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

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.”