Lily Neil :: :: University of Virginia Library

Lily Neil

A poem by David Wingate

Wingate, David (1828-1892)

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[dedication]

LILY NEIL.

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TO MY WIFE JANET WITH FOND REMEMBRANCE I DEDICATE THIS BOOK

LILY NEIL.

PREFATORY.

There never was a house so much the home
Of sweet content as Alston's of the Grange.
Still young he seemed, although his sixtieth spring
Had gone; and so, unburdened with his years,
He roamed about, in many things a boy,
Unless when memory, her long dim scroll
Unrolling, showed him things that ancient seemed.
In early manhood from his native vale
He fled, because, 'twas said, the lass he loved
Had to another wooer given her heart,
And left no sunshine in the land for him.

But fortune, in the far-off Isle he chose,
So smiled upon him, that his wealth increased
Beyond, it seemed to him, all precedent,
And still increased, until “I have enough,”
He said, and then he sought a home-bound ship,
That brought him safely where he wished to land.

With many a generous dream the long sea-way
He shortened, and the blank monotony
Of sunless days and moonless nights kept bright
With pictures of the valley of his youth:
Of poverty removed; of homes made glad;
Of maidens dowered; of children clad and schooled,
By the all-potent witchcraft of his gold.
But when the vale that memory loved was reached,
None of his kin was left to welcome him,
None left to share the blessing of his wealth.
Great was his grief; but where the dearest dead
Were laid, he sculpture raised that beautified
The lonely old churchyard, whose low, rough walls

With ivy aye were verdant. Then for one
Who was the constant playmate of his youth,
And knew the sacred secrets of his soul,
He asked, and found he, too, was of the past.
But of his faithful widow he was told,
Who, with her children—two tall, hungry lads,
And one fair daughter—lived a life of care.
To rescue them resolved, the house he sought:
He entered, and was known, and, for the sake
Of him that was no more, a welcome found.
Again and yet again he came and went,
With something in his heart that found a voice
Thus at a parting moment: “Margaret,
You knew me when I was a lad,” he said,
“And know the story of my early love:
Then, for his sake, who was my Jonathan,
And for the sake of those he left with you,
Let me live here. Abundant wealth I have,
But I am homeless. Let your home be mine.”
And when she said, If he could bide the bairns,

And if the house would please him, he might come,
He said, “I'll come. But lest the blighting breath
Of scandal fall upon your fame's fair flower,
Make me your husband. We're alike in love,
For both of us have lost what best we loved.
What say you, Margaret?” Thus in brief he wooed,
And she, thus briefly wooed, became his wife,
And all went with him at the Grange to live.

Most happy were they. Care when Eben came
No longer sat, a goblin by the hearth
For ever threatening, but a fairy form
Assuming, smiled on all, and made a joy
Of every duty. Every eye grew bright,
Each head erect; and while the lads stept out
Like men who had no master under heaven,
Their mother, with a new-born dignity,
Queen of her little kingdom, moved about,
And wrought with ready hand and singing heart,

Like one that found a pleasure in her toil.
But most to little Alice life and joy
With Eben came. She, from a weakling girl,
Whose only charms were in her eyes and hair,
So changed, it seemed perfection's final touch
Was on her. Eben loved her as his own.—
“My Alice,” he would murmur, fondling her,
“My bud! my bird! I'll be to you the sun
And endless summer; I will shine on you,
And you shall bloom for me, and sing for me.”
And with such wild untutored sweetness she,
To no known air, sang words she learned of him,
That nothing but the singing of a bird
To hers could be compared. And then her heart
Was, like an April linnet's, ever light,
And sorrow where she looked could never live:—
There surely never was a home so glad.

One evening, sitting by the winter lamp,
“Bird Alice,” Eben said, “I'll tell you tales,

And you shall sing me songs. No song, no tale;”
And so it was agreed. He called to aid
Invention, when his wealth of stories failed,
And wondrous things he told them; things unknown
Save in the wonder-land across the seas
Where all his gold was gathered. But, one night,
Too visible romancing Alice saw
In some imagined wonder. Laughing loud,
“Ah, Eben, you are telling tales,” she cried,
“And not true stories! Tell me something true.”
“Well, then,” said Eben, “I will read you one
About a maid whose name was Lily Neil.”
Then from the trunk in which his gold came home
A written book he took, and read from it,
Thus briefly prefacing, “I knew them all,
And as they lived so are they painted here—
No worse, no better. Not from day to day,
From hour to hour, persistent following them,
Recording all they said and all they did,
But telling all it seemeth good to tell.”

I.

There was a man, who, many years ago,
Lived in a village, that along the braes
Stretched far in one long row, whose window-gleam
Flashed to the river as the sun went down.
Son of a line of frugal sons of toil,
An only son—he had a cottage heired,
With full a rood of garden-ground behind.
Before it there were flowers, and lilac-trees;
Before it still the lilac blooms in June;
And in the shadow of the tall trimmed hedge,
Secure and safe, a wooden-lidded well
His homely thirst with wholesome water quenched.

He was a cottar of the noblest kind,
A man who thought and wrote and had his dreams—

A poet almost—for the beautiful
In all things round him he was searching still,
And finding it where no one else could find.
He had a love for mosses, ferns, and flowers,
That bordered on idolatry. And yet
He was no florist. With a gentle scorn
He ridiculed the gardener's patient zeal.
“True,” he would say, “you almost make your flowers,
But they are often only colours bright
And barren beauty. You should come with me,
And see the wild red rosebud in the hedge;
Come, see the daisy opening in the dawn;
The starwort and the speedwell side by side;
And own you are no florist after all”—
Till there were some who said, “He's wild-flower mad!”

So from the time when snowdrops ventured out
To hear the lark and merle till winter came

And where the haw-bloom breathed, the purple fruit
Hung spotted with the frost, with homely flowers
His house was beautiful. Nor flowerless then;
For even in winter he was sure to find
A tintless daisy on some sheltered lea,
Or golden bells half opened on the furze:
For every stroll produced a blossom prize.
And when at night he brought his sweet spoil home,
A troop of children oft would gather round,
And wonder where he found them — dreaming not
As lovely could be gathered at their doors,
And waited for their coming in the woods.

Such was the outdoor pastime of this man.
At home he had a draught-board which he loved,
The checkered little country where he oft
Had led a mimic host to victory.

And at the back wall of his kitchen hung,
On ropes, well-poised, three stained and varnished shelves,
Where lay, uncrowded, all his store of books.
At work, a faithful servant and content:
None heard him idly murmuring at his lot,
For he was wise enough to know that some
Are born to serve, as some are to command;
And that although a servant holds the plough,
The master only has the master's care.

He took a wife, and after many years
Of weary longing came a child to her—
A daughter. There was feasting and much joy,
And when they asked him what her name should be,
He said, “Her name is Lily: for our flower
Shall be as graceful as the lily is,
As beautiful as it, as pure as it.”
And so they called her Lily.

She was all
Her mother wished for, but, alas! too brief
The joy of gazing on her darling's face,
And watching till she saw her first smile dawn,
And, after, till she knew her Lily was
The sweetest and the blithest child on earth!
Too brief the pleasure of a mother's care,
Because a plague that o'er the country passed,
The churchyards reddening, paused at Jacob's door,
And entering chose a victim. Then the light
Of joy for ever from his hearth was driven,
Because the victim chosen was his wife.

This was the first great darkness that had fallen
On Jacob's soul. All former sorrows now
Seemed but the shadow of a passing cloud,
This was the sun's eclipse. In happy times
His fancy, prophet-like, would tell of dire
Misfortunes coming to his house, but still
There seemed a way to bear or baffle them.

But of misfortune, in this fearful form,
He had not dreamed, and therefore, unprepared
To bear the sudden blow, he moved distraught
Among the few brave neighbours who had dared
The pest, and ventured in to give him aid.
And when the coming end was visible,
And they were pitying him, he smiled, and said,
“We are but three. There is another house
Where only two are left of seven. Who knows
But I and Lily may be taken too?”
How sudden was her passing! Strong to-day,
And at death's door to-morrow. Ere the last
There came a painless hour, that let her see
The yawning limit of terrestrial things,
And dimly the celestial limitless.
She little said, but all her thoughts, it seemed,
Were of the darling she was forced to leave.
“Oh, Jacob, have no other care but her:
Be cheerful with her; bend your wit to hers,
And hers will rise to yours. Oh, never sit,

Though it be sorrow's self that urges you,
Within a circle where she must not come.
Make her your friend, companion of your strolls,
And there may be a little world of two,
As sunny as our little world of three.
And oh, be careful of the friends she makes,
For she will be the fairest in the vale,
And some may hear of her, and look on her,
And smile to think her mother is away,
And, wickedly, will revel in the thought
That such a flower should be so poorly fenced.
So, Jacob, guard our daughter; and, O Thou
Who made her pure, watch o'er her purity.”
So spake she, then lay silent, and no sign
Of pain or sorrow through the last long night
To those about her showed; but when the east
Began to brighten, then she made a sign
To have the window opened, and they heard
The morning song of many a happy bird,—
A strange, mysterious, mingling of the joy

Without, and of the voiceless grief within.
Her finger raising, slow, she faintly asked
If they heard nothing. “Nothing,” Jacob said;
“'Tis nothing but the singing of the birds.”
But in his heart he said, “The end is near;
She hears already with immortal ears.”
“I hear the birds,” she said, “but 'tis not them.”
Then with a look she drew her husband near,
And kissed him once, then asked if Lily slept.
They brought her sleeping. Gazing on her face,—
“Poor lass,” she said, “poor lass! Wee sinless lamb!
Oh, what will be between us when she wakes?”
Again she raised her finger, and again
The matin of the woodland floated in.
The fingers slowly fell, the eyelids dropped,
And all was over save the grief she left.

II.

Alice.
But, Eben, was it not the birds she heard?

Eben.
I cannot tell.

Alice.
She said she heard them too,
And so it could not be the birds she meant.
What could it be she heard? Not angels?

Eben.
No,
My bird, not angels. Angels have no voice
That human ears may hear; and if they come

To earth to guide a spirit home to heaven,
They wait in silence till the parting comes,
Then with their charge in silence glide away:
'Tis like she was but dreaming.

Alice.
It was strange
That she should something hear that was not birds,
When all the others only heard the birds.
I wonder what it was?

Eben.

Perhaps, my bird,
It was the voice of angels which she heard,—
'Tis easy to imagine that it was.
Why may not such as she—the innocent
And good and pure in heart—when they perceive
The shadow of the wings of Death fall thick
About them, darkening everything on earth;
When they behold the dart that never erred

Above them poised, and see the eye that ne'er
Was dimmed with pity sternly on them fixed,—
Why may they not a sweet, a soothing song—
The far-borne echo of a hymn in heaven—
Hear as she heard? I know not why, my bird;
And therefore it might be—I cannot tell—
The song of coming angels which she heard.

But warble something, Alice, for the book
Seems dim and blurred—so dim, I cannot read.
It will perhaps grow clearer as you sing.

Alice
(sings).

“Who will lead the song to-day
When the minstrel lark's away?”
“I,” replied the husky raven,
“I will lead the song to-day.”
But the voice so hoarse and hollow
All could hear, but none could follow.

So the birds all sad and silent,
Sat and saw the dawning day.

“Come, sweet lark! 'Tis dawn again,
Wake the woodlands with thy strain.
All that hums and all that warbles
Wait to hear thy voice again.
See on flowers with folded petals,
Bright no more, the dewdrop settles;
All is dim and sad and silent,
Till we hear thy voice again.”

Hark! a piping o'er the hill
Ripples down, the vale to fill;
All that dawn forbids to slumber
Hears the welcome rapture-rill.
'Tis the lark the morning hailing,
Yonder where the light's prevailing;
Bird and blossom, blithe and brightening,
Hail the piping o'er the hill.

Eben
(resumes reading).

When thrice the sun had risen on his grief,
With customary rites he buried her.
Then to the ordering of his house he turned,
Repeating musingly her dying charge:
“Oh, Jacob, guard our daughter!” 'Twas a task
That seemed too great. She was but six years old,
Too young to leave alone from morn to eve.
“If it be true,” he thought, “that those we love
Come back and whisper in our sleeping ears,
She in my dreams will tell me what to do,
And so, between us, Lily will be well.”
Among his scattered kindred there were none
With whom he cared to trust his child—and few
Among them who would welcome such a trust,
Because to them he was a mystery:
Who e'er could understand a silent man?
But one fit guardian for his child he found,
One of the noble women of our land—

A kind old maiden, who alone had lived
For many years, and lived on what she earned,
And so was rich enough, and not so old
But that she at her wheel might croon for years;
Yet old enough to come and watch his child,
And keep his house by scandal unassailed.
He urged her, and she came—not gladsomely,
As one, life-weary, welcoming a change:
No weary one was she that longed for change;
But when the matter she had weighed, she said,
“Yes, I will bring my wheel and watch your bairn,”
And nought but housing would she have for fee.

The years fled swiftly. Little Lily grew
A beauteous bairn, and pleasant trouble gave.
At school she learned far more, the neighbours said,
Than it was fit a cottar's child should know,
And foolishly they prophesied her lear

Would lead her to her ruin. Still she learned,
And won her father's praise, and pleased her nurse,
And loved her like a mother. But one day
The woman, smitten with a strange disease,
Lay down and languished for a week, then died.
Much grieved they; but if Time but keeps a-wing,
Grief, too, will get a-wing, and follow him.
No spring's so fickle as the source of tears.
So Jacob grieved, and Lily wept, but soon
The grief was softened, and the tear-source dried;
And Lily to the school was sent no more,
But had the keeping of her father's house.

Well skilled already in her household work
The little matron was; for from her nurse
She learned that noise and bustle are not work.
And still, in all, she won her father's praise.
Delightful was the change from school to home!
To be her father's servant, morn and night;
To read his wishes in his changing face;

To have—for so he ever let it seem—
The care of their affairs all laid on her;
To feel herself her father's only joy,
And see that if at any time there came
A season of privation, he would strive
To hide it from her, and to bear it all.
What wonder if her life was one of joy—
A summer ripple glistening in the sun?

How pleasant in their Sabbath-evening strolls
To find for him the fairest of the first
Green leaflets in the bosom of the thorn!
How pleasant, as the warming spring advanced,
To bring the primrose from beside the linn,
The green-veined sorrel from the beeches' shade,
And gentle ferns that in the shadows lived,
Content with glimpses of the passing sun!
Oh, ne'er of father was a child so proud;
No father of a daughter e'er so fond!
Together never had been lives so linked!

