TO CICELY NARNEY MARSTON.
What were I, dear, without thee? Let me look
Back on my earliest days, to-night, as he
Who having thoroughly read through some book,
Re-reads the opening pages lovingly.
In days when we were children, who but I
Should know how thy soul turned from tender things,
How thy girl's heart would girlish joys put by,
To share the boy's uncouth imaginings?
If then those days were sweet, who more than thou
Made them so fair, blending thy life with mine!
What books we read together, then, as now, —
Books that boys love, full of sea-winds and brine:
Dost thou remember that pet place of ours
We called our haunt? Not beautiful it was,
Not musical with birds, nor gay with flowers,
But from it we could watch the mad trains pass,
Whirling to places that we knew not of.
Some vision in its smoke we must have seen;
Heard music in its voice, now shrill, now rough,
Or, there, our wanderings not so oft had been.
Oh, days wherein all songs of birds were sweet, —
The birds that mock us now with boisterous mirth, —
Days when we laughed for joy of summer-heat,
Nor laughed less well when snow made white the earth!
Ah, precious days we knew not how to prize!
If they were slighted then, 't is now their turn
To slight, and look with sad, reproachful eyes,
And whisper with white lips: “In vain you yearn;
You longed for other days, and they are come.
Now, you look back; so, Dives, deep in Hell,
In torture looked at Lazarus, where, at home,
He lay in Abraham's broad bosom. Well,
“A gulf as deep is set 'twixt us and you;
We cannot give you back the dream, the peace.”
Alas! we know their cruel words are true;
We never can re-capture one of these.
Did we not share our sorrows and our joys
In later years, when we awoke, to find
Passion and sorrow in the deep sea's voice,
A mighty mystery saddening all the wind?
Have we not loved the sea together, dear?
Not as they love who come one hour a day,
To breathe its life, and then come not too near,
Lest the waves take them in the face with spray;
But, when the July sun, through waste blue skies,
Declared the summer in her majesty;
When no sweet air, like a divine surprise,
Came up from the scarce-stirring, breathing sea;
Yea, when the heat a fiery scourge became,
And myriad shafts of sunlight charged the main,
In all that soundless violence of flame
That made the shore one charr'd and smoking plain, —
We did not fail at all! Our eyes could pierce
Between the blinding air and steaming beach,
To where, weighed on by summer, fair and fierce,
The sea lay tranced in bliss too deep for speech.
Oh, silent glory of the summer day!
How, then, we watched with glad and indolent eyes
The white-sailed ships dream on their shining way,
Till, fading, they were mingled with the skies.
And how we watched that sea, on nights that steep
The soul in peace of moonlight, softly move
As a most passionate maiden, who in sleep
Laughs low, and tosses in a dream of love?
And when the heat broke up, and in its place
Came the strong, shouting days and nights, that run,
All white with stars, across the laboring ways
Of billows warm with storm instead of sun, —
In gray and desolate twilights, when no feet
Save ours might dare the shore, did we not come
Through winds that all in vain against us beat
Until we had the warm sweet-smelling foam
Full in our faces, and the frantic wind
Shrieked round us, and our cheeks grew numb, then warm,
Until we felt our souls, no more confined,
Mix with the waves, and strain against the storm?
Oh, the immense, illimitable delight
It is, to stand by some tempestuous bay,
What time the great sea waxes warm and white,
And beats and blinds the following wind with spray!
Have we not loved our France together? — yea,
More than our northern mother, be it said, —
For there, oh, fuller is the life of Day,
And all the earth seems sweeter to our tread.
We always grieved to leave her, always laughed
For mere delight to see her face once more,
Tasting as wine the stainless airs that waft
The sea-scents to the odors of the shore.
And we, together, have seen Italy;
In kingly Genoa our steps have strayed,
And wandered by the famed and tideless sea, —
Through Florence, in all loveliness arrayed,
Pure as a virgin, regal as a queen,
Made great by many memories, — a place
To see and die, contented having seen!
Have we not worshipped her? O nights and days,
Unlike our English nights and days; for there
Each day's a sumptuous summer, and each night
A large and passionate caress of air,
And Heaven grows one with Florence in God's sight!
And Venice we shall not forget, I deem;
Ah me! the night we gained her, and you said, —
“Weird as a city vision'd in a dream!”
The winding, watery streets before us spread;
On either side we saw the houses stand,
Mystic and dark! Of them I yearned to sing;
You said, “They seem built by no mortal hand,
Yet wear a look of human suffering!”
And then I knew my song might not avail
More than those words to compass; and that we,
When most remember'd things with Time turn pale,
Should vision still those houses by the sea!
Oh, in what things have we not been as one?
Oh, more than any sister ever was
To any brother! Ere my days be done,
And this my little strength of singing pass,
I would these failing lines of mine might show
All thou hast been, as well as all thou art.
And yet what need? — for all who meet thee, know
Thy queenliness of intellect and heart.
Oh, dear companion in the land of thought,
How often hast thou led me by thy voice,
Through paths where men not all in vain have sought
For consolation, when their cherished joys
Lie dead before them, never more to rise
And sing their souls to sleep; or in some place,
Busy with all life's work, with sudden eyes
To flash upon them, till a rapturous space
Their souls yearn up, and lo! the lover sees
His lady's face, where folded in love's calm
She waits at sunset 'neath her garden trees,
Till they stand mouth to mouth and palm to palm.
Now ebbs my song from thee, but as a waif
The tide, receding, leaves upon the beach,
So, even this, my song's retreating wave,
Leaves my soul nearer thine. O poor, vain speech
That fails so sadly when the heart o'erflows!
Yet love me, dear, a little, for love's sake.
Shine thou upon my spirit till it grows
Not all unlovely. If my life could take
Color from thy life, I might learn to live,
With no joy come to fruit; perceiving this, —
It is not what we take, but what we give,
That brings the peace more durable than bliss.
Bear with me, dear, a little longer yet;
Forsake me not, if I forsaken stand.
Remember me! when others shall forget;
Thy love to me is as thy precious hand
Might be upon my forehead if it burned
In Hell, of some last fever; hold me fast,
O thou to whom in joy's full noon I turned
As now I turn, the glory being past.
