NIGHTSHADE.
[_]
(The following poem is founded on the conclusion of Oliver
Madox Brown's “Dwale Bluth,” as designed though not completed
by himself. In one or two particulars I have deviated from his
expressed intention; but the tragic tale of the lady and her blind
lover, with its tragic ending, belongs to him.)
When she had gone, who was his light of life,
Back to her lord, — yet not to be his wife,
But rather Death's, — her lover, knowing this not,
Alone in darkness wailed his hapless lot.
Most men have joy in stars and moon and sun,—
Joy when the lengthening days are well begun;
And love to mark, as birds take heart to sing,
The sweet, transitional processes of Spring, —
Love well the delicate, various flower-faces;
Of wild-wood plants the free, untramelled graces.
But he in all these things had no delight,
And walked by day in fastnesses of night.
She was his love, his Spring, earth, moon, and sky,
His soul's one goal, and light to seek it by.
Lest questioning should make her lot more hard
His lips forbore; so through sad days, debarred
From joy and her, he roamed about the land,
Remembering how her cool and subtle hand
Could make the grateful blood leap in each vein,
What time his lips of her lips were so fain;
When of his life love made so sweet a thing,
It grieved not for the unbeholden Spring,
Nor longed so very much to see by night
The distant stars, the moon's immaculate light,
While they two loved, and time flew fast and faster,
Till that dread night of infinite disaster
When he — the strange, hard man for years deemed dead,
Sunk with his ship to some deep salt sea-bed,
The man to whom her girlish hand was wed,
Whereof had come such sorrow to them both —
Stood there and claimed her by her marriage troth,
Seeing that the woman was fair, and very his,
And that of old her lips were sweet to kiss.
And when he bade her come, saying: “Right or wrong,
This blind man with his lips just closed on song,
The song he sang you of his love's delight,
Falls in one moment from this rocky height
To instant violent death, if you delay.
By chance he fell; nought else shall any say.”
Then for his sake — not seeing without her life
Could be for him but a most bitter strife,
Vain strife with all the black-plumed powers of night,
And memories wailing for a lost delight—
She stayed her trembling voice, and said, “Good-by, —
God keep you, dear;” and dark against the sky,
The sunset sky, she, turning, saw him stand,
Sightless and wordless, with his out-stretched hand.
Then, knowing well his way about that part,
He crept along, with his wrung, broken heart.
At length he sank in some soft, leafy place,
Nor knew the moon shone full upon his face;
And, lying there, he moaned, but could not weep,
And far from him was any comfort of sleep.
In that green place, with many trees girt round,
The nightingales had tranced the night with sound.
Ah me, ah me, what melody they made
Within the moon-thrilled, palpitating shade!
Hark, the exultant joy of each high note
Sent gushing from the unseen, singing throat!
The exultant music mocked him; but the long
Low, passionate, tender pleading of the song,
Appealing vainly 'gainst some ancient wrong, —
He heard his heart's cry uttered in that strain!
So poets into music pour their pain.
Chill turned the air; the singers ceased their tune,
Between the climbing dawn and sinking moon.
From fields near by there came a low of herds
And soft, consenting murmuring of birds,
Which grew and strengthened, till a blackbird came,
And through that dim sound flashed his song like flame.
Then into singing all the others broke;
Out shone the sun, and all the world awoke.
And then, above all notes that morn in May,
Now sometimes near, and sometimes far away,
He heard the violent cuckoo high in air —
He saw it not, yet felt the day was fair.
'Twixt him so sad, now, and his lost delight,
There lay but one brief, singing, moonlit night;
But 'twixt himself and self of yesterday,
A gulf more wide than gulf of death there lay.
Morn being come, he rose and took his road.
He entered not in any man's abode,
Until, one day, sore worn and scant of strength,
He came upon a narrow path, at length;
And leaning there, against the wall behind,
He heard a sound of wailing on the wind.
It came close by. Close by him was the fall
Of heavy steps that tend a funeral, —
So near they came, they brushed him with the pall.
“Whose funeral?” he cried, with dread surmise;
And one made answer, mingling words with sighs.
They bore to church her body, who had been
Of all his life, of all his heart, the queen.
He let them pass, and followed with the rest;
His lips set fast, and hands together prest.
And when the coffin was lowered into the ground,
And on the lid he heard the dull earth sound,
Men saw him tremble; but he kept his place,
Bent o'er the void, as if his spirit's gaze
Could see therein that dear and worshipped face
His hands and lips had loved so well to cherish,
Which now, forever, from his life must perish.
That day he was no more by any met;
But when he felt the warm May sun had set,
He sought the churchyard and the grave new-made,
On which he stretched himself, yet no word said;
And lying there he knew a storm was nigh,
For thunder heavily rolled along the sky.
Vain throes of death, or throes of some strange birth,—
Which horror was it so constrained the earth?
The air was dumb, as if in dread affright,
Save when the thunder shuddered along the night.
Then tardy rain-drops came down, one by one,
As from some wound the large, slow blood-drops run.
The lightning flashed out bright and fitfully;
The waxing thunder seemed more near to be.
Then a dread, soundless, flameless interval;
Then a fierce blaze of light, enkindling all;
And then — as if God, roused to wrath at length,
Had smitten with almighty, vengeful strength
The old, wrong-doing world, that, stricken so,
Cowered and reeled beneath the pitiless blow —
Fell the loud thunder, crashing through the heaven,
And all the night with fire and storm was riven.
Then, suddenly, a stormy wind up-sprang,
And wild and shrill the song was that it sang,
And with a rush and roar came down the rain,
To save the earth, and make her whole again;
And soon that place where death held sway, alas!
Smelt fresh and sweetly of the growing grass.
Then he who lay upon the grave found there
A sprig of that dread plant she loved to wear
In her abundant tresses. Who would braid
But she her locks with deadliest nightshade?
And one who knew how well she loved the plant
Had placed that sprig there, as to fill some want.
“At last!” he cried, and ate with bated breath, —
For him dear buds of life, not buds of death.
“Sweetheart,” he cried, “I come, I come to thee,
And when we meet again may it not be
With unsealed eyes I may thy beauty see?
At least, if all else fail, I shall have rest,
Though it should be no more upon thy breast.
Whether to light, or deeper night, I go,
I cannot tell — this thing no man may know.”
His body above, and hers unseen, beneath, —
Only an earth-mound severing death from death, —
So shone the morning sun upon them both
Who had kept thus in death their life's dear troth.