It seemed they were too happy; for one day
As down a scroggy glen they slowly strolled,
She saw, within a nook where flowers were few,
Among the grass a lily, white as snow,
That nodded them a welcome. Welcome none
Thus nodded saw she, but to gather it
To crown her wild-flower posie, with a cry
Of pleasure toward it ran Her father's voice
Recalled her—“Lily, Lily, let it be!
How beautiful it is among the grass
So green!—So lovely in its loneliness!
It seems to be the last of all its race,—
The last, yet fair as was the first of them.
Think, Lily, ere the fairies left our glades
This was the centre of a revel-ring,
Where in the circuit of a yard or so
They tripped by hundreds in the still moon-tide,
And this may be a royal flower heart-full
Of old traditions of a happier time.
What know we of the inner life of flowers?

It has been told, perhaps, how in the bells
Of lilies of its race the fairy queens
And kings of old their merry courts have held,
And so this lonely flower (why may it not?)
In melancholy memories dreams away
The sunny briefness of its summer life.
A mystery gathers round it as we speak,
And all mysterious things are venerable:
So, Lily, let it live its hour unharmed.
What would I?”—Then he paused, and o'er his face,
That with the warmth of pleasure had been flushed,
A paleness, like a white cloud o'er the sun,
Spread suddenly; for this was what he thought:
“What would I think of him who from my hearth
Would rudely pluck my Lily, casting her
Away from him as she that flower might drop
When she grew weary of it.”

With the thought

There passed before him such a fell array
Of troubles, stretching in the future far,
That he was fain against a tree to lean,
Sick with the horrid fancy. She the while
Stood staring, wondering at the sudden pause,
And frightened at the paleness of his face.
But ere she found her voice the vision passed:
Passed as it came—he knew not why or whence.
Then with a smile, “We'll leave it here,” he said,
“Lest in this woodland temple we do that
Which would be sacrilege.” In such a way
As this, believing in the influence
Of flowers for good, he sought to fill her soul
With love of them,—and with quaint fancies, thus
Their Sabbath-evening rambles pleasant made.

III.

Alice.
But, Eben, tell me this: Do lilies still
Grow in that fairy place you read about?

Eben.
'Tis very like.

Alice.
Then, when the summer comes,
You'll take me there, and if there be but one
I shall not touch it; but if there be two,
You will not hinder me from taking one?
I long to have a lily from that nook.

Eben.
I'll take you there, my warbler, and you'll sing,
Excelling all that sings. The birds will sit
In silence, wondering whence the music comes
That charms them into muteness. Bees will hang
Above the flowers, forgetful of their task;
The breeze will stay its fluttering of the leaves;
The unfailing rill that leaps from ledge to ledge
Will fall so softly, that beyond its banks
Its voice will not be heard. On you alone
Will wait the echoes, with unwonted joy
Repeating all your warbling to the wood.
And if there be two lilies, you'll have one.

Margaret.
You'll spoil her, Eben. What if she believes
Your constant flattering?

Eben.
Margaret, never fear—
I will be such a tyrant by-and-by;
But, Alice, will you warble something now?

Alice
(sings).

“Who art thou?” “My name is Love.”
“Whence com'st thou?” “From realms above.”
“What's thy mission?” “O'er the earth
Joy I've scattered since my birth.”
“Then thou, Love, dost ever well?”
“Nay,” quoth Love, “I cannot tell.”

“Surely if thou scatterest joy,
Fairy-winged and radiant boy,
Such a heavenly work as thine
Must be blest with fruit divine?
Grief can never near thee dwell?”
“Nay,” quoth Love, “I dare not tell.”

Eben
(resumes reading).

How oft, to one by heavy cares oppressed,
And wants that will permit no holiday,
The spring-time comes unheeded, till, some morn,
Light-hearted, for a little, he looks up,
And lo! the sloe has blossomed, and surprised
The sweet confusion of a thousand songs
He hears in every grove; while every cloud
Holds fluttering to its breast a warbling lark.
So Jacob, though he had not missed the spring,
And the wild gladness of the woods, had heard
When there were only thrushes in the choir;
Yet he had not perceived his child had grown
A woman, till one day—he knew not how—
It like a revelation came to him
That little Lily was no more a child,
Nor even little, but a maiden fair
And winsome, taller than her mother was;
And—how the years had flown!—the very age

Her mother was when he had met her first.
And was he not most glad to see her smile
So like her mother? Even the very light
That played about her ringlets seemed the same;
That sparkle of affection in her eye
So like the love-light in an eye long dimmed—
Was he not glad to find her beautiful?

“She is too fair! she is too fair!” he thought;
“I would have had her plainer; men will see
And covet her—will woo her with sweet words
And dainty flatteries, till her father's house,
And all about him, old and irksome seems.
I would have had her to myself alone.”

Years passed, and that which Jacob feared so much—
The coming of the stranger who should woo
And win from him his daughter—had not come.
No tell-tale blush, no shunning of his eye,

Nor dreaminess of manner, nor chance word,
Had hinted of sweet secrets hid from him.—
Not Rumour even had found a mate for her.

But nearer was the stranger than he dreamed:—
One summer day, when they from church came home,
“What think ye—shall we make a pilgrimage,
And see the river and the apple-bloom?”
He asked, and with surprise her answer heard,—
“Will you be angry if I stay at home,
Or take a shorter ramble?”

“No,” he said,
“And yet I thought it would have pleased you well;
But it might weary you—I'll go alone.”
And when his eyes upon the balmy slopes
Had gazed their fill, he homeward turned again.
Now flowers, now ferns he gathered: now he watched

The swallows as they skimmed along the lawn;
Now gazed delighted where the sinking sun
Gleamed through the silken leaflets of the beech;
Now startled, loath, the lonely water-hen;
Now to the blackbird's lyric listened, rapt.

Thus, till he reached the entrance of a glen
Which he had oft explored. It seemed, indeed,
A solitude, where, ever undisturbed,
The melancholy muse her web might weave
Of gloomy fancies, vague and profitless.
There, as he stood, where, from the forest, breaks
The burn with gleeful shimmer, and looked in,
And nought but shadows saw, and outlines dim
Of giant trees, and interwoven boughs,
He hesitated. “Wherefore should I go
This way?” he said; “I know it—every nook.”

He turned, and saw where, straight across the holm,

The burn to join the river sparkling ran,
Full of the sunshine: yet he chose the glen,
And toward the giants in the shadows strode,
Charmed by the very sadness of the thoughts
He knew would gather round him in the gloom.

There were the lines where gravelled paths, well kept
Long since, had been. Of flowers, and flowering shrubs,
And evergreens, there were the remnants yet.
But now above the shrub the nettle towered,
And in that wilderness of weeds, rare things,
To whom the gard'ner's care was life itself,
Were withering ere their time, to bloom no more.
The paths were slippery with the last year's leaves,
And, here and there, with boulders huge were blocked,
That storms or loosening rillets down had thrown.

The rural bridges that still spanned the burn—
Unsafe, save when the nimble squirrel crossed—
Like skeletons above him poised, appeared
To hang between the ivy-covered cliffs.
Still at their sides, half hid by drooping boughs,
Long fragments of the broken ledges swung,
And creaked the mournful story of decay.

As slowly up the brook's rough bed he toiled,
A boulder at the margin of the stream
Invited him, and down to rest he sat,
And scarce was seated till he heard, above,
The music of a merry maiden's laugh.
It should have been to him earth's sweetest sound,
Though, surely, ne'er before had maiden's voice
So struck with sudden chill a human heart.
Because the laugh was Lily's, and, because
Another voice he heard, too, like a man's!—
Her laughter chiding with soft sentiment.
Above him, well he knew, there was a bower

Of birches, formed in olden times for love;
And there the happy pair were chatting blithe,
As if the cares of love they never knew;
And then he heard this passion lyric read.

O Lily, speak that sweet wee word,
It needs but ance be spoken;
And let this ring o' goud and pearl
Be o' our plight the token.
Thou ken'st there is nae word but ane
That wi' thy smiles can tally;
Then lift thine e'e, and say thou'lt be
My Lily of the valley,
My Lily of the valley.

Nae claim to acres braid hae I,
Nor siller-plenished coffer;
A willing haun, a heart that loes,
Are a' I hae to offer.

Alas! sweet hope will droop and dee
Unless thou bidd'st her rally.
Then lift thine e'e, and say thou'lt be
My Lily of the valley,
My Lily of the valley.

Oh breathe it, Lily, kindly lown,
Nae ear but mine can hear thee;
And memory till the end o' time
Will it repeat to cheer me.
Then forth to fight the fecht of life
We hand in hand shall sally,
If but thy e'e would say “I'll be
Thy Lily of the valley,
Thy Lily of the valley.”

There was a little silence. Then he heard
His daughter's voice. “And did you make the song?”

He heard a whispered answer, then “Your own?
How glad I am, for everything in verse
So pleases father! Have you many songs?”
“Oh no, not many, for I never knew
I had the art until I saw your face.”
“My face!” she said. “You shall not sing of me!
I'm no man's love to put in passion songs.”
“Ah Lily, jest not, if I am deceived!”—
So pled the wooer—“if I am deceived:—
If all our secret meeting means but this,
That for an hour's amusement Lily comes,
Heart-whole, to play at wooing in the wood;
If looks mean nothing! — Nothing smiles! If cheeks
May blush obedient to a cruel wish,
To torture while the cold heart thrilless beats
An even pace, say so, and let us part.”
He heard her answer with a merry laugh,
“I'll try and say it:—If I am deceived.

If all our secret meeting means but this—
What's next? You should not say so much at once,
If I'm to be your echo. What was next?”

Thus in the way of all the world they wooed,
Not dreaming of a listener. Jacob sat,
Amazed, and scarce believing what he heard.
It flashed upon him up the bank to haste,
And stand before them, and to look beneath
The mask that possibly the wooer wore;
But that he thought would be a cruel thing.
So turning, sorrow-stricken, down the glen
He stumbled, murmuring, “He has come at last.
She loves and trusts him. Wherefore should she not,
Since no one has deceived her? If the man
Is worth my daughter, all may yet be well:—
It must be well! It surely will be well.”

But, though a wandering hope among his thoughts
Awoke a transient solace, it was but
A sun-touched air-bell on a turbid stream;
Deep in his soul were fears that lived in gloom,
And doubts about the safety of his child.
He brooded o'er it till a mighty wrong
Appeared already suffered, and revenge
Exacted to the last extremity.
Then came revulsion. “What am I?” he thought,
“That thus I guilt assume, and o'er revenge
Gloat like a devil? Satan's self is near,
Of evil whispering. Wherefore should this be,
But that he finds my spirit predisposed
To gloominess, like poor blood to the plague?
And why for Lily should I fear so much,
As if she might to foolishness be lured
By raising of a finger? She is wise
Beyond her years, and falsehood knows her not,
Save as the fair abode of sacred truth.
I have been hasty in my fear of wrong,

And in my hasty fear have wronged my child.
Fair maidens have had wooers from the first,
And marriage will continue to the last.
And for this greenwood wooing—did not I
Woo in the woods? Her mother was not wronged,
And wherefore then should Lily? I will see
Her lover's face, and all will then be well.”

Long, long he lingered on his homeward way,
Remembering where she was; but when he reached
His house, and entered, lo! he found her there
Alone, and gazing at the coal-fire's gleam,
So busy with sweet memories or sweet dreams,
That not the lifting of the latch, nor even
His footfall on the sanded floor, she heard.
All seemed to have been waiting long for him.
The fire was glowing red. The kettle sang,
And made a merry rattle with its lid;
The teapot steamed and bubbled on the hob,

As if impatient of her reverie.
She seemed to have been dreaming there for hours.

Well might he stare! What meant it? Who was it
He heard so lately chatting in the glen?
But voices in a day-dream had he heard?
These and such questions pressed upon his mind,
And unresolved passed on; but while he stared,
She of his presence suddenly apprised
By some mysterious agent, turned to him
And smiling said, “Oh, father, are you home?
And wherefore came you slipping like a ghost?
You did not want to make me think you one?
The gloaming is too early for a ghost.
I'll go and get some water for your flowers.”
She went to bring the water. He meanwhile
Began to be convinced his present care
Was based on fancy and coincidence.
'Twas some one with her name, and with a voice

Like hers, that he had heard. But that itself,
Though possible, was but another cause
Of marvel, for he ever had believed
That, save in heaven, there was no voice like hers.
And then her manner was so innocent!
How could she have a secret such as that,
And look him in the face, as now she did?
As thus he thought, she entered with the vase
And water for the flowers, whose absence yet
She had not noted. “Put them here,” she said.
“But I have none. I threw them all away.
I had no heart to bring you flowers to-night.”
No heart? She heard the sadness in his voice,
And wondered:—Wherefore was he coming sad
From walking in the woods? “No heart?” she said;
“What ails you that you look so weary like?
And why had you no heart to bring me flowers?”
Her kind inquiry smote him like rebuke.

“It has been some one else,” he thought; “and yet
I'll ask her.” This most sure and simple mode
Struck him like inspiration. “Tuts!” he said;
“I should have asked at first. She cannot lie.”
Then with a smile, “Have you been out to-day?”
“Yes, all the afternoon I have been out.”
“Where?”

“In the Lover's Gill.”

“Alone?”

“Oh no.”
“And who was with you, then? A neighbour girl?”
With seeming confidence he asked, and yet
He feared her answer. If it was a girl,
He had not heard them. If it was a man,
Would she confess it? How he magnified
The importance of the answer, as if Good
And Evil in a dubious balance hung,
To be determined by a breath of hers,

And be pronounced for Doom. She heard, and blushed,
And, trembling with a sudden dread that took
Away her voice, scarce breathed. “No; not a girl.”
“My daughter, there is solace in your words;
I have been foolishly alarmed and grieved;
I should have known you would not say ‘A girl,’
When it was not a girl. It is not wrong
To have a wooer, but it may be wrong
To make your wooing such a hidden thing.
I heard you in the Gill, but saw you not.
Who's son is he? He has a stranger's voice.
Where does he live?”

So Lily told him all.
He was the farmer's son at Aspenlea—
The eldest son. He had been at the schools,
And at the College learning Law, she thought,
Or Medicine—indeed, she hardly knew—
But he had studied till his health had failed.

Now he was with his father at the farm.
“When did you see him first?”

“'Tis months ago.”
“Where first?”

“It was at church; and by-and-by
We met, and, passing, spoke; and by-and-by
We met and stood to speak, and then—and then
I went to meet him, as I did to-day.”
“How often have you met him as to-day?”
“Oh, father, ask no more.”

“I ask but this—
Did e'er the student speak of coming here?”
“No. Never.”

“Ah, but Lily, he must come.
The man that woos my daughter must not shun
Her father's face. Invite him to come here,
And if he puts it off from time to time,
Still promising like this: ‘I'll soon be up;
‘Some night next week;’ or more indefinite,
‘Some night soon, Lily, I'll be sure to come’—

Most liberal of pleasant promises,
But finding for each broken promise still
Some plausible excuse;—suspect him then,
And go no more to meet him anywhere,
But let the student seek a meaner love.
Give me your promise.”

