Lays and Legends :: :: University of Virginia Library

For his kinsmen, hearing rumours of the life the lovers led,
Wept, and wrung their hands, and sorrowed—‘Better that the lad were dead
Than to live thus—he, the son of proudest man and noblest earl—
Thus in open sin with her, a nameless, shameless, foreign girl.’
(Ever when they thus lamented, 'twas the open sin they named,
Till one wondered whether sinning, if less frank, had been less blamed.)
‘'Tis our duty to reclaim him—mate him to a noble bride
Who shall fitly grace his station, and walk stately by his side—
Gently loose him from the fetters of this siren fair and frail
(In such cases time and absence nearly always will prevail).
He shall meet the Duke's fair daughter—perfect, saintly Lady May—
Beauty is the surest beacon to a young man gone astray!
Not at all precipitately, but with judgment sure and fine,
We will rescue and redeem him from his shameful husks and swine.

So—his uncle's long been ailing (gout and dropsy for his sins)—
Let that serve for pretext; hither bring the youth—his cure begins.’
So they summoned him and welcomed, and their utmost efforts bent
To snatch back a brand from burning and a soul from punishment—
Sought to charm him with their feastings, each more sumptuous than the last,
From his yearning recollections of his very sinful past—
Strove to wipe his wicked doings from his memory's blotted page
By the chaster, purer interests of the ball-room and the stage.
And for Lady May—they hinted to the girl, child-innocent,
That her hand to save the sinner by her Saviour had been sent,
That her voice might bring his voice her Master's triumph choir to swell,
And might save a man from sorrow and a human soul from hell.

So she used her maiden graces, maiden glances, maiden smiles,
To protect the erring pilgrim from the devil's subtle wiles—
Saw him daily, sent him letters, pious verses by the score,
Every angel's trap she baited with her sweet religious lore—
Ventured all she knew, not knowing that her beauty and her youth
Were far better to bait traps with than her odds and ends of truth.
First he listened, vain and flattered that a girl as fair as she
Should be so distinctly anxious for his lost humanity,
Yet determined no attentions, even from the Lady May,
Should delay his home-returning one unnecessary day.
But as she—heart-wrung with pity for his erring soul—grew kind,
Fainter, fainter grew the image of his sweetheart left behind;
Till one day May spoke of sorrow—prayed him to reform—repent,
Urged the festival in heaven over every penitent;
Bold in ignorance, spoke vaguely and low-toned of sin and shame,

And at last her voice, half breathless, faltered, broke upon his name,
And two tears fell from her lashes on the roses at her breast,
Far more potent in their silence than her preaching at its best.
And his weak soul thrilled and trembled at her beauty, and he cried,
‘Not for me those priceless tears: I am your slave—you shall decide.’
‘Save your soul,’ she sighed. ‘Was ever man so tempted, tried, before?
It is yours!’ and at the word his soul was lost for evermore.
Never woman pure and saintly did the devil's work so well!
Never soul ensnared for heaven took a surer road to hell!
Lady May had gained her convert, loved him, and was satisfied,
And before the last leaves yellowed she would kneel down as his bride.
She was happy, and he struggled to believe that perfidy
Was repentance—reformation was not one with cruelty,

Yet through all congratulations, friends' smiles, lovers' flatteries,
Lived a gnawing recollection of the lost love harmonies.
In the day he crushed it fiercely, kept it covered out of sight,
But it held him by the heart-strings and came boldly out at night:
In the solemn truthful night his soul shrank shuddering from its lies,
And his base self knew its baseness, and looked full in its false eyes.
In the August nights, when all the sky was deep and toneless blue,
And the gold star-points seemed letting the remembered sunlight through,
When the world was hushed and peaceful in the moonlight's searching white,
He would toss and cast his arms out through the silence and the night
To those eyes that through the night and through the silence came again,
Haunting him with the persistence and the passion of their pain.

‘Oh, my little love—my sweetheart—oh, our past—our sweet love-day—
Oh, if I were only true—or you were only Lady May!’
But the sunshine scared the vision, and he rose once more love-warm
To the Lady May's perfections and his own proposed reform.
Coward that he was! he could not write and break that loving heart:
To the worn-out gouty kinsman was assigned that pleasing part.
‘Say it kindly,’ said her lover, ‘always friends—I can't forget—
We must meet no more—but give her tenderest thought and all regret;
Bid her go back to the convent—she and I can't meet as friends—
Offer her a good allowance—any terms to make amends
For what nought could make amends for—for my baseness and my sin.
Oh, I know which side the scale this deed of mine will figure in!
Curse reform!—she may forget me—'tis on me the burdens fall,

For I love her only, solely—not the Lady May at all!’
‘Patience,’ said the uncle, ‘patience, this is but the natural pain
When a young man turns from sinning to the paths of grace again.
Your wild oats are sown—you're plighted to the noble Lady May
(Whose estates adjoin your manor in a providential way).
Do your duty, sir, for surely pangs like these are such as win
Pardon and the heavenly blessing on the sinner weaned from sin.’

