The Human Inheritance :: :: University of Virginia Library

“Five years have passed, and still the world has brought
But little change to me. High things I sought
For mind and hand to do: the world seem'd fair
Before me, and I felt the strength to dare
And conquer. Five short years since that day
When, for the last time, I looked on the grey
Belovéd college walls, and knew at last
That manhood had begun and youth was past.”

II.

So to himself spake Arnold Selwyn, as
With slow enjoying steps he trod the grass
Fresh with cool dews and gentle summer show'rs
In the sweet dawn of a May day, whose hours

Were sacred here as on the hills and leas
Far from the city smoke—for 'neath the trees
Heavy with myriad lamp-like chestnut blooms
Of Kensington he wander'd: from hot rooms
He came, where all the summer evening through
The dancers had not flagged. The blackbirds flew
About his path, with mellow voices clear
Full fluted, and, from an old beech-tree near,
A song-thrush, poised upon a branch wind sway'd,
Sang wild with its own music, till afraid
With extreme bliss its tremulous trills piped low
And with a far-off sadness, like the flow
Of windless waters on an alien beach—
Till the soft lights among the green leaves, each
A little waving wing, its heart away
Swept in a tide of joy once more; the spray
Shook with its wild delight, which thrill'd and thrill'd
Till silenced in sheer ecstasy. It fill'd
The heart of him who listen'd with a glad
Rebirth of youth—such joy as Chaucer had
(A singer like the birds) when wandering
Through woods at dawn in some old English spring.

III.

And the rooks wheeled up black against the sky
Cawing with busy clamour; shrill and high
A distant lark rejoiced; the redbreasts sang
Amidst the chestnut-snows and sparrows sprang
From bough to bough low twittering; from tall
And sunlit limes, in soft aerial fall
The delicate scented blossoms waver'd down,
And sweet the tender grass smelt. From the town
A distant murmuring sound subdued and far
Hummed thro' the leafy boughs, but did not mar
The woodland sweetness—as we often hear,
Lying 'mid the mossy roots of some old peer
Amongst his fellow oaks, with nought else round
But waving ferns and nestled near the ground
Shy primrose tufts, a low, faint, soothing sound
Steal from some unseen hollow wherein moves
O'er pebbly channels and thro' time-worn grooves
With soft, slow, gurgling music a clear stream
Twisting and turning like a silver gleam.

IV.

But with the gladness was a mingled pain
That stayed the longer: and sad thoughts again

Linger'd like guests unwelcome in his brain.
Though fickle moods seemed with him, moods that ranged
From sadness into brightness, for there changed
Often upon his face for a little while
The wearied look for a remembering smile
Of something pleasant—wordless memories
That brought a shining softness to his eyes.

V.

“Five years ago I thought the world lay wide
Before my youth, and that the first spring-tide
Would bear me on to fortune. As then, still
The world is—but the world is oped by will
And not by hope. And when I lightly drew
My anchor from the old tried faiths, I knew
But little of the yawning depths that roll
With dreadful power around the labouring soul
That seeks but finds no haven. All seem'd straight
And easy to o'ercome, and fortunate fate
To be assured: too fortunate, alas!
For each of these five useless periods was
To me a snare, and with each month therein

I dallied, thinking I might haste and win
The work that makes true manhood noble when
My spirit should say now! Thus was it then,
And so it is even yet. Drifted about
By this view or by that, each put to rout
By every phase successive—with no aim
Of definite purpose, yet desiring fame
In whatsoever thing I undertook
I might have guessed that failure would outlook
My path all round. And yet I know that I
Have gifts beyond the accomplishments that lie
Within the grasp of most; art has to me
Been ever a fair dream: it now shall be
Something beyond the pleasure of an hour.
Let me work out my manhood thus, with pow'r
Such as I have, and give to it my heart
And soul: for true laborious work's the part
And portion of each man, and he who shirks
Labour of hand and mind, and feebly lurks
In weary and empty byways of his life
Moves ever backward. For in steadfast strife
And upward toil alone can there be found
That which each soul to fuller life shall round.”