Lily, weeping now,
Alarmed and lily-pale, her promise gave.

IV.

Eben.
No song to-night, my bird?

Alice.
Yes; if you will,
But I would rather listen to the tale.

Eben.
I do not think I heard your voice to-day;
Yet in the early dawn I heard the birds.
Sing something — something of the spring, my bird.

Alice
(sings).

Storms yet, and thunder,
Alarm night and day,
And rain o'er the wheat-fields
Flies, blown into spray.
Or snow-wreaths fantastic,
The calm hollows fill;
But 'mid all the wildness
The spring liveth still.

Deep down by the streamlet
The woodbine is green,
And plants with green blossoms
Alive may be seen;
And under the snow-tufts
That to the hedge cling,
The thorn's tender leaflets
Are whispering of spring.

And larks, never fearing
The storm-darkened dawn,
Proclaim there will yet be
A daisy-snowed lawn;
And thrushes are chanting
Wherever we go;
The green spring is living
Beneath the white snow.

And so in its season
Each flower will unfold,
And summer and autumn
Will come, as of old;
And under the wildest
Snow-heapings of care
That chills human longings,
Hope lives sheltered there.

Eben
(resumes reading).

“Yes, I will come, sweet love,” the student said
And said again, but still he never came.
And Lily, with an aching heart, obeyed
Her father, and no more went out to meet
Her lover. Thus it was for many weeks,
And Jacob saw that she was sorrowful,
And oft in tears. “But it is best,” he thought;
“He is a farmer's son, and she is but
A cottar's daughter, therefore it is meet
That if he woos my child it should be known.
Oh, could I with a wish the memory
Of all this wooing veil, and bring again
Her blitheness and her bloom! For she may pine,
As maidens oft have pined for worthless men;
And she may think 'tis I who am the cause
Of all her grief—a tyrant grey and grim,
And cruel and exacting. Oh, if thou

Art near us, Catherine, dry our daughter's tears!
Oh, Spirit of her Mother, comfort her!”

Still deaf to all the urging of her heart,
She, as her father wished her, stayed at home.
At length there came a letter from the farm—
Her first love-letter—pleading for a smile,
And vowing endless love, and saying, “Come,
O Lily, come but once again! To-night
I shall be waiting for you in the glen.”

She read it with a blush, and then her pride
Awakened, rose indignant, answering “No!”
But now the messenger was gone, and none
To take a scornful answer to the farm.
Then Love began to plead with Pride, and Pride,
A little yielding, listened. Pity then
Took part with Love, and said, “He's sure to sit
Till midnight, sad and patient, in the glen.”
And thus, and thus, till Pride, subdued, replied,

Assenting with a semblance of dissent,
“I will not go to meet him but this once—
This once to tell him I will come no more.”

So in the evening fortune favoured her;
For as her father, lost in Milton, sat,
And she, beside him, knitted wearily,
Inventing in her fancy fictions wild
And errands plausible that might secure
An hour from home, and when it seemed that she
Must boldly tell some lie or stay at home
(To such a dire dilemma was she driven),
A youth came in—he was no stranger there—
Came, as he said, to have a game at draughts,
If Jacob cared. So Milton down was laid,
And soon they in the game had lost themselves.

The welcome youth was Walter. Rumour said
That Jacob's draught-board had for him less charms
Than Jacob's daughter, and it might be true,

For often with a luckless lack of skill
He played when she was present. If she spoke,
Her father had an easy victory.
To-night her silence favoured so the youth
(See on what trifling issues fate depends!)
That Jacob, playing with his utmost skill,
Had twice astonished lost, and when again
He sat, sore pressed, some trifling thing she asked,
He answered, “Tuts!” and then with joy she saw
That now the hour she fretted for had come.
Poor girl! she fancied 'twas the work of chance.
She rose and said, “I'll leave you to your play.”
“Yes,” said her father, “for I want this game.”
So then she laid her knitting down, and stole
Away, unquestioned, 'mong the silver birks,
To sit beside the student in the glen.

There till the moon began to glide across
The wooded slope, still brightening as it passed
From tree to tree, she sat and let his hand

Toy with her yellow ringlets, listening to
The sweetest tale that ever gladdened heart.
And yet to-night her heart it gladdened not,
Because at times a wild word startled her
(Strange words to which no maiden could reply),
And with a deeper crimson flushed her cheek.
And so she listened silent, and at length,
Encouraged by her silence, he began
To scoff at marriage rites, and said that banns
Were but a priest's invention, and that love,
True love, despised the trammels of the Church.
Then she indignant rose, and said, “And I,
If it be so, have never known true love.
Let me go home.”

“Already, Lily, love!
What! are you angry? It was but a jest.”
“A jest?” she said; “it was not like a jest.
The moon's far up. 'Tis time that I were home.”

She sadly spoke, but from her cast his hand,

And from the bower passed like an injured queen.
And when she rose in anger, and above
His passion towered, he could have worshipped her,
But up the glen he followed lingeringly,
Abashed and silent, but at length he spoke.
He begged to be forgiven. He meant no ill.
Oh no! He would not harm her for a world.
She knew not what to think, but she began
To fear that she had wronged him in her wrath,
And, loath to part in anger, sorrowing,
Relenting, tearful, let him take her hand,
And listened to his passionate appeal.

He told her o'er again how dear she was;
How, if she would not smile, he could not live;
How all his thoughts had “Lily” in their midst;
How every dream was but a sweet romance
Where she was Beauty's queen, and he the knight
Who won her from the world. “Alas!” he said,
“Love's course is ever smoothest in my dreams.

To-day, alone, I by the river strolled,
And dreamed of you in song, and had a hope
To let you hear it, sitting in the bower,
Where sympathy among the leaves would sit
And smooth away its roughness; but it seems
That even my poorest purposes are not
So insignificant but envious Fate
Must stoop to cross them. Will you hear it now?”
“I care not; if you choose. 'Tis nought to me.”
“Nought, Lily?” “Nought,” she said; and then she heard:—

You wonder where my Lily dwells?
No lordly hall for home has she;
'Mong flashing fountains, sparkling wells,
And many a quaintly-fashioned tree.
For though a lady fair as morn,
To wealth my Lily was not born.

No corn-clad haughs her father owns;
No hills with flocks besprent has he;
No birds, except the lark that trills
Within his window cantily;
Nor lowing kine has he, that wait
To greet her at the meadow gate.

You wonder what my Lily's like?
There's nought that lives so fair as she;
But, blooming by the sunny dike,
The speedwell's faintly like her e'e.
But when the speedwell's blue's most rare,
No dear love sparkle's ever there.

Ye birks by gentle zephyr moved,
In vain ye aim at Lily's grace;
Thou opening rose, despairing close,
Thou canst not bloom like Lily's face.
Thou linnet, warbling in the tree,
When Lily's near art nought to me.

You wonder what her locks are like?
Like morning light in rippling streams.
Like what the odour of her breath?
Like that which comes from heaven in dreams.
And Lily would be all divine
If she would only breathe, “I'm thine.”

“What think you, Lily? Do you like the song?”
“Like it? I nothing heard but flattery.”
“What can I say? I fear you will but think
I flatter too, if I defend the song.
But if the Muse that hangs about it still,
Unwilling to desert her last sweet work,
Might speak, be sure she would declare the lay
A poor, poor tribute to my Lily's charms.”
“Perhaps,” she coldly said; “I cannot tell.
But, hear me, I have kept it till the last,
It is so hard to say. I came to-night
To tell you we must never meet again.
So, Willie, let us part. My father wills,

And Heaven, too, wills, that we should meet no more;
Else surely such a little easy task
As some few hours spent in my father's house
Would not prevent our meeting. Let us part.”
“Oh, wherefore, Lily? wherefore should we part?”
But with a queenly motion of her hand
She silence urged, then thus: “Once in her heart
A maiden hid the image of a man.
It was to her a god—she worshipped it,
And worthy of her reverence it seemed,
For all the virtues that make good men great
Seemed in the image to have found a home.
Oh how she loved it, dreaming or awake!
At length her father, watching o'er her weal,
Found out she had an idol in her heart,
And questioned her about it, wishing but
To know if it was worthy of its shrine.
‘My daughter, I must see your idol's face,—
I wish to look a moment in its eyes,’

He said. How happy was she! sure beyond
The harbouring of doubt, soul-full of faith
That no imagined trial e'er could prove
Her idol was unworthy of her love.
But still ('twas strange) it shunned her father's eye,
Refusing to be gazed at. Then she grew
Less certain, watchful, thoughtful, and at length
She found that that which seemed the purest gold,
Alas! had but its glitter, and was but
A bit of basest brass. She wept to find
She had been so deceived, but 'mid her tears,
Out from its honoured temple in her heart
She plucked the gilded guile, and cast it down,
And spurned it from her. Was it not well done?”
Then sudden flashing her blue eyes in his,
As in the moon's unclouded light she stood,
Again she asked him, “Was it not well done?”

He stood astonished. Never had she been

So beautiful,—so far above his reach;
And there in her defence stood stern Distrust,
And maidenly Alarm. He bowed, 'tis true,
Before them with a quailing eye, but true
'Tis also that he vowed, “She shall be mine;”
And by a whirl of passion, borne beyond
The limit of his wildest fancies, sware
He from that hour would seek, with tireless zeal,
T' inspire new faith. “It will indeed be grand”
(Some nameless devil whispered in his ear)
“To wile away Alarm, and where Distrust
Sits watchful, even her very soul to win.”
But now he seemed remorseful, and indeed
The little nervous trembling in his voice
Had half its source in sorrow. “Oh,” he said,
“You cannot, Lily, cast your idol out
For such small cause. It is of purest gold,
And so will prove itself. As for this test,
Which would be foolish, but that on it hangs
A world of happiness,—this simple test—

Would it were something dreadful—it will dare.
To-morrow, Lily, at your father's hearth,
If you will let me, I will come and sit.
Oh think not I have shunned him, Lily love,
Because I feared his eye. It was not that:
You are his daughter, that is cause enough!
But boldness, Love, I'll summon for your sake,
And let your father search me with his eye.
Yet wherefore, Lily, if I from your heart
Have as a bit of basest brass been cast,
Unworthy of my temple? Oh, it seems
Impossible that such a cruel thing
Should come, and of its coming give no sign!
For one night more I will not think it true.
Your faith, Love, give me till to-morrow night;
Say, shall I come?” She left him saying “Yes.”
And so they parted—he to hurry home,
The hawthorn shootings plucking as he went,
And strewing them about him vacantly
Soul-full of admiration; and before

The watch-dog welcomed him he had resolved
To yield himself to fate, (what else could he?)
And keep his latest promise to his love.
At home she found her father still at play—
So had she hoped—keen seeking for the move
On which the honour of the evening hung.
Her entrance closed the battle; for the youth
Acknowledging her presence by a look,
Saw sorrow on her face, and when again
He moved, he gave the victory away,
And, lost in play, her father had not dreamed
His truant daughter had been out so long,—
Her absence he had hardly once observed.

V.

Eben.
You are not wearying, my silent bird?

Alice.
Ah no! but did the student go to her,
And were they married? You should tell us that.

Eben.
And so I will, but, warbler, you must wait.
Do you remember that white rose which once
We two discovered when it was a bud,
And how you wearied till it grew a flower,
And often stole at eve to gather it,
But found it still a bud; and oft at morn

But only found the snowy blossom-tips
Out-peeping from a bearded husk of green,
And how you came to me with heart at mouth,
And sobbed, “That bud will never be a rose,”
And yet it was a peerless rose at last?
And so be patient, think this tale a bud
That cannot be a rose before its time.

Alice.
But were they married?

Eben.
Birdie, you must sing,
And I'll impatient questioning forgive.

Alice
(sings).

Away to the mountain
Where late lay the snow,
Where only the lark listens,
Love, let us go;

And there, on the crest standing
'Mid the clear blue,
In the hearing of Heaven, love,
Our vows we'll renew.

Eben
(resumes reading).

The student came and sat by Jacob's hearth,
And played the part that he had come to play,
And talked of living authors he had met,
And quoted ballads old and verses new,
And such a wealth of rare book-lore displayed
That Jacob, wondering, reverent at his feet
In spirit bowed, with all he heard well pleased.
The student told his story—how he won
High honours at the schools, and though he failed
At College, 'twas because his health had failed.
It was a wild life oft the student led
In cities, and perhaps he, too, was not
Too rigid always. But 'twas all past now.

His father wanted him to stay at home,
And be a farmer, and his father's wish
Was one with his, and he would stay at home.
The listener was pleased: for modest seemed
His Lily's wooer—comely, strapping, strong,
And honour's very self. But more than all
He seemed to have the lyric gift, and that
Most eloquently for the wooer pled;
For genius and gentleness of heart
He ever had believed inseparable.
And so the student, when he rose to go,
Knew he had passed unhurt the dreaded test
Of Jacob's eye, and at his past fears laughed.
And when an invitation, kindly urged,
The old man gave to come again, and spend
An hour at night, his heart with triumph swelled,—
“The first-fruit of my daring see!” he thought;
But when, ere parting at the cottage gate,
He breathed in Lily's ear, “Now surely, now
Love's stream will ripple merrily, my own!”

She on his shoulder laid her rosy cheek,
A moment then her blithe face raised to his,
And gave the sweetest proof of perfect trust,
A voluntary, unexpected kiss,
Then ran into the house. It seemed that then
The devil that was dragging him along
Lost for a moment his authority;
For with her kiss still lingering on his lips
A thrill of deep self-loathing made him moan,
“Can I be such a monster?”

Thus it was
That the important and long-wished-for hour,
Whose lingering in the mist of coming days
Such sighs, and tears, and fears, and heart-aches caused—
The hour which Fancy said a scroll would bear
With Lily's destiny among its folds—
Now passed, and bore no scroll that could be read,
But, like the hours it followed, told no tale
Of what the distant days were burdened with.

Again and many times the student came
To spend an evening. Walter met him too,
And learned to play at chess, but never won.
Too happy Lily! Often in the glen
She met him now. At length the bridal day
Was named. He in a cottage was to live;
For though at length the farm would be his own,
Yet now 'twas best to labour and to learn.

Then came the bridal day, and there were some
Who said their marrying was a foolish thing,
So young—so ill prepared; and there were some,
Old hoary custom-worshippers, and they,
When they were told the village maids were not
To dance at Lily's wedding, prophesied
Unending evils, sorrow, and remorse,—
“How could they hope that luck would wait upon
A wedding where the pipe and violin
Were not to play their joy-inspiring parts?”

