!
We have sailed and sailed, and it still is far.

Heart in heart, hand in hand,
But the bark was lost in sight of the land.

She knew not why she chose that song to sing,
Only upon the last line faltering
Laid the lute by, and would not sing again.
And Adrien watched her with a numbing pain,
Pale as the foam there in the pale moonlight.
And then she said, “Turn back now, for to-night
“I have a foolish dread; it feels as though

“There lay a curse upon the world.” And so
They turned and rowed in silence back to land.

And Anton said, “Good night.” She felt his hand
Burn through her fingers, and she wondered why.
He said, “Good night; it is not quite good-bye,
“For we have all to-morrow ere we part.”

Then first she felt that something in her heart
Was severed—something gone for evermore;
She could not see things clearly as before,
And the vague terror of some unknown sin
Changed all the stars, and darkened from within.
And scared as one that marches to his doom,
She went into her little raftered room
And stared across the silence. None to share
This wild foreboding that she could not bear
What might the morrow bring!

And then she dreamed
The room grew full of presences, it seemed
Those white-robed sisters drew to her bedside
And looked so loving, and so gentle-eyed,

Not one reproachful, as they would express
“From our safe haven are we come to bless;
“You chose the world's way, sister, yet be brave
“For you chose well, and we are come to save
“Those wandering feet from falling,” Then she knelt,
Reaching her arms towards them, and so felt
A hand upon her forehead, and heard one say,
“Child, when the heart is troubled, kneel and pray.”
And one out in the shadow saw her rise,
With rain of tears in sorrow-wistful eyes,
And kneel on the cold marble, Adrien heard
Her prayer go skyward, weeping word by word;
For “Lord,” she said, “the way is very steep
“And I have wandered far, thou, therefore, keep
“My feet from falling; I am come between
“The noblest love of friendship ever seen,
“And I am bound to what I may not love,
“And what I love is out of reach above
“All earthly hope; therefore, forgive my cry,
“It was so lonely that I longed to die.
“Now therefore, Lord, have pity on Thy child,
“Who seeks Thy mercy to be reconciled;

“Therefore, forgive me if I dare to pray,
“Whose heart had wandered, Lord, so far away,
“For well I know it had I but loved Thee,
“Thy love would cast him out, and leave me free.”
Then she lay down upon her little bed,
All her hair's gold entangled round her head;
And the young eyes were grown too tired to weep,
So gently closed, and then she fell on sleep,
And he still watched her in the shadow light.
Then he went out into the sultry night.
There was no stir of wind in any tree,
No faintest ripple on the glass-calm sea;
The very stars shone wanly overhead,
The worst was answered now, and all the world seemed dead.

XIII.

And Adrien wandered up and down the shore.

All ended now, and he might doubt no more;
The worst was answered; in his lonely breast
The last faint hope was dead with all the rest;—

That last faint hope we never dare let go,
When all the while we cannot choose but know
The golden thread is breaking, and cling fast,
To sink the deeper when it yields at last.

For now there was not any longer place
For hope, or chance of change; time might efface
Or kill, but could not alter; once, he knew,
Love dawns, once only to be pure and true;
And he had girt this young life round with dreams,
And she had grown to him as one who seems
Out of earth's reach to tarnish, shrined above
With the high things he had held worthy love
To live and die for; he had set her there
In his heart's heart, and kept that image fair
From chance and changing things, like some white star,
Serene, far over where the storm-clouds are,
To consecrate all labours, and to make
His every effort holier for her sake;
And he had seemed so near to winning this,
This too great gladness, that such love was his
To be a glory on the path he trod,
To rest about him as the breath of God.

They might outlive this,—might, long years away,
Grow somewhat nearer in an after day;
But that young life, with all its noon unspent,
To droop at morning! He had been content
To bear his lot in silence, for man's best
In pain is perfected, and little rest
From the long struggle comes to any man
The way he journeys since his years began.
But this young life,—he could not set it free;
Man binds and love rebels, and he must see,
Day after day, the love she could not hide,
Not his, another's, fettered to his side.
There is some sorrow that defies control,
The bitterness of death was on his soul,—
And a long while he stared across the sea,
And thought, and thought, If I could set her free!