Song.

Day is fair, and so is she
Whom so soon I wed;
But the night, when memory
Guards my sleepless bed,
And with cold hands brings once more
Thorns from rose-sweet days of yore—
Night I curse and dread.

Day is sweet, as sweet as her
Girlish tenderness;
But the night, when near me stir
Rustlings of a dress,

Echoes of a loving tone
Now renounced, forsworn, foregone,
Night is bitterness.

Day can stir my blood like wine
Or her beauty's fire,
But at night I burn and pine,
Torture, turn and tire,
With a longing that is pain,
Just to kiss and clasp again
Love's one lost desire.

Day is glad and pure and bright,
Pure, glad, bright as she;
But the sad and guilty night
Outlives day—for me.
Oh, for days when day and night
Equal balance of delight
Were alike to me!

In the day I see my feet
Walk in steadfast wise,
Following my lady sweet
To her Paradise,
Like some stray-recovered lamb;
But I see the beast I am
When the night stars rise.

Yet in wedding day there lies
Magic—so they say;
Ghosts will have no chance to rise
Near my Lady May.
Vain the hope! In good or ill
Those lost eyes will haunt me still
Till my dying day.

II

Quickly died the August roses, and the kin of Lady May
Dowered her richly, blessed her freely, and announced her wedding day;
And his yearnings and remorses fainter grew as days went on
'Neath the magic of the beauty of the woman he had won;
And less often and less strongly was his fancy caught and crossed
By remembrance of the dearness of the woman he had lost.
Long sweet mornings in the boudoir where the flowers stood about,
Whisperings in the balcony when stars and London lamps came out,

Concerts, flower shows, garden parties, balls and dinners, rides and drives,
All the time-killing distractions of these fashionable lives;
Dreary, joyless as a desert, pleasure's everlasting way,
But enchantment can make lovely even deserts, so they say,
Sandy waste, or waste of London season, where no green leaf grows,
Shone on but by love or passion, each will blossom like the rose!
Came no answer to the letter that announced his marriage day;
But his people wrote that Lady Ladybird had gone away.
So he sent to bid get ready to receive his noble wife.
Two such loving women granted to one man, and in one life!
Though he shuddered to remember with what ghosts the Moat House swarmed—
Ghosts of lovely days and dreamings ere the time when he reformed—
Yet he said, ‘She cannot surely greatly care, or I had heard

Some impulsive, passionate pleading, had some sorrowing written word;
She has journeyed to her convent—will be glad as ere I came,
Through her beauty's dear enchantment, to a life of shameless shame;
And the memories of her dearness passion's flaming sword shall slay,
When the Moat House sees the bridal of myself and Lady May!’

III

Bright the mellow autumn sunshine glows upon the wedding day;
Lawns are swept from leaves, and doorways are wreathed round with garlands gay,
Flowery arches span the carriage drive from grass again to grass,
Flowers are ready for the flinging when the wedded pair shall pass;
Bells are ringing, clanging, clamouring from the belfry 'mid the trees,
And the sound rings out o'er woodlands, parks and gardens, lawns and leas;

All the village gay with banners waits the signal, ‘Here they come!’
To strew flowers, wave hats, drop curtseys, and hurra its ‘Welcome home!’
At the gates the very griffins on the posts are wreathed with green.
In their ordered lines wait servants for the pair to pass between;
But among them there is missing more than one familiar face,
And new faces, blank expectant, fill up each vacated place,
And the other servants whisper, ‘Nurse would wail to see this day,
It was well she left the service when “my Lady” ran away.’
Louder, clearer ring the joy-bells through the shaken, shattered air,
Till the echoes of them waken in the hillside far and fair;
Level shine the golden sunbeams in the golden afternoon.
In the east the wan ghost rises of the silver harvest moon.

Hark! wheels was it? No, but fancy. Listen! No—yes—can you hear?
Yes, it is the coming carriage rolling nearer and more near!
Till the horse-hoofs strike the roadway, unmistakable and clear!
They are coming! shout your welcome to my lord and lady fair:
May God shower his choicest blessings on the happy wedded pair!
Here they are! the open carriage and surrounding dusty cloud,
Whence he smiles his proud acceptance of the homage of the crowd;
And my lady's sweet face! Bless her! there's a one will help the poor,
Eyes like those could never turn a beggar helpless from her door!
Welcome, welcome! scatter flowers: see, they smile—bow left and right,
Reach the lodge gates—God of heaven! what was that, the flash of white?
She has sprung out from the ambush of the smiling, cheering crowd:

‘Fling your flowers—here's my welcome!’ sharp the cry rings out and loud.
Sudden sight of wild white face, and haggard eyes, and outstretched hands—
Just one heart-beat's space before the bridal pair that figure stands,
Then the horses, past controlling, forward bound, their hoofs down thrust—
And the carriage wheels jolt over something bloody in the dust.
‘Stop her! Stop her! Stop the horses!’ cry the people all too late,
For my lord and Lady May have had their welcome at their gate.