Even Jacob had misgivings, and at times
Detected in his heart the startling wish
That there could be no marriage. Lily's self
Seemed not so happy as a bride should be.
Her face was not an April sky, that dropped
Bright tears of gladness, but a winter mist
That neither melts nor lets the sunbeam through.
She did not smile like one to whom sweet Hope
Had proved no flatterer, but liker, far,
A child that sees among the dewy grass
A jewel, brilliant as the sun itself,
And searching where the peerless gem was seen,
No jewel but a drop of water finds.

She fretted as the bridesmaid sought to put
In intricate arrangement her bright locks,
So silken and so yellow. “Tuts!” she said,
“'Tis well enough! I'm sure 'tis well enough!”
Nor were the omens happy. Years ago
A wandering woman pried into her palm,

And dreadful disappointment feared for her,
And said a veil she could not see beyond
Enwrapt her future. So the bride to-day
Again the woman heard, and thought of it,
Inquisitively longing to behold
What was beyond the veil, and sighing oft,
“What was it that the sibyl could not see?”

And there were dreams, too. When the bridesmaid asked,
“What, Lily, was your sweetest dream yestreen?”
She said, “My only dream was far from sweet:
It was about a hearse that came for me,
With black steeds foaming. Yet I was not dead,
And yet it seemed they were to bury me.”
“What could be better?” Mary said; “it was—
It could be nothing else—a wedding-chaise,
With snow-white palfreys prancing! What more sweet?”
She did not like the dream, but wished to cheer

The bride, so—“Lily, you should mind,” she said
(Urging with smiles her kind philosophy),
“That dreams are never sent to frighten us;
So if a dream is dismal, it should have
A happy reading; and if it be sweet,
It only speaks of coming happiness,
And need not be reversed when it is read.
I too had dreams, I do not mind them all,
But 'twas of you, and you were in a chaise
Alone, it seemed—that was the strangest part—
And you were whirled away I know not where.
But when I wakened I was glad to think
I had been dreaming of a chaise and you.”
“Alone!” said Lily—“in a chaise alone?
And I was in a hearse, and all alone.
'Tis all a riddle.—Will my hair not do?”
“What ails you, Lily? Such a wedding face
Was never seen. There's no man brave enough
To wed a woman with a face so sad.
What ails you?”

As she spoke a knock was heard,
And Lily, flushing, said, “Can it be he
Already? 'Tis an hour before the time,
And I'm not ready yet.”

But Mary said,
“A lad went past the window—'tis his knock.
What ails you, Lily?”

“Mary,” said the bride,
“My dream is read. There's something in my heart,—
All day there has been something in my heart,—
Of evil whispering. Oh, my dream is read.
Let father in.—Oh, father, what is this?”
“Good news, my Lily. Something from the farm:
A letter—but it is the best of news.
I have been praying Heaven would interfere,
And Heaven has heard me. 'Tis the best of news,
And you, my Lily, can have nought but scorn

For perjury.—Oh that I had him here!
Be brave, my bairn. He is not worth a sigh—
Not worth a tear.”

“But, father, what is wrong?”
“He is not coming—that's the sum of it:
And Heaven be praised, say I.”

But then he paused,
For, as the fearful meaning came to her,
She wildly turned and stared in Mary's face,
As if she sought a refutation there
Of all she heard; and when she found it not,
Fell silent, swooning, into Mary's arms.
“Poor bairn,” he murmured. “Mary, lay her down.
I was too sudden. This is more like death
Than like a swoon; and death, perhaps, were best.
My poor, poor Lily!”

'Twas indeed like death;
But in a little, with a wildered look,
She rose, and snatching from the bridesmaid's hand

The sheet that meant so much, she read it all,
Because she thought the evidence of ears
Too poor a proof of such calamity.
Then she sat down and piteously wailed,
“He is not coming! Oh, I never dreamed
A man could be so cruel. Not to come,
And not to tell me till the very hour.
O Willie! Willie! Willie!” Thus she wailed
Most piteously, and uttered wishes wild,
Such as the wretches who, in their despair,
('Tis written) on the hills will call to come
And cover them. She knew not what she said,
It seemed, so startling was her tearless wail.

Then Jacob took the bridesmaid from her side.
“Time only heals a wound like that,” he said;
“She will be best alone, my poor, poor bairn!”
Then Walter entered, speaking pleasantly,
Like one who had no sorrow at his heart,
But was as blithe as bridegroom's man should be.

But hardly had he entered till he saw
His sister's tearful face. “What! tears?” he said;
“You look as if a corpse were in the house!
What ails her, Jacob?”

“Read,” he answered, “read.”
Then Walter read the brief, unmanly note,
And read again, and scanned the unwritten parts
For that which might the written make more clear.
“Is this thing real?” he said. “Has he not come?
Not come? but sent her this? And where is she?
Poor Lily! But he would not ask me here
To take his glove off and to see him wed,
And then instead of coming send but this!
Is nothing to be done but bear the wrong,
And never think about the remedy?
He must be found! I'll hurry to the farm!
And yet I need not. He is on the sea,
If this he writes is true.” “Nay, let him go,”
Said Jacob, sighing. “So it must be now.
It seems no human work, and Heaven alone

The closing of this tearful drama sees.
Words will not mend the matter. We must wait,
Howe'er it galls us, till the end is come.
My poor, poor bairn! A scorned and slighted bride!
I have been blinder than the burrowing mole,
Or this had never happened. Sit ye down,
And when the dusk has come, take Mary home.”

VI.

David.
But, Eben, did the bridegroom run away?

Eben.
Across the sea he fled.

Alice.
And was not drowned?

Robert.
Ah! but he would repent and hurry back,
And marry her at last—was that not it?
He surely would come back.

Eben.

I'll tell you all,
If you will but have patience and be still.

(Goes on reading.)

Far westward fled the bridegroom, and his flight
Was yet on all men's tongues, and all agreed
That if he landed safe, no man could say
That Heaven is on the side of Innocence—
When in the early autumn, when the corn
Still in the furrows shone a golden green,
Alone among the shadows of the glen
Walked Lily weeping. Now and then she stood
And wrung her hands, or wildly with them pressed
Her streaming eyes, as if she wished to shut
The world all out; or, staring on the path
Before her, murmured thus her wild despair:
“O God forgive me, if it be a sin!

And yet what matter though it be a sin,
Since it is but another and the last?
There is no sinning in the other world.
They say there are a thousand ways to Death;
And there are many pleasant ways, they say.
I only seek a path where none would think
It strange to see another traveller;
And such a path there is far down the glen,
Where, in the streamlet's bed among the stones,
Death waits and welcomes those who dare to leap.
There once in winter, when the trees were bare,
And all the far-down distance lay unveiled,
I lingered on the cliff's grey brink, and much
Was urged to leap—Oh that I then had leapt!
Oh that I had but listened to the voice
That seemed to whisper, ‘Lily, come to me,’
Among the mossy boulders in the burn!”

The cliff she found, but near its brink there sat
A lady reading. Softly apssing her

Unheard, she hurried on, and felt like one
Detected plotting murder. Down the glen,
And past the manor to the river's side,
She sped, and trusted that she sped unseen.
Then to the rushing river down she reached,
And bathed her eyes, thus thinking: “Those I pass
Shall see upon my face no sign of grief;
And all the strollers that I chance to meet
Shall see upon my face the mask of mirth,
And think it is the face of mirth unmasked.
They'll hear a blithe-like humming as they pass,
And think it is a merry heart that sings;
And so when they are told the maid they met
Has in the flooded river met her doom,
They will not think she came to seek it there,
But that she, dreaming, tripped and stumbled in.

“My father, too. Oh that he first had gone!
When he returns and finds me not at home,

What will he say?—What think? And when he finds
I stay away, and all the weary night
Sits waiting for me, wondering where I am,
And what detains me,—when he sees the dawn
Before me come, what will he say or do?
Dear, trustful father, he too will believe
The best of me, and never, never dream
There was a reason why his only child
Should shelter in the foaming river seek
From even him. Why should I fly from him?
What will he do without me? I must keep
A weeping father from my heart, and then
I'll die light-hearted.”

With such thoughts as these
She trod the flowery bank, until she reached
A pool that for her dreadful purpose seemed
Most meet: for rumour said the river there
Was bottomless. O'er all the further bank
An air of desolation hung. Grey heaps

Of weather-wasted hay along the slope
Lay flattened with the rain; and here and there
A clump of fire-scathed furze stood brown and bleak,
Contrasting sadly with the clover-fields
A little further off, and with the glow
Of sunset on the braes. She saw not this,—
Saw nought, indeed, except the foaming stream
That seemed to whirl and linger in the pool,
As if for her it waited. Drawing close
Her plaid about her, there she sat her down,
Resolved, but loath to do, so dire a deed.

E'en then her father, further down the stream,
Was coming slowly towards her. He had been
To do some household errands at a fair,
And, ere the crowd began to thin,—ere dusk
Called Riot out, and bade Debauch sit down,—
Had homeward strolled, and chose the river path
To see what blossoms he could find for her,
Who, as he thought, was sitting sad at home.

How sweet the contrast to the noisy mirth
And tumult of the town! It soothed his soul—
The shadow in his heart could not eclipse
The beauty of the scene. The sun, now near
His setting, shot across the woods of Ross
A flood of yellow light, and dazzling clouds,
The valley tinging with their borrowed glare,
Hung o'er the sun. The gnat-clouds, as they rose
And fell above the stream, were golden-hued;
Each moth was amber-winged, and every branch
Appeared with golden gossamer festooned.
All spoke of peace. The river-banks were full,
But not to overflowing. Flakes of foam
Were floating slowly down the long deep reach,
As if they feared the torrent at the bridge.
From either side the trees, with slow salute,
Like friends each other greeted, and at times
A playful zephyr 'mong the foam-flakes danced
In graceful eddies, whirling them about,
Then rising, died among the fruited limes.

Though now and then a cheer came from the road,
Where youngsters hurried homeward jubilant;
And now and then a woman's playful scream,
By distance softened into music, came
Harmonious with mirth,—all else was still.

Filled with the peaceful grandeur of the scene,
On Jacob strolled, and now a simple flower
And now a stalk of graceful grass he culled;
Till where the river takes a sudden turn,
Where not a bush adorned the sloping bank,
He saw a woman sitting all alone—
A moment only saw her, for she rose
With hurried hustling and despairing cry,
Then ran hand-blinded to the river's brim,
And sank where rumour said 'twas bottomless.

Oh, what unmanning horror seized his soul
When he beheld her in the water sink,
And knew it was his daughter he had seen!

But when she rolling rose above the stream,
He ran and swam and brought her to the bank,
And fought with Death for her, and prayed for her,
Beseeching Heaven to let her die at home:
Oh, wherefore should she die a suicide?

There was a little cottage on the brae
(You knew it, Margaret, many years ago)—
Half hid among the apple-trees it stood.
There Walter was at work among the fruit,
When through the evening stillness came the cry
That Jacob heard. “'Tis some one in distress,”
He said to Mary, and they hurried down.
And thus it was that Jacob, as he chafed
His daughter's flaccid hands, found friends were near.
But when he looked on Walter's pallid face
And voiceless agony, and heard revealed
In broken sentences the silent love
Which he had ne'er suspected—when he thought

What might have been, and now could never be—
It seemed as if his cup of woe ran o'er,
For he stood up, and, with clenched hands to Heaven
Outstretched, a curse upon the wretch evoked,
Who to his house had all the trouble brought.

Even as he cursed she sighed, or seemed to sigh,
They knew not which; and when they had begun
To fear 'twas only Hope that said she sighed,
Her bosom heaved distinctly, and her eyes
A little moved beneath their lily lids;
And then her breath, as if reluctant, came
And went with gentle swell: then warmth began,
As beauteous as the dawn-flush on the snow,
To spread about her, and they said, “She lives!”
And then when Walter whispered “She is saved,”
Her eyelids quivering rose, and on his face
She gazed a moment, in a wildered way;
And then in Mary's and her father's eyes.

And thus she thought (if that which was a whirl
Of hurrying fancies may be reckoned thought),
“Where am I? These are voices that I know.
What have I gained by flying from the world,
If those I sought to shun have followed me
Already?” Then she listened, and she heard
She had been rescued, and was still on earth.
But when they spoke to her she answered not,
But let them lead her up the cottage path,
And let them lay her down on Mary's bed,
And took whate'er they gave her, like a child
Whose waywardness long illness has subdued:
And when the moon was up they took her home.
In pain she went, and ere the sun had risen,
The culmination of her shame had come,
And through the danger and the agony
In silent apathy she safely passed.

VII.

Alice.
But, Eben, tell me this: If she had died—
If she had drowned herself—what then?

Eben.
What then?

Alice.
I mean—I cannot tell you what I mean—
But mother says she fears there is no hope
For those who cannot wait for God's good time,
But on themselves lay hands.

Eben.
I cannot tell,
My bird. 'Tis best to wait for God's good time,

Whate'er befalls us. Yet if I were judge,
And you a woman in such piteous plight
As Lily was, there would be hope for you.
But no such sorrow for my gentle bird
Has Heaven prepared. The matter makes me sad.
Do you remember, Alice, that brief prayer
Of one despairing which I taught you once?—
My soul to-night is in the proper mood
For listening to it.

Alice.
Mother knows it too,
And she can sing it better far than I.

Eben.
What say you, Margaret?

Margaret.
It is very sad,
But if you wish to hear it, I will try.

Margaret
(sings).

Oh, place me in the lightning's path,
My dirge let angry thunder be,
And save me from the black despair
That fearfu' things is whispering me:
Thou blight'st the bud that April lo'ed,
Nor spar'st the bairn that ne'er did wrang;
Then spare nae me—oh, spare nae me!
I've pined for shelter sair and lang.

Or pass thy hand owre memory's glass,
The source o' a' my care and pain,
And charge it ne'er to show a tear,
Or charge it ne'er to gleam again.
Oh, better far a memory blank,
A maundering tongue and soulless e'e,
Than aye on days lang past to gaze,
When never joy looks back to me.

Eben.

Thanks, Margaret. This is how the tale goes on:

(Reads from the written book.)

'Twas then as now: no secret could be kept
Within two hearts. The parish sexton told
But one dear friend, how, at the early dawn,
In the first blush of morning, Jacob Neil
Had brought a coffined infant to be laid
Upon his lost wife's breast—that there 'twas laid.
“His daughter has been led astray, poor lass!”
The sexton said: “you must not speak of it.”
And then he bound his friend to secrecy.
But in a little while—'twas very strange—
The secret in a thousand forms was found
Afloat within the parish. Mary heard
The tale alarmed. Her brother heard it too—

With rage suppressed he heard, and wished the man
Who spoke of it would utter but one word
That might a blow excuse; but wished in vain,
Because the man had daughters of his own.
And then a lawyer came with questionings:
It was a dreadful time! But even the Law
At length was satisfied, and asked no more.
And rumour, sated, let the matter sleep.