He had not marked a small dark cloud that rose
Over the sea-line eastward, how it grows,
And veils the stars, and overshades the light
Of that round moon, how sultry lies the night
On the unrippled waters—heavily,
Great drops fall plashing on the darkened sea.

He stole into the chamber where she slept,
And sorrow overflowed, quite close he crept
And watched her sleep; she dreamed and never knew
How wild without the storm of summer grew.
He closed the casement, for the rain fell cold,
And ever and again the thunder rolled,
From crag to answering echo, long and loud—
Flashed down the sky from jaggèd cloud to cloud
God's anger written in the writhing flame!
And yet she wakened not, he breathed her name,
But she was dreaming, and no answer came.
So a long hour he lingered at her side
Lest she should waken, till the echoes died
Beyond the hills, and through the window bars
Shone out once more the cloudless maze of stars;
And all the memories of days gone by
Came one by one, old hopes that once were high,
And the glad days that they had spent together
When first he found love in the summer weather,
And love had brought him hither to this last.
Slowly and silently the hours passed;
And ever and again this thought would grow—

“But now, if I should chance upon them so,
“That hand of his that once I trusted there
“Upon my golden, my own golden hair,
“And all her spirit laughing up to his
“Through those great eyes of her, ah, God! and this
“My friend, my more than brother, and this—but no,
“The very thought were treason—sweet, not so,
“For very loyal are they both to me,
“God knows and love knows that could never be!
“Oh little lonely life I tried to fold
“Into my arms to keep, you only told
“Your love to God, in that white prayer you prayed.”
No taint of self was in his thoughts, no shade
Of least reproach, once more he learned, the price
Of Love on earth is weighed in sacrifice.

And slowly, silently the night went by,
His heart was breaking, and he could not die.
Then he knelt down, and prayed, as one, indeed,
Scarce knowing what he prayed for, only the need
And craving of spirit to communicate
With strength, and light, and what is more than fate,
To ease this deadly chillness of despair,

And as he looked out on the twilight air
The slow dawn grew in answer to his prayer.
And then he turned and looked on her again,
So calm in sleep, so guiltless of his pain,
Sleep lay so sweetly on her, as a child
That dreaming smiles, so in her dream she smiled.
The fair young neck lay bare, all round her head
The golden ripple of her hair was shed,
And one white hand was on her heart at rest,
And rose with every beating of her breast.
The finger was unclasped whereon was set
His opal ring he gave when first they met;
Only he thought the stone had lost its hue,
And gently kneeling at her side he drew
The golden circle from her hand, and yet
She did not wake,

The stars were well-nigh set,
And the still dawn grew paler; then he rose
And went and dressed in the rough seaman's clothes.
The fisher's sash that he had worn that day
When first he anchored in the lonely bay
And found her singing in the olive wood.
Once more he came, and at her side he stood,

And gazed and gazed, as though he strove to trace
In his heart's heart the image of that face
For ever and for ever,—then bent low,
And yet a moment watching, lingered so;
In maiden sleep so very pure and fair,
He pressed one kiss upon her tangled hair,
And turned and went, and never looked behind.

If one had seen him then unmoved, resigned;
He seemed as they whose peace is made
With days and years, who wait till the last shade
Clouds o'er the eyes.—Death in the heart may be,
But love had found its own eternity.

Then he went down into the little bay,
By the old path, and it was early day,
And the long grass was silvered with the dew,
And the birds sang as ever. But he drew
The old boat shorewards—wind enough to fill
The painted sail—and, from the shadowy hill,
He passed beyond into the gold sun's track,
Southward and Southward, and not once looked back.

And when the sun was well above the tower
Féda awoke; the passing thunder shower

Had cleared the heavy air, and the new day
Breathed sweet and fresh about her as she lay.
The song of birds made gladness in the air,
And God, she thought, has surely heard my prayer,
For youth's deep sleep had eased her weariness.

Lighter of heart she rose, and chose the dress
He praised her in, and braided up her hair
For his sake, and was glad that she was fair.
Now she had conquered—he should never know.

But by the window in the hall below,
Alone stood Anton, waiting; and his head
Was bent above a written page he read;
And she looked up in that pale face of his
For greeting;
Then she saw the lines he read
Were Adrien's writing, and no word was said.