VI.

Hark, the wild thrush notes once again! He heard
The full soul singing right o'erhead, and stirred
No further step, but listen'd with rapt ears
And thrilling sense: even as in old years
Long past the young Marsyas might have stood
And hearken'd such an one fill all the wood
With matchless music, learning thence the song
Of fluted notes he would regret ere long.

VII.

It ceased, song being at last expressionless,
And onward Arnold went, with on his face
The sunshine of some inner pleasantness.
His thoughts had backward flown to where last night
From out the throng of dancers on his sight
One face had fixt itself, passing him by
Unconscious,—as a dream mysteriously
Bears sometimes from the haunted lands of sleep
A wonderful vision with dark and deep
Presageful eyes, and face that doth inherit
All man's lost dreams of beauty, pale brows lit
As by some inner radiance, and a mouth

Wreath'd with such lips as hers who in the South
Long since Troy razed and wasted for a kiss—
Swims from the depths of sleep, but ere the bliss
Groweth real fades silently away
As into night melts twilight wan and grey,
So that the soul but faint remembrance has
When morning comes. Beneath him on the grass
He saw the upturn'd face and the deep eyes
Wherein love brooded half awake; the skies,
Smiling on summer with a languid peace,
Held it within their depths; and 'mid the trees
Shadowed by waving boughs, he saw it move
And vanish—a will-o'-the-wisp of love.

VIII.

And ever and again within his mind
The hours of the past night relived—the wind
Singing an undertone wherein the word
“Lilian” rose and fell, as the sea is stirred
By tidal heaves at ninth-wave intervals.
He stood within the flashing mirror'd walls
And watched the dancers pass, until that face
Glanced close to his with its supreme sweet grace
Of loveliness—and then as one whose eyes

Watch the long purple line of land arise
Out of the seas after a weary time
Of tossing to and fro in a bitter clime,
So kept his gaze transfix'd where'er she went.
At last the time came when his head he bent
Before her, and heard spoken the sweet name
That now the wind repeated. A soft shame
Flushed the pale delicate face, as a white rose
Were crimsoning beneath the kiss of June,
Being conscious of his furtive eyes; and soon
They left the crowded rooms, and in a cool
Green-leaved recess, where, in a little pool
Fern-fringed and rock-girt, with a gentle sway
Of sound a sheeny fountain splashed alway,
They sat unseen of any. Something strange
Had come to him; he knew not what, some change
That brought a thrilling sense of a delight
Of imminent revealment, while the night
Seemed some prolonged enchantment leading on
To joys expectant afar off. Upon
His ears the blent strains of the music fell
With hushful sound, and o'er his soul a spell
Seemed cast, sweet as on fields of asphodel
Shadowed by palms of Paradise doth steep
Each new-come spirit in a joy of sleep.

IX.

They err who say that love must be of slow
And well-proved growth—as if the heart must glow
Alone as the fanned flames of a slow fire.
Love ofttimes springs, clothed with a wild desire,
And takes the reins of life in hand ere quite
The soul hath felt the change; and fills the eyes
With ardent longing and a glad surprise
And a strange light and rapture beyond speech.
One looks upon another, and for each
The past has suddenly grown old, a flame
Is lit within each heart, and a soft shame
Dwells in each look, and life yearns unto life
And all the world with hopes and fears seems rife.

X.

Before they left that night both eyes had told
A similar tale, and each stirred heart did hold
The rumour of a sudden happiness.
But few words passed; yet love doth oft express
Himself in silence best. The casual touch
Of lace, or falling flo w'r, or hand,—all such
Were ministers of love that sent a thrill

Through him, as o'er the brooding surface still
Of a calm sea swift airs go wandering—
And when his lips once said some little thing
And laughed, whereby his breath breathed on her hair
She flushed and trembled, and her bosom fair
Heaved with a quicken'd motion, a swift beat
That whisper'd something new and strange and sweet.