But when the tales were wildest, Walter came
To Jacob's house, and asked a boon of him:
“Let me be but esteemed your son,” he said,
“That I a much-wronged sister may avenge.
See, I have savings. Let me follow him.”
But Jacob answered, “Let the man alone.
His memory will be with him, and her wrong
Will still pursue him, and the two will work
A retribution terrible enough.
We will not think of other chastening;

Nor ever try to find him; and although
Our poor importance in yourself has found
A champion prepared to fight for us,
Think what a honeyed morsel in men's mouths
Her name already is. No, Walter, no!
To memory and to Heaven we'll leave the man.”

But Walter was not satisfied. “Oh, if
The world,” he said, “would once or twice forgive
The man that smote such ruin-traffickers,
Not questioning too nicely, 'twould be well.
Had Mary been betrayed as Lily has
With such persistent malice, think you Law
Would her betrayer from my anger save?
Oh no. He would be Cause to me, and I
As surely as Effect would follow him
Till he had ceased to be.”

“And your reward,”
Said Jacob, “for the deed your soul approved,
What would it be?”

“I would not think of that,”
Said Walter, warmly. “I would not permit
The world's opinion or its punishment
In this to weigh a feather's weight. My care
Would be to find such meet reward for him,
That, when he died, his crime might be forgiven.
The stinging of a sleepless memory
Deters not, nor the terror of the Law:
The first is nothing, and the other fails.
Then since the evil rages still, why not
Let vengeance prompt and personal be tried?”

Said Jacob, “Walter, I have often read
That in the form of friend the devil comes,
And tempts an angry man to desperate deeds.
You are, I think, no devil, but a friend;
Yet tempt me now no more. Within my heart
The fire this wrong has kindled burns too fast;
It should be friendship's part to smother it,
Not fan it into fury. Walter, friend,

O'er all the world, like Ruin, ever bent
On something dreadful, have I followed him.
Thank God, 'twas but in fancy. Had there been
No living Lily from the river snatched,
I must have found him, and there must have been
Another victim in our tragedy—
And then, perhaps, one more. But now the worst
Has come and gone, and we must weigh against
The ills we suffer those that we escape.
I've weighed them, Walter, and I am content.”
And if when tears from aged eyes stream fast,
It proves contentment, he was blest indeed.
But as a father when a little child,
Whom long, long ailment has made doubly dear,
Will wail and weep, as 'mid the life around
He sees it lying motionless and pale—
A small white pebble by a running stream—
And weeps and wails till manhood whispers him,
“It is unseemly”—then the rising sob

He stops, and dries his eyes, and wails no more,—
So Jacob wailed, and so he dried his eyes.

“I chiefly was to blame for all,” he said.
“'Tis always in my heart. I, more than she,
Am humbled with the memory of much trust;
For I too saw him, and had faith in him.
I heard him speak, and thought that from his tongue
The noblest thoughts that ever had been penned
Were honoured in the flowing. Genius, truth,
Intelligence, and honour seemed to hang
About him like the sunrise. What could I,
With such a master of duplicity?
And what could she, who hardly from report
Had heard that there is falsehood in the world?
Not she alone is humbled! Has not he
There, where you sit, full in my eye oft sat,
All glare and glitter, seeking like the sun
To hide his spots with splendour, and the while

To consummation piloting his plot?
Not she alone is humbled. Have not I—
O fatal folly!—boasted that his face
Would be to me as 'twere an open book,
Where I his thoughts would read? and now I know,
And never can forget, that from one hour
Of blindness all this misery has sprung.
Heaven urged him here—for he was loath to come—
That I might find him out and save my child;
But I was blind, and Lily was not saved.
O Walter, scarcely since that wedding-day
That came without a bridegroom, have I dared
An upward look, lest I her mother's face
Should see upon me shadowed with reproach;
For to my care she left her.”

Walter heard,
And fell a-dreaming. Then: “You never knew

To what part of the world the bridegroom fled?”
“No.”

“Would you care to know?”

“I do not care.”
“Would Lily care to know?”

“I cannot tell:
She never speaks of him, but all day long
Sits here companioned by her own sad thoughts;
And if a stranger's foot is heard, she flies,
And shuns the torture of a neighbour's eye.”

Again a-dream sat Walter. Then he said,
As if unconscious of a listener—
“I wonder if she ever longs for him?
I wonder, if he were to come again,
He yet might be her husband?” (The stern “No”
Of Jacob seemed to pass his ear unheard.)
“For if she loves him still, no other man
Should dare to weary her with vows of love.
I wish I knew.” And now in silent thought

100

His dream ran on: “Even if she loves him not,
It is unlikely she will think of me.
I fear I have not even a little niche
In the fair temple of her memory.
My eye to her was mute. She never saw
That to my fancy she was still a queen
Whom I unbonneted must stand before.
Why should she see me now with other eyes?
There is no reason.” When he rose to go,
“Come as before,” said Jacob. “We must strive
To make this sorrow but a passing cloud
That took its shadow with it. Bring with you
Your sister, if— But she will surely come,
And speak as if this sorrow ne'er had been.”

101

VIII.

Eben.
A song to-night, my bird?

Alice.
A song to-night?
I cannot sing sad songs.

Eben.
Then sing, my bird,
A blithesome lilt.

Alice.
And why a blithesome lilt,
When all you read of Lily is so sad?

102

Eben.
Even so, my bird, because the tale is sad:
I would not have you sighing all the night.

Alice.
If you would only say that at the last
Her joy-time came.

Eben.
Oh yes, it came at last!
Now smile, my bird, and sing the blackbird's song,
And be as happy as the bird itself.

Alice
(sings).

Oh, listen to me, lady, listen to me,
And heed not the raven
That croaks on yon tree.
He'll tell you of sorrow as black as may be:—

103

My song is all gladness,
Then listen to me.
Of pleasures, heart-treasures,
And gay greenwood glee,
Sweet dreamings, joy-gleamings,—
Then listen to me.

Oh, listen to me, lady, listen to me,
My song hath awakened
The far-wandering bee;
And thoughts that are dark as a storm-troubled sea
Turn bright as hope's dawning
When listening to me.
No sighing, no crying
O'er ills we may dree,
But laughing and daffing,—
Then listen to me.

104

Eben
(reads).

Most lonely was the life that Lily led!
Save Walter and his sister, no one came;
And no one else a welcome would have had
Within her father's house. They only came
At evening when the daily task was o'er.
So all the day with bolted doors she sat,
And fretted at the thought that she should be
The village wonder. Little did she say,
But much she dreamed; nay, ever on the sea
Of speculation, like a little ship
That with its rudder sideway fixed is set
To dance upon the ripple of a pond,
Imagination floated purposeless,
And to the old thought-circle drifted oft.
At times, 'tis true, her fancy she set free,
As if it were a falcon, and would sit
And watch its tireless and far-distant flight,
While it some pleasant possibility
Pursued and struck, then carried to her feet.

105

Each day was like another. Rarely she
Of wooings or of coming weddings heard,
Nor where there was a birth; nor where in death
Some weary traveller had a refuge found.
For to her friends it seemed impossible
Such gossip to avoid, as might awake
The lightly slumbering memory of her wrongs.

She never knew what work she did, nor e'er
Said to herself, this will I do, or that,
But wrought instinctively, and could not rest.
Yet the monotony that might have killed
In happier times seemed now a medicine,
Divine alike for body and for soul.
Her thoughts were but a chain of dreams. By day
She peopled space with visionary life;
At night she seldom had a dreamless hour,
And there was one most lifelike dream that, oft
Recurring, from her sleeping eyes drew tears.
It seemed her father from his home and her

106

In anger fled, and that she followed him
Where'er he travelled, but he never seemed
To see her, though before his face she stood;
Nor hear her, though her voice was at his ear;
Nor when she touched him seemed to feel her touch;
And to be ever thus had been, she thought,
Pronounced for Doom. What wonder if she wept?

But she had others sweeter—one most sweet;
For oft she saw beyond the stars that Throne
Of which the wondering soul for ever longs
To hear a fuller story—nay, e'en dares
At times to paint the Eternal Occupant.
Then to her ears the hallelujah swell
Of seraphim and praising spirits came
Divinely faint, as if for her alone
The music earthward rippled. 'Twas thus far
The prelude only to the dream she loved.
Among the praising spirits there was one—

107

She knew it was her mother—and she kneeled,
And seemed a special boon to crave and win,
And then upon her spirit-wings would soar,
And earthward fly, and hang above her bed
Forgiveness smiling. 'Twas a wondrous joy
To watch her mother's coming, and to see
The sun-stars growing pale as she drew near,
Or see them altogether, as she passed,
Their brightness losing in the greater light
Of a commissioned messenger of Heaven;
As if they could but gather in their rays,
And veil themselves when one so honoured came.
Oh, 'twas a joy unspeakable to feel
Her mother's presence and her pitying love,
Or with her to the spirit-land to soar,
And nothing hear but songs of welcoming.

So passed two years: she ne'er had been at church,
And only once at market—only once,
Because a foolish fellow as she passed

108

Had stared at her, and to another said,
“That's Lily Neil.” No more she heard, for, faint
With shame, she tottered empty-handed home,
Resolved the eyes of all men to avoid.

The parish pastor called, and gently urged
Unanswerable reasons why her foot
The threshold of God's house should weekly cross.
She had been greatly wronged, the good man said,
But surely it was worse a thousand times
Thus to avenge herself upon herself,
And her eternal welfare jeopardise.
Him she avoided too, because she said,
“I am unworthy of his holy care.”

One man above all men she feared, and he
Was one to whom the Inscrutable had given
The gift of prayer. But he was little-souled
And envious—a man whom no one loved,

109

And many feared, because he used his gift
On all occasions as a wasp its sting.
One night he came and spent a tedious hour
Condoling, then before he rose to go
Said softly, “Let us go to God in prayer;”
Then wrung her heart by calling on the Lord
To keep her from the honeyed path of Vice,
And make her pure if it were possible,
And to provide for her a home in heaven
In spite of all her errors, and so use
His holy chastening rod, that at the last
Even those about her might with joy exclaim,
“Behold, she once was lost, and now is found!”
She ne'er would listen to his prayer again.

Sometimes at morn, while yet the village slept,
She in their little garden strolled about,
Much grieved to see that Desolation there
For her sake reigned. The simple flowers that once

110

In sheltering woods or in the sunny glades
Had bloomed untrimmed, now seemed to pine and die,
Because there was no one to speak of them.

Or in the little arbour, willow-roofed,
And walled with ivy, she would sit at night
And wonder if the little lights she saw
Were worlds like ours, so peopled and so vile;
Or if there was a world among them all
Which sin had not found out—where tears ne'er fell,
Nor hearts in sorrow sighed themselves away.
Oh, had her father lived in such a star!
But always when she saw—and oft she saw—
In such a star two happy lovers stray,
Hand-linked among the paradisal groves,
The limit of her waking dream was reached;
For in the woman's face she saw her own,

111

And in the man's the student's,—and that seen,
Back rushed the memory of her earthly wrongs
With bitterness redoubled.

Many a time,
As 'tween her nimble fingers blossoms grew
Upon the gauze stretched o'er her tambour frame,
While the unerring needle seemed to move
Self-guided o'er the flower-forms intricate,
Out from the silken trellis-work his eyes
Would gleam, and seem to taunt her with her shame;
While sympathetic in the unfinished flower
Her needle trembling paused, the instinct fled
That lately let it through the pattern's maze.
Nay, in the pages of the Sacred Book,
Read where she would, there always was some text
Whose subtle meaning, never seen before,
Aroused the slumbering memory of her wrongs.

112

But from her father's eyes she strove to hide
Her care, and with contentment's smiling mask,
Poor girl! imagined she disguised herself.
She seemed to hear with pleasure all the tales
He read her, and to love his blossom-spoils,
Thus thinking, “It would kill him if he knew
I care not for the flowers.” She never once
Imagined he had brought them in deceit,
Not caring for them, seeming but to care,
Lest she should grieve to find it otherwise;
Nor ever dreamed he saw beneath her mask.
She did not know that once at early morn,
When she believed him sleeping, he had heard
Her singing as a bird bereaved might sing
This wail, that of such sorrow had been born.

Oh cease, thou morning breeze,
To bear the tale,
In swelling whispers,
Over all the vale!

113

No more, ye birds,
With notes reproachful sting,
But, as ye warbled
In my 'teen-time, sing.

Ye dew-eyed flowers,
Spring to my hand again;
My heart is breaking
With your mute disdain.

It is not mine,
But lies beyond my will,
This longing for a look
That strengthens still.

And ask me not to chide him,
When he seems,
With lingering fondness,
Present in my dreams;

114

Nor to forget him:
Vainly might I try,—
The love he wakened
Was not born to die.

115

IX.

Alice.
But, Eben, surely she would be afraid
When she beheld a spirit coming down:
Why was she not afraid?

David.
It must have been
Because it was a dream she saw it in.

Robert.
Because it was her mother.

Alice.
Yes—I know.
Her mother and a dream. But yet it seems,

116

If it was so, her mother should have said,
“My Lily, go into the woods again,
And sing among the birds, and gather flowers:”
I'm sure my mother would have told me that;
And so, I think, it could not be her mother,
But just a spirit with her mother's face:—
I would have been afraid.

Eben.
Perhaps, my bird,
It was because her mother brought her joy—
A joy from heaven. Why should she be afraid
Of that which brought her joy?

Alice.
I know, but then—
I cannot tell you what I want to say—
She brought her joy, but did not leave her glad,—
That's what I mean. That's what my mother would:—
I'm sure you would.

117

Margaret.
Yes, if I were in heaven,
And if you were on earth, and ever sad
As Lily was, and if I had the power,
I would be sure to come to you with joy.

Alice.
And leave me glad?

Margaret.
Yes, if I had the power;
But, Alice, for such joy we look to heaven.

Alice
(sighing).
Oh yes! But surely it would come at last.
It would be cruel if she ne'er was glad
Unless she saw a spirit in a dream.
The birds, as Eben says, forget the snows
And wants of Winter, and, when spring returns,

118

Sing merry-hearted of the coming flowers.
A merry spring would come to her at last?

Eben.

Be that the secret of the hour, my bird;
Leave Lily with her sorrows and her sighs,
And hear of one who loved her till the last,
And hear a little of the man she loved.

(Opens the book and reads.)