’Twas the old nurse who sprang to her, raised the brown-haired, dust-soiled head,
Looked a moment, closed the eyelids—then turned to my lord and said,
Kneeling still upon the roadway, with her arm flung round the dead,
While the carriage waited near her, blood and dust upon its wheels

(Ask my lord within to tell you how a happy bridegroom feels):
‘Now, my lord, you are contented; you have chosen for your bride
This same fine and dainty lady who is sitting by your side.
Did ye tell her ere this bridal of the girl who bore your shame,
Bore your love-vows—bore your baby—everything except your name?
When they strewed the flowers to greet you, and the banners were unfurled,
She has flung before your feet the sweetest flower in all the world!
Woe's the day I ever nursed you—loved your lisping baby word,
For you grew to name of manhood, and to title of my lord;
Woe's the day you ever saw her, brought her home to wreck her life,
Throwing by your human plaything, to seek out another wife.
God will judge, and I would rather be the lost child lying there,

With your babe's milk in her bosom, your horse-hoof marks on her hair,
Than be you when God shall thunder, when your days on earth are filled,
“Where is she I gave, who loved you, whom you ruined, left and killed?”
Murderer, liar, coward, traitor, look upon your work and say
That your heart is glad within you on your happy wedding day!
And for you, my noble lady, take my blessing on your head,
Though it is not like the blessing maidens look for when they wed.
Never bride had such a welcome, such a flower laid on her way,
As was given you when your carriage crushed her out of life to-day.
Take my blessing—see her body, see what you and he have done—
And I wish you joy, my lady, of the bridegroom you have won.’

Like a beaten cur, that trembles at the whistling of the lash,

He stands listening, hands a-tremble, face as pale as white wood ash;
But the Lady May springs down, her soul shines glorious in her eyes,
Moving through the angry silence comes to where the other lies,
Gazes long upon her silent, but at last she turns her gaze
On the nurse, and lips a-tremble, hands outstretched, she slowly says,
‘She is dead—but, but her baby—’ all her woman's heart is wild
With an infinite compassion for the little helpless child.
Then she turns to snatch the baby from the arms of one near by,
Holds it fast and looks towards him with a voiceless bitter cry,
As imploring him to loose her from some nightmare's deadly bands.
Dogged looks he down and past her, and she sees and understands,
Then she speaks—‘I keep your baby—that's my right in sight of men,
But by God I vow I'll never see your dastard face again.’

So she turned with no word further towards the purple-clouded west,
And passed thither with his baby clasped against her maiden breast.

Little Ladybird was buried in the old ancestral tomb.
From that grave there streams a shadow that wraps up his life in gloom,
And he drags the withered life on, longs for death that will not come,
The interminable night hours riven by that ‘Welcome home!’
And he dares not leave this earthly hell of sharp remorse behind,
Lest through death not rest but hotter fire of anguish he should find.
Coward to the last, he will not risk so little for so much,
So he burns, convicted traitor, in the hell self-made of such:
And at night he wakes and shivers with unvanquishable dread
At the ghosts that press each other for a place beside his bed,
And he shudders to remember all the dearness that is dead.

Song.

I had a soul,
Not strong, but following good if good but led.
I might have kept it clean and pure and whole,
And given it up at last, grown strong with days
Of steadfast striving in truth's stern sweet ways;
Instead, I soiled and smutched and smothered it
With poison-flowers it valued not one whit—
Now it is dead.

I had a heart
Most true, most sweet, that on my loving fed.
I might have kept her all my life, a part
Of all my life—I let her starve and pine,
Ruined her life and desolated mine.
Sin brushed my lips—I yielded at a touch,
Tempted so little, and I sinned so much,
And she is dead.

There was a life
That in my sin I took and chained and wed,
And made—perpetual remorse!—my wife.
In my sin's harvest she must reap her share,
That makes its sheaves less light for me to bear.
Oh, life I might have left to bloom and grow!
I struck its root of happiness one blow,
And it is dead.

Once joy I had,
Now I have only agony instead,
That maddens, yet will never send me mad.
The best that comes is numbed half-sick despair,
Remembering how sweet the dear dead were.
My whole life might have been one clear joy song!
Now—oh, my heart, how still life is, how long,
For joy is dead.

Yet there is this:
I chose the thorns not grapes, the stones not bread;
I had my chance, they say, to gain or miss.
And yet I feel it was predestinate
From the first hour, from the first dawn of fate,
That I, thus placed, when that hour should arise,
Must act thus, and could not act otherwise.
This is the worst of all that can be said;
For hope is dead.