“To Anton and to Féda one short word,
“And then let me keep silence! God has heard
“One prayer of yesternight. To you, old friend,
“She comes, a child yet, yours till these days end,
“Else had not this been possible. Your tears

“Will keep my memory green a few short years,
“The rest have long forgotten;—all is said,
“You had one friend once, Anton: he is dead.
“And you, my love, and, ever my love, although
“Our ways in life divide hence, and I go.
“Love him for ever, only; and be ye
“Too rich in joy to waste one thought on me!
“For now, because when the old hope was sweet,
“The waters used to bear me to your feet.
“I turn again to the old kindly sea,
“And my own love will be enough for me.
“The time is very short to death from birth,
“And I have much to do in the wide earth,
“Whom now the silence covers. Let the dead
“Sleep on! Love well! Be happy! All is said
“In this, that you will see my face no more
“In any way of any sea or shore.”

Three times she read it wholly through and through
And could not speak to question, and she knew
The eyes that watched were brimming with hot tears,
And tremblingly she stood, as one who hears
His doom of death, and is half glad to die.

By this the sun was high in the pale sky,
And from its place in the dark bay below
The boat was gone, and ah, how long ago!
But the birds sang as alway, and the foam
Splashed up against the red rocks of their home,
And the sunflowers waved in the light breeze.

Then suddenly as one who watching sees
The last faint smile upon a dying face
Before death closes o'er, a moment's space
They saw through tear-dimmed eyes that strained away,
How, in the golden promise of the day,
A small white sail was fading in the South.

Then Anton stooped and kissed her on the mouth.

XIV.

And neither spoke.
All that long morning through,
He sat there by the window, hardly knew
The passing hours, self-tortured, till she came
To his side softly and so breathed his name.

Then he looked up and saw her, scarcely known,
So changed since yester even, only grown
Spiritually beautiful; the grace
Of inspiration on an angel-face
Seemed lightening in her eyes, as one awoke
From childhood into life or death. She spoke.

“This hour must part us two for ever; nay,
“No word! This is no easy thing to say.
“Someday, with calmer insight, you will know
“I loved you well enough to dare to go,
“And save your soul and mine. Dear, we must keep
“To the old holdfasts knowing not how deep
“The thornless way might lead us. Hear me yet!
“The past is past and gone beyond regret;
“I have undone the very noblest life
“Now living.—Yet no less am I his wife
“Here in the world for evermore. Nay, dear,
“We cannot alter this. I see more clear,
“Because I love you better than my peace,
“The bond is bound, and there is no release.
“Better to suffer silent all life through,
“Than do a deed to hunger to undo

“For ever and ever! Shall not death atone
“Life's failure? Now will I go back alone
“To the good sisters, they will take me in,
“And I will live remission of my sin.

“And you, for this last charge of love I lay
“Upon you, for my sake, by night by day,
“Rest not for ever till sometime, somewhere
“You find him living, and I have no fear
“But you will find him, if you seek where'er
“Some human wrong is crying for redress,
“Some human need for love; and you will bless
“The very pain that puts our souls apart,
“And be as once you were. And now, dear heart,
“This one thing yet I pray you, stir not hence
“Until to-morrow, I shall send you thence
“A certain message; so shall you be freed
“To start upon my quest. Farewell, God speed!
“For I shall never look you in the face
“Till I can meet you in the spiritual place,
“With no least cloud between us.—We shall tell
“The rest hereafter,—only now, farewell!”

100

But he bent low in self-abasement, heard,
And touched her hand, and answered not a word.
He had no will but hers, and he would do
Her bidding now and ever; for he knew
There was no other way; but he would make
His life's atonement living for her sake.
And when he looked to bless her she was gone,
And he was left in the wide world alone,
Till love in life imprisoned find release.

Only the Psyche lives—a masterpiece
Of sculpture, so men say;—the type of love
Unmarred by passion, winged to pass above
Into those highest havens dimly dreamed,
Where hope and faith that trusted are redeemed,
Whence sometimes, as from lost skies overcast,
And clearer, surer as we hold it fast,
This best is whispered to sad souls that pray,
“Somewhere, an'thou be true, somewhere, some day.”