The winter time had come, and there were some
Who, sitting by their dreary windows, saw
The thorn of leaves and purple berries stript
By blasts and birds, and murmured, “Heaven, unkind,
All beauty from the earth has swept away.”
Not one of these was Walter. Though, alone
Within the glen where Lily had been wooed,
At eve he wandered, full of bitter thoughts,

119

Not of the shortened day was his complaint,
Nor of the gloom of winter. Had the thrush
His rapture-stream of song above him poured,
He would have heard unheeding: had the woods
Burst into leaf around him, and assumed
At once their summer glory, such sweet change
From gloom to gladness might have come unseen,
For round this thought, “There never was a man
So wronged as I,” his murmur circled still.

He thought of Lily: How, so long ago!
He loved her ere he knew how fair she was.
How, when she grew a woman, he had longed
To tell her of his love, but never dared,
Lest she should blight the hope-bud in his heart
With saucy answer or disdainful glance.
How, while he bashfully adoring stood
Far from his shrine, a daring stranger came—
That was the thought had stung him most—and saw,
And wooed, and won, and from him cast. “O God!”

120

He cried, “That she who ever was to me
So sacred, should have been so cast away!
There never, never was a man so wronged!”

Then he remembered how she would not hear
His wooing now, but had him chidden thus—
“What? Walter! Know ye not I am a wife?
It is not like my father's friend to woo
A married woman.” And again her words,
“If not a married woman, what am I?
Nought, surely, that my father's friend may wed.”
And how, when he had said, “But wherefore should
You stoop to swell a traitor's triumph thus
By sorrowing for ever?” she replied,
“I have no choice. We cannot cast aside
Our sorrows as a tree its withered leaves;
Mine must be borne. I cannot tell you more,
But never dream that love is possible.”
And how she had this paction strange proposed:

121

“Be this our bargain. I will wed no man
But you, if ever I may wed again;
And I will tell you when that time has come.
Will that content you? What can woman more,
For him she most esteems but dare not love?
But do not bind yourself with vows to me.”
And how, with tears, she begged him to believe
She, seeming cruel, was in truth most kind;
And made him promise he would still come up
At evening, and her patient father cheer.

And then he thought that he, the cause of all,
Lived boasting, it might be, how he had wooed
And won from fifty wooers Lily Neil—
With ribald tongue his vileness blazoning.
“Oh, surely Heaven,” he cried, “prepares for him
Some special bolt that to the startled world
Will thunder Its abhorrence of such wrongs!”

Full of such thoughts, he wandered down the glen,

122

Scarce seeing as he passed the shelfy rocks
With hart's-tongue plumed; nor when he passed the yews,
The coral berries 'mong the foliage saw,
Contrasting grandly. Squirrels crossed his path,
And stock-doves flapped their wings above his head,
And pheasants round about him rose alarmed,
And, gleaming from the rocks, the rillets hung
Like ropes of crystal, swinging in the breeze,
While hoarse the yellow burn ran far below:
Unseen, unheard, his eyes and ears they filled.
But where the yew-tree shadows deepest fell,
And where a little tributary stream
With hollow gurgle dropped from stone to stone,
He kneeled with head uncovered, and this boon
He craved—“O God, if human instrument
Thou need'st to work Thy vengeance, here am I,
Most glad, most meet, to be that instrument:
Me choose, O God, and bring us face to face!”

123

Then jubilant, as if a voice he heard,
In answer cried, “It is an answered prayer!”
And from among the shadows of the yews
The solemn echo said, “an answered prayer.”

Then to the river's side with quickened pace
He strode, endeavouring to resolve how best
That which was now to be his life's sole task
Might be accomplished. Should he him pursue
Persistent, as a hound the felon fox,
Or wait till Heaven should bring him to his hand?
He could not long escape him! They would meet!
Oh, he would know him though in face and form
He wore the changes of a thousand years!

Thus Walter, letting passion rage unreined,
Arranged a scheme of vengeance, viewing it
In every light, and where there seemed a way
Through which his purposed victim might escape,
That way he sternly closed. He is no more

124

A man of peace that wishes ill to none.
He now can fancy in some lonely dell,
Where none can see, and nothing interrupt,
A struggle terrible for life or death,—
And with grim glee imagines to himself
A superhuman strength vouchsafed by Heaven,
Just as the strife grows doubtful, and, well pleased,
Can see despair set on his victim's face,
And hear the vain entreaty on his tongue,
And know he has a villain in his power
To crush or spare; and—how unreined his wrath!—
His only thought is how he best may crush.
But Walter of the wildness of his thoughts
Had no perception, and ne'er dreamed he felt
But as a man with such a wrong should feel.

So, quickly, seeing nothing but the path
Before him, down the river-bank he strode,
Till, looking up, he saw the smoke that curled
Above his own white cottage in the wood.

125

The night returned when the despairing cry
Was heard that took him to the river's side.
How every reminiscence seemed to spur
Him on to vengeance! Nay, so vividly
Was all recalled, that with his hands outstretched
He bent above the well-remembered spot
Where she had lain so pale. The long suspense
Till she her eyes had opened came again
To be resuffered, and his hurried thoughts
Seemed thoughts that hurriedly had passed before.
So rapt he stood, till at his side he heard
The foot of some one brushing through the grass:
The spell was broken, and he raised his eyes,
And—strange coincidence!—the man was there
Of whom he had been thinking. He had but
To stretch his arm and reach him, and one thrust
Would yield a retribution meeter far
Than any he had fancied. Such a thought
Flashed on him, and he grew as pale as death,
And shook as if he had an ague-fit;

126

But ere he could resolve, he seemed to hear
A voice that whispered, “Walter, would you dare?
So he was saved from murder.

Face to face,
A pace or two apart, they voiceless stared.
The stranger saw how Walter strove to keep
His wrath subdued, then with an earnest face
And friendly eye he said, “I have come home
Full of a growing love for her I wronged
So cruelly, to make her yet my wife—
For if she lives I know she waits for me.
You too I vilely, as a plaything, used:
Can we be friends? What say you? Is it peace?
'Tis to be humble I have crossed the sea.”

Then Walter, angry—“Peace! while there remains
The harvest of the sorrow which you sowed
Half reaped? And you have come to woo again?

127

You will be humble if you may have friends?
'Tis with another purpose Heaven has led
You hither—not to give you peace and love,
But that there may be justice done to you
For murdering Lily Neil.” He knew not why
He so accused him. It was but a flash—
Th' electric sequence of a train of thought
That aimed at retribution.

“What is this?”
The stranger said; “what monstrous lie is this?
I murder her?”

“Who else then?” Walter said;
“You surely never dreamed that she could live,
And have the scorn of every neighbour's eye
To bear for ever. Where you stand she stood—
I marvel that no instinct tells you this—
And leapt and bade defiance to the world.
Who was it drove her to a deed so dire?”
In pity, when he saw the agony
The half-told tale produced, he thought to say,

128

“True she was saved, and with her father lives,”
But he another moment silent stood.
Then, when the words were coming to his tongue,
He heard, “My father shall not see my face!
Poor Lily! I will to my ship again.”
Then, as the stranger turned his face from home,
Said Walter slowly, “She was saved, and lives.”
Then Fate's design was visible:—The man,
Startled and wonder-stricken, turning round,
Too near the river staggered, where the turf
Had by the autumn floods been undermined,
And sideward, helpless, in the very pool
Where Lily had before him sunk, he fell.

With terror rigid Walter stood, because
Some Being more than human seemed at hand
A fixed decree of fate to execute.
And something dim, angelic, terrible,
A moment o'er the river seemed to float,
Then, as the lightning vanishes, was gone.

129

Some moments passed before to action roused,—
“But for her sake I'll save him yet,” he cried.
He soon was in the river, swimming round
And round, and diving in the pool's dark depths,—
A stronger swimmer was not in the vale.
Then down to where a gravel bed contracts
The stream he swam, and waited there and watched,
And did what one man could to save a life,
But it was all in vain.

At next day-dawn,
Far down the river, in a still deep pool,
The searchers found the corse, and took it home.

But while the river hidden in its depths
Still kept the student from the searchers' eyes,
At home to Lily reading Jacob sat,
With poesy the long hours shortening.
He read the story of the war in heaven
Ere time began, and of the fall of man,
And, to the march majestic of the verse

130

And limitless imaginings, she sat
And listened, of her own wrongs thinking not—
Unconscious tribute paying to the bard.
But suddenly she gathered up her work,
And to her own room hurried. Then he heard
A tapping at the door, and when he went
And opened, in the starlight Walter stood.
“'Tis only me,” he said; “let me come in—
If it be possible, let me come in.
Speak low, for, Jacob, I have news to tell
So dreadful that I fear to let her hear.”
And when he closed the door he told his tale
Abruptly thus: “The bridegroom has come home:
He fell into the river, and he's drowned.”
“Home? drowned?”

“Yes, drowned,” said Walter;

“but speak low,
Or she will hear us. He is not yet found:
We have been searching all the night, and some
Are searching yet, but he is surely dead.

131

'Tis Heaven's own doing. From the very spot
Where Lily leapt he fell. I stood close by,
And saw him fall, and tried in vain to save.”
Then Walter told him all the incidents,—
Where he had been with Lily in his heart;
How of the pleasure of revenge he thought;
What 'neath the yew-trees he had asked of Heaven;
What he had sworn; and how, when in a mood
For any devil's work, he met the man
Of whom he thought; what he had said to him;
How suddenly the tiger of revenge
Grew tame within him: (Heaven alone knew how!)
And how the fated man, whose pallid face,
Had sorrow graven on it, seaward turned;
And how a moment later he was lost.
But, as he spoke, so loud his whispering grew
That she the eager, muffled talking heard,
And wondering what could be the mystery

132

That needed to be whispered, with light foot
Drew near them, and the tragic end soon knew.
Then bursting in upon them, she beheld
Upon their faces horror and alarm,
And wonder-stricken gazed from face to face.
Then “Who is dead?” she said. “A part I heard
Of something dreadful. Tell me who is dead.”
What could they do but tell her? “Drowned?” she cried,
“And there! My poor, poor Willie!” Then in tears
She left them for a little. Back again,
Grasping her hair like one distraught, she rushed,
And thus proclaimed the wildness of the thought
That moved her: “Walter! Walter! was it you?”
Then to the lamp she drew him, and her eyes
Fixed stern on his a moment; then his arm
She dropt, and muttering, “'Tis the work of God,—
I feared it might be yours,” she turned away.

133

And when you hear that all night long she wept
And wailed for him who in the river lay,
You must not think it strange, for it is but
The way of women to have gentle hearts,
That easier can forgive than harbour hate.

134

X.

Alice.
But, Eben, is the story all so sad?

Eben.
Not all, my bird.

Alice.
What was it Walter saw
Above the river, when the man fell in?

Eben.
I cannot tell, my bird. It might not be
The angry spirit that it seemed to him.

135

Alice.
I do not understand.

Eben.
Say it was but
A phantom born of Walter's angry thoughts.

Alice.
I do not understand. It seems so strange,
So cruel, almost home to let him come,
And then to send an angel after him.
But God is never cruel, mother says;
Yet, almost home, and bringing joy with him!
It was a pity Walter met him there;
Now, Eben, was it not?

Eben.
The saddest thing
That ever happened, I have always said.

136

Alice.
God is not cruel, mother always says;
I wonder why He did not let him home,
When he was going to be good.

Eben.
My bird,
Great is the mystery of sudden death,
Whene'er it comes: for it does ever seem
That who so dies was brought to meet his fate,
And had no power to go another way.
Even as the bee that many a mile has flown
From flower to flower, returning to the hive,
Is by a passing swallow snatched away.
That song about the sailor sing, my bird.

137

Alice
(sings).

My Willie, he would be a sailor,
And so on the far-flowing sea,
Wi' a gowden troth-ring in his bosom,
To mony a fair harbour sailed he.

And though a wild storm in mid-ocean
A' life frae his ship washed awa',
Wi' his gowden troth-ring in his bosom,
My Willie cam safe through it a'.

My Willie was hame a' the summer,
And the burn at its ebbest ran clear,
When frae me he gaed in the gloaming,
The sang o' the blackbird to hear.

He heard the saft sang o' the blackbird,
And syne in the pool gaed to lave,
And though he was spared by the ocean,
The ebb summer burn was his grave.

138

Eben
(continues reading).

Ere yet the student in his grave was laid,
“Will you go with me, father, to the farm?”
Said Lily. When her father answered not,
But in her eyes with growing anger stared,
Again she asked him: “Father, is it meet
That he should die, and in the grave be laid,
And I not say, ‘My Willie, go in peace’?
O father, why should all his friends but her
Who is his very nearest, touch his cheek,
And over him the tear of parting drop?”
“Oh, surely unbecoming on our cheeks,”
Her father said, “would be a tear for him.”
“O father, say not that. He cannot die,—
He will be lying like a man that's dead,—
Till we, whom he deceived, beside him stand,
And from our hearts the wrong for ever cast.
There can be no departure of his soul
Till I have touched him, and have kissed his brow,

139

And said, ‘My only love, depart in peace!’”
“What! Go to him with tears and kisses? No!
I, if I knew but how, would not permit
A thought of him among your memories,
And yet you ask me this! I cannot go.”
But now she knelt to him, and pled in tears—
“O father, come with me, lest it be said,
‘What brings her here? And wherefore does she come
Robed like a widow? She was ne'er a wife.’
So might they say, and think they wrong me not,
Who am the only wife he ever had,
And from the house of mourning me might turn,
Who am the saddest mourner of them all.”
Then when he answered not, and doubtful stood,
Much wondering at the reasons which she urged,
Again she trembling pled, “Oh, come with me,
Lest when they see me coming there alone,
They say, ‘Her father is ashamed of her,
And yet she has the boldness to come here.’

140

Alas! there is no boldness in my heart,
But utter sorrow. What's their loss to mine?
At most a son—an only son at most.
But he whom I have lost was coming home
To take away the shame he left with me.”

He answered not, but in his heart he said,
“I know not if 'tis wrong: it may be right,—
But if she goes she cannot go alone.”
So, leaning on her father's arm, she went;
And when they reached the farm, his father came
And grasped their hands in silence.

“I have come,”
Said Jacob, wondering at the friendly grasp,
“Because my daughter wishes once again
To see the face of him she loved too well.”
He answered not, but gently took her hand,
And led her to the coffin; raised the lid,
And let her see the face she came to see.
Down stooping once, she kissed his rigid lips,

141

And laid her hand upon his ice-cold brow;
And then she gazed as if she thought there must
(Indeed she thought there must) some answering thrill
Suffuse his cheek, or lift the eyelids up,
And let his soul gleam out a parting look:
At least a smile would round the cold lips play.
But when she saw no lifting of the lids,
Nor smile, nor warm suffusing of the cheek,
She knelt and said, “My Willie, go in peace!”
And when she found her tears begin to flow,
When in her throat the sorrow-sob she felt,
That utterance sought in wailing, she arose,
And hazarding no glance toward the dead,
Nor lifting to a living face her eyes,
In silence sought the door.