XI.

At last they had to part, but when she went
He saw before him still each lineament
Of the fair girlish face; and but one word
'Mid all the noise around his spirit heard,
The one word “Lilian.” And when far away
Her carriage rolled through the awakening day
And chastened sweetness of the dawn the air
Seemed full of music, and the wind to bear
On its soft pinions, as a bird might do,
The burden of his name whose love she knew.

XII.

Hark! hark! O sweet and clear, again, again,
The over rapturous thrush with a half pain

And half extremity of joy makes all
The air alive with song: with fluted call
The blackbird sounds his summons to his mate,
And the rooks cawing in the air await
The signal for their uniform ascent
To distant fields. And homeward Arnold went
With a changed life and purpose of his own
And the long follies of his youth outgrown.

XIII.

Three months passed, wherein life at last was found
No idle dream, but ever steadfast round
Of labour—and where love half-guessed had spun
A weft of magic. Love indeed had won
His soul from sloth, and given to him a hope
That would not die again, but that would ope
The future to his arms: and love had brought
Each aspiration that he once forgot
Back to his mind once more; and love each day
Was with him and his soul did sway
Hither and thither ever tending higher,
And ever grew the strength of his desire
For her he loved, as a long trammelled fire
In mines beneath the soil doth grow and grow

Until at last the flames flash to and fro
Above the enfringing depths. She was to him
A faith, a hope, a joy, the wine at the brim
Of that which held life's last draught and supreme:
She was the moon to lead his waves—the dream
To inspire—the guide to reach the road—
The hand to slack the burden of life's load.

XIV.

Not yet had words escaped him—yet she knew
He loved her; and her fair face daily grew
Sweeter with knowing it; and her heart was fill'd
With joy. And ofttimes bright dreams she would build
Wherein the two with wedded love would reach
To that which poets dream of when they teach
Love is the key of life. And so went by
The months, until the clear autumnal sky
Saw the oak change to russet, and the planes
Grow yellow, and the equinoctial rains
Wash the white dust from off the beech-tree leaves,
With heaped up here and there damp amber sheaves
Of elm and chestnut, and the sunburnt mould
Gleaming with fallen leaves of lime-tree gold.

XV.

Both had been absent from the dusty town
Through the late summer. Where the cliffs shelve down
Most steeply to the surging Cornish seas
A little village lies, which the spray flees
Right over when a wild wind's from the west—
And there they both by chance had found a rest
From dusty London for a time; but soon
She left again, and then, as is a tune
With sudden discord filled, so seem'd the place
To Arnold not the same when once her face
Haunted the shores no more. Yet still he strove
To reach the secret that he sought; and wove
Upon the canvas a fair dream that would
Inherit all the passion of his mood.
So the days passed in work, the nights in dreams
Of love, save when the August moon's full beams
Tempted him forth to hear the night waves chime
Their inarticulate prophecies sublime,
And the sea lay his hoary head beneath
The shadow of the cliffs and faintly breathe.
So went the happy weeks until at last
He knew that he must leave: one night he passed

Wandering along the ever-sounding shores
Rapt in sweet dreams—the next he heard the hoarse
And constant turmoil of the streets. But here
He was near that which made his life seem dear.

XVI.

Cloudless the sky was, calm and soft and blue:
Cawing, the homeward rooks in circles flew
Above the lofty elms, and everywhere
The sparrows twitter'd thro' the warm still air;
Eastward the chestnuts, cluster'd near the banks
Of the Long Water in irregular ranks,
Faded into a tender gauzy mist,
And the Pond deepened into amethyst
Bright with the mimic sails that flashed upon
Its rippling wash; and a faint carillon
Of far-off bells blent with the bleating cries
Of sheep and children's laughter. The flushed skies
Grew crimson with the splendour of the sun
Burning the west, and like a vestal nun
Pure, cold and white the crescent moon hung high
In the mid-heaven, and Venus' flashing eye
Watched from the dove-hued south half tremulously.