“Nay, go not yet:
I will not bid you wait until the end,”
The farmer said, “but I must show you this.”
Then from a desk a leathern book he brought,—

142

“'Tis yours,” he said, and put it in her hand;
“This in an inner pocket safe we found,
Though wet, not wasted. All that's here is yours,—
Not much of riches, but to you, our child,
Far more than riches. Take them home with you;
They prove at least that he was penitent.
Let me forgiveness ask for him and me,
For I, too, wronged you. Jacob, I have oft—
With shame I say it—I have often striven
With specious argument to prove my son
Was but the humble instrument of Heaven,
The chosen helpless worker of God's work,
And therefore blameless. He the shaft that struck,
But God the Archer from whose hand it flew.
And when one said, ‘But he has ruined her,’
I had the daring answer ready aye,
‘Not he! not he! 'twas Heaven that did it all;
And it may not be ruin, but great good.’
And when they would not be convinced, I said:
‘Events, like mortals, have their pedigrees,

143

For one begets another; but though man
May only unto Adam trace descent,
The thing that now transpires goes back and back
From cause to cause, till at the birth of Time
It finds an ancestor that is itself
But an effect of something older still.
And, therefore, of the ruin of this maid
My son is but the last apparent cause,
Not guiltier than all that went before.’
Nay, Jacob, more than that I dared, as thus:
‘The Great All-seeing, He who wrote at first
The drama men call Time,—beneath whose eye,
And at whose prompting, men rehearse the parts
Set down to them from all eternity,—
He knows why Willie played a villain's part,
And why he had no choice but play that part;
And shall we dare to judge?’ Nay, more and worse:
‘Oh, if we could but know the mystery
Of that which, rash in ignorance, we say

144

Is Evil, whence its power, and wherefore used,
Who knows how much of pity he had won
Instead of curses, sympathy for hate?
And if our knowledge were but deep enough,
We might discover that such hateful things
As lawless passion, in whose following
Are Ruin, Wrong, and Death, are known in heaven
By names that shock not angels.’ Thus I dared;
Though, as I argued, something in my heart
Would rise and brush away my argument,
Revealing all his guilt, even as the wind
Does from the dandelion brush the down,
And leave it staring naked in the sun.
So, daughter, when a letter came and said,
‘At such a time expect your prodigal,’
I sware no fatted calf should bleed for him.
Nay, when they brought him in and laid him down
I stood dry-eyed, and kept my heart close barred
Against all sympathy and thought of him:
‘He is unworthy of his father's house.’

145

But I have wept since then, when none could see.
He was my only child—his mother gone.
I've wept since then, for I have writings seen
That tell me Willie was not wholly bad;
For penitent he was, and Penitence,
Like Innocence itself, is hailed in Heaven.
So, Jacob, go not angry from my house.
So, daughter, kindly think of him that's dead.
Let us be friends. Our sorrow has one source,
And we should not be strangers. Fare-ye-well.”

There was no need for answering. Jacob's heart
Was softened to forgiveness of the dead,
And Lily had forgiven long ago.
But from that day in widow's weeds she went
To church, and sat in her accustomed seat,
And let the village marvel as it might.

146

XI. LILY AND MARY.

Together in the gloaming light they sat,
The silence breaking now and then to speak
Of things they cared not for, or breaking it
With sighs of weariness; for in their hearts
One matter at the moment sat supreme,
Demanding all their thoughts. At length, “What day
Is this?” said Lily. Well she knew what day,
But with a little artifice thus chose
To speak of it. And Mary said, “What day?
I think it is the tenth, and yesterday
Was Friday. Friday, was it?” Simply thus
Announcing that the day was nought to her.

147

“Ay, Mary, and to-day's my wedding-day!
Three years to-day! A weary length of years,
Although they can be measured by a glance,
As if they were but moments. Three long years!
I never thought the stream of life could move
So slowly, and not cease to move at all.
How long I've lived since then! But all this day
I've thought of you and Walter, and of what
Was said when you were pleading for him last.
So when I heard you coming in to-day,—
‘She comes with Walter in her heart,’ I said,
‘To plead again.’ But, Mary, ere you speak,
First hear. You know that Willie has come home,
And is at peace for ever. Had he lived,
We would have been together man and wife:
It could not but be so; for while the sea
Divided us we still were man and wife.
So, Mary, for your brother plead no more,
For only widowhood remains for me.”

148

“I think 'tis for yourself that I should plead,
And for the dignity of womankind,”
Said Mary. “Months have passed since angry Heaven
Forbade his coming here, and still you mope.”
“Oh, do not call it moping, Mary, dear!”
“What else then, Lily? Shall I say you dream?
Dream of a man who smote you with his scorn,
Until your heart was frozen in despair!
What! Has he power to reach you from the grave?
Must you be smitten by a dead man's hand?
Let us be women, with a woman's pride,
Not worms that will not turn when trampled on.”
“Ah, Mary! will you too become unkind?”
“Forgive me. But I fret to see you pine
And waste away your life in loneliness,
While there is one that loves and longs for you.”
“Alas! I know too well he loves and longs,
But I have done with love, and it were sin
To marry him because I pity him.”

149

“Ah, Lily! surely he is worth your love,
Even were he not my brother. Is he not?”
“Oh, he is worth a world of such as me,”
Said Lily; “but you do not understand:
It seems to me that she who once has wed
Must wed no more—must know no other man,
But think herself a being set apart
To holy memories and departed joys.”
“A rule to make and break,” said Mary.

“Yes!
For though a woman loved with all her soul
That one she vowed to honour and obey,
Yet if, when Death took from her arms the man,
He also took his image from her heart,
And left it vacant as it was before
She knew him, then indeed, it seems to me,
It would not be a sin to wed again.”
“Then, Lily, it will always be a sin,
For when was there a heart so vacant left?”
“No heart so vacant, Mary; so I say,

150

That if upon her memory his face
Has been love-limned, and not to be removed
As faces from a picture may be rubbed,
Then, if she wed another, it is but
To have two husbands, and the second's kiss
Should make her shudder, as the thought makes me.”
“I cannot tell,” said Mary; “but I thought
My brother had your promise: has he not?”
“Oh, never, never, Mary. Yet I fear
I have said that which like a promise seemed
When he was to interpret; but, oh no!
I never promised. So if he believes
I am his plighted wife, he has but heard
With ear too open for such sweet deceit.
And if he comes to me—I fear he will—
To mind me of my promise, I will say
I am not free,—that I am still a wife.”
“But, Lily, Walter will but smile at that.
You know he cannot think you still a wife:
You know—”

151

“He thinks I never was a wife.
But I will undeceive him when he comes,
And I will tell him all the world is wrong
In thinking that the grave can souls divide;
That none of all the dead that once we loved
Is e'er forgotten, and, till we forget,
The dead are but as emigrants who go
To lands primeval, woods to clear away,
And cabins to prepare for coming friends.”
“It may be so,” said Mary; “yet I think
It would have pleased me more, had it been said
By other lips than yours. The dead we loved
Let us remember fondly till the end;
But none the less the faithful man that lives,
Should be rewarded with a living love.”
“Ah, Mary! till the air no more vibrates
With voices of the dead, and gives no proof
Of their dear presence,—till their eyes no more
Look into ours and sparkle as of old,—
Till never more they come at dead of night,

152

And take our hands in theirs, and fondle them,—
The grave is but a place of parting, Death
The merest semblance of a severance.”
“It may be true,” said Mary; “and if you
But think it true, my brother need not hope,
For all so kindly as he thinks of you.”
“Oh that there were no kindness in his eyes,
My sister! Oh, if they would only flash
Contempt on me! If he would come and say,
‘I have not come to woo: I would not wed—
No, not for worlds—a wanton such as you,’
I would be pleased with that. Oh, tell him so,
My sister! tell him anything you will,
If you but make him think no more of me.”
“Nay, Lily, it was you who said to him,
With eye or smile—I cannot tell you which—
That if he had but patience he might hope.
So if you have repented, or if that
Which keeps his hope alive is but a thing
He fancied, you yourself must tell him so.

153

Why should you bid me break my brother's heart?
I could not tell him this; and so good night.
But if I were a fairy, I would stand
Beside your bed and make you dream of him,
And there would be a wedding after all.”

154

XII.

Alice.
But, Eben, surely at the dead of night
Those that are buried do not come again
And take our hands in theirs?

Eben.
No, Alice, no;
Not from the grave the form we buried there.

Alice.
What then can come to us, with eyes to see,
And hands to touch, and voice to speak to us?

Eben.
The form we did not bury in the grave.

155

Alice.
The form we did not bury?

Eben.
Yes, my bird;
The never-dying forms of those we love,
That hang about us wheresoe'er we go,
In sunshine and in shadow. Oft unseen,
But ever ready to reveal themselves
At memory's call. Nay, oft they seem to come
To waken memory, not to wait on it,
So promptly at its calling do they come.

Alice.
I think I understand. They cannot die
While those that loved them live, if those that live
Forget them not. I think I understand.
Ah, Eben, what a wondrous thing is that!

156

But surely, surely if they have the power
To come to us, if we but think of them,
'Tis but a little more to come to us
And make us think of them; and so, and so,
If that were so, it would be good to have
One dear one dead,—one dear and good one dead.
I fear I'm saying wrong.

Margaret.
I fear you are.

Eben.
Nay, Margaret, fear not that. Say on, my bird.

Alice.
So that whenever evil thoughts were near,
And we were likely to do something wrong,
The dear one dead might save the one that lives.
Oh, Eben, what a wondrous thing were that!
Oh, what a better world if that were so!

157

Eben.
Ay, bird; but as it is, the world were worse
If those we love were from our memories swept
When in the grave we laid them. None can tell
What follies are averted in this way,
Nor what undreamed of good is possible.
Have you a song to-night?

Alice.
Oh no. No song.
Of Lily and of Walter let us hear.

Eben
(resumes reading).

A sunny Sabbath in the month of May.
Then Jacob, waiting with a happy heart,
Prepared to stroll afield, saw Walter pass,
And presently he heard his cheerful voice;—
“Fair weather, Jacob! Thinking 'twas a sin
To sit at home on such an afternoon,
I said, ‘I'll go and see if Jacob knows

158

The summer's come, and that the swallow's here.’
The cherry is in bloom, and robed in snow
The plum-tree stands beside the orchard fence.
I wish I could persuade you to come out
And see what flowers have blown, and hear if still
The birds as sweetly by the river sing.”
“Ay, Walter! Joy is in the woods to-day,
And we will go and find her. Sit ye down;
I only wait till Lily gets her plaid,
Then we will go together where she will.”
“You are but waiting till she gets her plaid?
Is Lily going out?”

“Why not, my friend?
There have been many stranger things, I trow.”
“But seldom things so pleasant and so strange:
How has it happened?”

“That I cannot tell;
That it has happened is enough for me.
To-day, while we were coming home from church,
I heard one whisper: ‘Father, shall we go

159

And have a stroll among the glades to-day?’
And when I stood and stared, she softly said,
‘Shall we begin again our strolls to-day?’
See what a trifle makes an old heart light!
She only said, ‘Our Sabbath-evening strolls
Shall we resume?’ and mine with gladness filled.
Yes! we shall go and feast with joy to-day.”
Then from her room came Lily, and he said,
“Walter has come to woo me out to walk:
What say you? Shall we let him go with us?”
She hesitated, flushed, and then—“Unless
He thinks I would be better here at home.”
“I think you have been far too much at home;
And I with you will wander anywhere,
Unless I am forbidden. Let's away.”
“Then we will wander down the glen,” she said,
“And then perhaps along the river-side,
And then, if Mary is at home, may rest
Till gloaming comes with her.”

They had not thought

160

She would have dared so much, but in her heart,
“It will be best to see it all,” she said,
“When friends are near. I am not brave enough
To be alone, with memory, in the glen.
I am not brave enough to dare alone
The subtle wooing of that dreadful pool,
If it were whirling as it was that day.
But with my father near me I might stand,
And o'er again those awful moments live,
And speak of them, and give them to the past.”

So through the village passed they, drawing eyes
To blindless windows and to open doors.
But, though she by the ringing of her ears
Was well assured that malice-poisoned shafts
Were aimed at her, she heeded them no more
Than does the heron, sailing riverward,
The little, feeble, needle-headed dart,
Which towards him from the schoolboy's bow is sped,

161

As if death-charged, but, tiring, earthward turns,
A thousand yards beneath him.

Never was
A soul so glad as hers, if what seemed joy
Was joy indeed; for all the way her voice,
With many a happy saying, stirred the hearts
Beside her. “Oh, how beautiful to-day
The larches, with their drooping plumes of green;
The beeches, with their silken fluttering leaves;
The million flower-buds on the waving thorn;
The blossomed chestnuts—fairest of them all!
How grand the floating masses of white cloud!
How pleasant the surprise of light and shade
Among the distant hills! How swiftly pass
The mighty shadows o'er the level holms!
How strange it seems that such vast things should move
With such an easy motion—rushing up
The steep hillside, and gliding down the slope!
How pleasant is the singing of the birds!

162

How strange that in their oft-repeated notes
There's no monotony, unless the soul
In all that's gladsome finds but weariness!”
Thus, as they walked, the fountain of her thoughts,
With many a pause, welled up and overflowed;
And still through all there ran the unspoken hope
That Walter would not speak of love that day.

Her father was as blithesome as a boy.
“I am an Adam, and to-day,” he said,
“I have a first awakening—all seems new:
So lovely, surely, ne'er were flowers before;
No clouds were e'er so white, no sky so blue.
I am as if my vision had been doomed
To gaze for ever on a muddy way,
Where nothing I might see that keeps the soul
Above the cares that bind it. Flowers, and trees,
And fields of every hue, have been to me
But as a painted world of sheenless green,
On which the eye might rest and be at peace,

163

But which no thrill of pleasure ever woke;
And yonder ever-varying sky has been
A chamber-roof to me that never changed:
But all is fresh and beautiful to-day.”
Yet Walter had a strange presentiment
Of coming sorrow in his heart, and so
He walked beside them, sharing not their joy,
And seeing not the beauty which they saw.
So when her father, thinking it was best
To leave them to themselves, and half ashamed
Of thoughts so pleasant, said, “There is a nook
Beyond the burn, where earliest, long ago,
The woodruff gave its odour to the glen:
I'll go alone, and see if it is out.
Go round and meet me at the upper bridge.”
Then to himself said Walter: “I will know
The worst to-day, if she will let me speak,
And surely she will hear me.”