XVII.

West of the Serpentine the beeches make
Cool shadowy haunts, wherein whene'er they shake
Their leaflets to the ground, 'tis like green rain
Waving adown from boughs where it has lain
Hid from the scorching sun—so cool and green
They seem a glade far in some woodland scene
Where the birds build and sing and never know
Disturbing fears, with near some streamlet slow
Meandering with cool lisping sounds, where calls
The kingfisher by day, and when dusk falls
The moorhen, nightjar and the whistling bat.
And in the shadow of those beeches sat
Arnold and Lilian, listening without words
To the last twilight cries of drowsy birds,
And watching the flushed glory of the west
Halo the sinking sun that sought his rest
Where none could see him, and the golden flow
Raiment the palace with a tender glow.

XVIII.

And when at last the highest elm-tree branch
Caught the last gold, and the small waves did blanch

Upon the pond into a gloamy grey
And the last crimson cloudlet paled away,
Each turn'd to each, with gaze that was the gate
Wherethrough their souls' speech went, confederate
In desire; and then his hand took hers, and still
No word was spoken, but an equal thrill
Stirred every nerve of each deliciously.
At last he spoke, saying, “Lilian,” tenderly,
“Lilian, I love you!” And beneath the tears
That dimmed her eyes he saw the promised years
Wherewith in love she dower'd him: and life
Seemed changed from night to day, to peace from strife;
And silence lay between them like a sea
Wherein two wandering currents suddenly
Meet and unite and no more separate be.

XIX.

Homeward at length they went when the dusk grew
By stealthy shades to night. Each spirit knew
The sundering of self when a soul gives
Its best to another. The hour that lives
Memorial thro' each life that once has loved
Had come to them; and as deep pools are moved,

Twin depths upon a lone hillside, and stirr'd
By the same wind, so at the sudden word
Of love both hearts throbbed wildly with the same
Divine emotion—thro' each life the flame
Already burn'd that yet a pillar of fire
Would be from out the wastes of low desire
To guide each soul to emprise ever higher.

XX.

Before the leafless boughs beneath the snow
Dreamed of dead summers or the leaves that low
The winds had scatter'd were grown wholly old
And shrivell'd, and still some lingering gold
Shone palely here and there against the haze
Of rainy skies in bleak November days,
Their lives were joined in one, their streams were blent
In one seagoing river! Forth they went
With hearts strung high and each soul confident.

XXI.

Twin married lives hence hand in hand they chose
Their paths together—fronting whate'er rose
Of evil or of sorrow on their way
With equal gaze: and ever day by day

Their great love deepen'd, as a pine-tree clings
Still closer to the rock o'er which it flings
Its matted shade heedless of winds that beat
Its lonely height: and as the flow'rs make sweet
The blesséd days of Spring, that every year
Seem to become more wonderful and dear,
So little joys and hopes made daily life
Seem fair to them, soothing the fret and strife
That is the heritage of all. Their love
Indeed was life: and dear the joys thereof.
Ah, love is not a seed blown heedlessly
By any devious wind across the sea
That hems us in; a seed that in earth's womb
Grows till the day when in its perfect bloom
The sun's kiss warms it and its blossoms make
A fragrance for the wind to lift and shake
Along the tufted grass—till one day come
The frosts of winter when the birds are dumb
And the leaves fall'n and dead, when it is blown
Seaward again from whence it once had flown,—
Blown hence by devious winds, rewhirled again
Back to the wastes amid wild wind and rain!
Nay, love is not like this: it is the breath
That blows across the sterile lands of death;
It is the wind that o'er the tropic seas

Blows ever in a steadfast changeless breeze;
It is not but a dream that in man's sleep
Dries up a little while tired eyes that weep
Then fades to let the weary day begin,
But is the goal that every life must win
Or suffer. Love is the immaculate wind
That blows across the drifted years behind
Our human course, and bloweth far away
Beyond the furthest beacons on our way;
Eternal round our little finite day.