To a bench,
That, 'neath a ferny, overhanging rock,

164

Time out of mind had been a lovers' seat,
He led her, not without a dreamy hope
That that, whate'er it is, that fills the soul
With love's sweet longing, might at last be moved
With pity, when it saw him sitting there.
Then on the lovers' seat he sat him down,
And, uninvited, she (it augured well,
He thought) beside him sat, and thus he wooed:—
“Now, Lily, I must dare to speak again:
Say, dearest, will you let me take your hand,
And when we meet your father, shall I say,
‘Your daughter has agreed to be my wife’?”
She answered nothing. Then he spoke again:
“It falls perhaps like frost on early flowers,
My boldness on your happy thoughts to-day,
But I have wearied; is your answer ‘Yes’?”
She still was silent. Then he said again—
“I am not like a stranger, Lily, love,
Whose passion, born of yesterday, is full
Of words to-day, and may to-morrow die.

165

You know me as I know myself—say ‘Yes.’”
“O Walter, this was what I feared to-day!
This is the hour whose coming I have seen
And dreaded, for 'tis not an easy thing
For me to tell a man who loves like you
That ‘No’ must be my answer. Yet 'tis ‘No.’”
Said Walter,—“Lily, you are thinking still
Of that unhappy season. With the past
Be all its memories buried, and be mine.”
“This is the way of men,” she said. “They plead
And plead, and take no answer but the one
They wish for, thinking if they persevere,
The little word they want will come at last.
But, Walter, I've been haunted by this day,
Until I've been afraid to think of it—
Afraid of it as one who, doomed to die,
May look upon the day that brings to him
The end of time. To him 'twill take a form,
And stalk long-paced behind the marshalled hours,
Grim, vast, and terrible. To me this seemed

166

To cry with many a threat of coming woes,
‘Beware! and never dare to wed again.’”
“'Tis but a dream,” said Walter—“but a dream
Whose memory haunts you. Say you will be mine.”
“Ah, Walter! were it nothing but a dream,
And memories of dreams, I might forget,
And let you have your way. But look at me.
Am I like one, who, fond of being wooed,
Defers consent, and gives with happy eyes
Her words the lie? What see you in my face
But shame and pity?—pity for the man
Whom most I honour, but whose dearest wish
I, choiceless, must deny; and shame because,
So honouring him, I dare not be his wife.”
“I wish you had a blither eye,” he said;
“And so you shall, if you will let the past
But lie at peace, and speak of shame no more,—
No more of daring. It is I who dare
When I aspire to such a noble wife.

167

Say ‘Yes,’ and with a kiss the bargain seal.”
Then tears began to gather in her eyes:
“O Walter, if you would but look at me!
If you would but believe my ‘No’ means ‘No.’
You do not see me as the just world sees,
For it is not love-blinded. And the pride
That must be in the heart of men like you
With love is fettered, else 'twould stir you up
To spurn me,—never let you stoop to kiss.”
“So earnest, love?” said Walter. “Have you then
So little faith in me, that thus you weigh
My love against the thing the world calls pride?
Out of this question let us bar the world,
And settle it ourselves. So, Lily, love,
Say ‘Yes,’ and with a kiss the bargain seal.”
“If you but knew,” she said—“if you but knew
How vile I am. I tell you I was not
So deeply wronged as you have all believed.
I took with open eyes the first wrong step,
Consenting to be led astray. Read these.”

168

Then from her bosom tremblingly she took
Some written papers. “These will let you know
How willingly I fell. These we exchanged,
And when he said, ‘My Lily, now my wife
For ever,’ I believed 'twas so indeed.”
“Indeed 'twas so,” said Walter. “Yes,” she said.
“And then—what mattered it?—‘Lest I should change
My mind,’ he said, the lines were left with him.
And so—and so. It is a tale of shame.
But when you saw him in the river fall,
He had them in his bosom safely rolled;
For he was penitent, and coming home
To claim his wife, and tell it to the world.
But he was lost, and these came home unharmed,
Because it was foreseen that you to-day
Would in love's madness seek me for your wife,
And not take ‘No’ for answer till you saw
These foolish lines, when you would turn with scorn

169

From her who for them gave herself away.
Give me my proofs of shame and let me go.”
“But they are proofs of virtue, Lily, love,
Not proofs of shame,” he said.

But she stood up
And charged him to be silent. Then she took
The little sinless scraps, and faltered not,
But tore them into shreds, and scattered them
Towards the burn. The merry breeze that played
Among the bushes snatched them from her hand,
As if her eager wish it had divined,
And in a sportive manner, far aloft
In little niches of the trees put some,
And some within the fissures of the rocks,
And others in the bosoms of the ferns,
And others on the billows of the burn,—
Together never to be brought again.
When thus she saw them scattered, “Let us go,”
She said, “and seek my father at the bridge.
Ah, Walter! it is I who have esteem,

170

And you have only love. You must not wed
A woman you would blush for by-and-by.
But as for me, e'en Scandal's self, ashamed
And sick of me, in silence passes by;
But if she heard that I had married you,
It would be such a feast as comes to her
But once in many years. And she, most like,
Would choose some drunken fellow, and in him
Would sit, as devils did in men of old,
And in some crowd would make him cry at you—
‘There is the man who married Lily Neil!’
And all the crowd would sneer.”

“Oh, dread not that,
For at your name no man would dare to sneer
Were I your husband!”

“Walter, none will dare;
But if you had your way it would be said.
The world has no forgiveness for the wretch
Who from its torture seeks relief in death.

171

Come, let us seek my father.”

“Oh, not yet:
Our parting must be here, if part we must.
But must we part? Give me another day
To hope that there is something here at home
Worth waiting for. To-morrow I will come.
There is no haste. Take time and think again.
I have not waited such a little while
But I can wait a little longer yet.”
“Ah, Walter! all my thoughts but one way tend:
In this there's no to-morrow. Let us part.”

Then Walter rose and took her hand in his,
And bade her look at him, and gazed at her
Until her eye sank, searching for the hope
Her tongue refused him—searched for it in vain,
But saw, or seemed to see, within her soul
The firm and irremovable resolve
To know no more of love, and honoured it.

172

“So dies my hope,” he said—“so vanishes
My dream. You would be kinder if you could,
And so I blame you not.” Then as she glanced
A grateful look at him, he took her face
Between his hands, and stooped and kissed her brow;
Then left her, and she never saw him more.

Alice.
No more?

Eben.

No more, my bird. The tale is true:
She never saw him more; but this he learned,
Long after, that she sat, and when at last
His footfall on the gravel reached her not,
Up-gazing at a little space of sky
That filled an eastward opening in the wood,
As if through it the face of God she saw,

173

And knew her cry would reach Him—

“Bless,” she cried,
“The one true lover in the world, O God!”
Then on the lovers' seat she sat, and wept
As surely never woman wept before.

174

XIII. CONCLUSION.

Alice.
And is the tale all told?

Eben.
All told, my bird—
And yet there is another page to read.

Alice.
And shall we, then, no more of Walter hear?

Eben.

A little more of patience, for our bud
Is almost now a rose.

175

I have not told—
For, Alice, none could tell—the wondrous joy
Of Jacob, as he wandered here and there
Among the fragrant woodruffs in the shade.
No care had he; no dread of coming cares:
He seemed to feel that Grief had been dethroned,
And Joy proclaimed the Queen of all the world.
A-dream, he wondered if his soul had found
A nearer and a surer way to heaven
Than through the gates of death. The memories
Of boyhood came unwooed to gladden him.
Old lullabies he murmured, and in airs
Forgotten breathed the songs his mother sang.

In this sweet mood the rural bridge he reached
Where Walter was to meet him. Wondering not
To find no wooers there, he let his thoughts
At random wander like a child alone
Upon a meadow gathering buttercups,
Till once again the little merry stream

176

His eye with brightness filled, and charmed his ear
With harmony unmeasured; then to it
As to a long-lost friend he spoke:

“'Tis not,
Dear stream, a sunbeam that I see
From wavelet and from dimple glancing back,
But Joy's own flash. This sound is not the noise
Of water rushing o'er a stony path,
But gladness murmured by a living thing.
Thou dost remember me, and brightly thus
Thou look'st the welcome that thou murmurest.

“Thou know'st the man whose wont in youth it was
Among thy boulders long to sit alone,
Delighted with the softness of thy song,
When thou, diminished to a silver thread,
Around the stones as if to bind them ran.

“Thou dost remember him who oft has come
To watch thee, when a glittering film thou lay

177

Asleep, or languid o'er the mirrored moon;
Or when thou, weak and voiceless, o'er thy linns,
An ooze among the mosses, trickled down;
And when the trees above thee joined their boughs
And laid their leaves together, and essayed
To keep the thirsty sunbeams from thy breast,
I blessed them for thy sake, and said to them,
‘Ye love it with a love akin to mine.’
By other leaves thou'rt shaded now, as then.

“Thou dost remember him whom thou hast seen
Contemplating thy grandeur, when thou rushed
From side to side, as if in wrath to find
That crags confined thee, and unyielding banks
Thy breadth to limit dared.

Thou'st seen me stand
Where through the holm reluctantly thou mov'st,
Ere in the mighty river thou art lost,
And know'st how much I sympathised with thee,
And thought it was a pity thou shouldst run

178

A race so brief, and lose thyself so soon;
Forgetting, then, that thou art never lost—
That then, as now, thou rann'st an endless race.

“Thou dost remember him who loved to leap
From stone to stone, when Winter had thee bound,
Admiring thee, and thinking thou wert even
More beautiful, so bound, than wimpling free.
E'en then, unconquered, here and there thou badst
King Frost defiance, and a little space
Kept open, where thou shimmering upward looked,
With even thy summer brightness far outshone.
And wheresoever thus thou gleeful gleamed,
The ousel hailed thee, and the wagtail bowed
And wished thee joy, while, haply, from some cliff
That beetled o'er thee, flashed an icicle,
Responsive 'mong the pendant roots of elm,
Which, with fantastic forms of ice o'erlaid,
Above thee burned, whene'er the sun looked in.

179

How spiritless without thee were the glen!
Yon tall slim ashes, yonder sombre yews,
Yon mighty larches that o'erlook the wood,
And beckon to the clouds to come to them;
Yon cliff whose brow 'tis said thou once didst wash;
Yon lichened caverns, where thou in thy youth
Didst play the miner,—owe to thee their charms;
The plain face they, but thou the soul-lit eye.

“The pride thou art of every living thing
That dwells by thee. The birds, in whose young ears
Thy murmur mingles with their fathers' songs,
Sing sweeter than the birds of other glens;
And joyously the leaves above thee flutter,
And flash, and fan, and all the sweetest things
They know about thee, say continually.
They see the moth that on thee stoops to rest
Or drink, may drink and rest and soar again.

180

They see the gnat-cloud dropping on thy breast
Its living rain, and see how kindly thou
Restor'st them to the mazy whirl again.
And for thy kindness thus they praise thee, stream,
And for thy gentleness thee softly fan;
While, like the cadence of a far-heard hymn,
The humming of the dancing gnats is heard
So faintly coming, that its loudest swell
A sweet deceit of fancy only seems.

“It nought avails to wonder if the God
Whose work thou art, along the glen first formed
Thy course, and clave the rocks in twain for thee,
And placed a mighty forest on the slopes
That were to be thy banks, and beautified
With mosses, ferns, and flowers thy future way,
Then cast thee from His hand to gleam among
The trees, and sing of peace and joy for ever;
Or if He only traced for thee at first
A winding rut along a bare hillside,

181

With the fierce rushing of a waterspout,
And let thee for thyself a channel wear,
And to the coming seasons gave the task
Of thy adornment.—Nothing it avails
Of things so far remote to dream. Thou art,
And art a joy for ever, gentle stream.

“But rather let me think how 'mong thy woods,
Like time among the sons of men thou runn'st:
The acorn near thee springs, becomes an oak,
Grows old, decays, and crumbles into dust;
Plants near thee rise, and bloom their year, and die;
And wild birds sing their songs, and pass away,—
But thou in everlasting youth runn'st on.

“The woodman brings his son, and shows him how
To wield the axe, and fell the mighty oaks,
Grown hoar by thee, as he himself was taught;
The son grows old, and teaches in his turn

182

Another son; and so from race to race
Death follows Life, and then for Life makes way.
But none succeeding, and preceding none,—
As thus thou ever flowed, thou ever flow'st.

“And let me think how much more vainly still
Imagination seeks that early time
When thou wert not a stream that wimpled thus,
And how the riddle of the influence
Of thy soft noise she ne'er pretends to solve;
And when men say, ‘It is as if no song
Of happy bird, nor lilt of merry maid,
Nor laughter of blithe children as they sat
And watched thee rippling o'er their snowy feet,
Nor whispering of fond lovers in thy bowers,
Nor morning rustlings of the April leaves,
Nor hum of rhapsodist that e'er was heard
Upon thy banks, had ever passed away,
Till all that was most soothing in the sounds
They uttered had been left with thee,’—'tis but

183

An effort of fond fancy to describe
The endless marvel of the influence
Of thy soft noises, streamlet—nothing more.

“Religion dwelleth in thy shadows, burn,
And veneration walketh at thy side,
And inspiration cometh at thy call,
And praise, like water from a spring, that flows
It knows not why, up-welleth from the heart
Of all that linger thus to gaze on thee.

“An eeriness comes o'er me as I stand
In silence, hearing nothing but thy voice,
While thus the gathering gloaming round thee falls:
It is as if to lift my gaze from thee
Were to encounter eyes that long have ceased
To flash on those of earth; and, like a boy
Alone at midnight in a haunted dell,
I am as if I could not move myself
For fear of jostling spirits. Why is this?

184

What wizard power hast thou? What art thou else
Than summer water babbling down a gill?
No more than water rippling riverward:
'Tis I that have grown old and fanciful.
I'll go and meet these lingerers.”

Down the glen
A little way he met but one of them;
And when he heard the other was away,
And learned, by much impatient questioning,
Why he was gone, and might no more return,
And found that wedding wish of his was gone
The way of many another pleasant dream,—
That all his hopes were but a thriftless tree
That never has an apple 'mong its leaves,—
His patience fled, and with harsh words he smote
His child, and sinful wishes wished, and cursed
The hour that gave her birth. She trembling knelt,
And clutched his threatening hand, and clung to him,

185

And with white lips and sad dry eyes that seemed
To have wept their last, “Let there be peace,” she said.
“Much have I erred, but, father, not in this—
I have been wise in this. Let there be peace
For mother's sake.”

The sadness of her eyes,
Her paleness, and the trembling in her voice,
Recalled the morning that her mother died,
And like a flash the weary interval
Of all his widowed years before him passed—
Her childhood, school-time, wooing, sorrows, all—
Softening his heart. What could there be but peace
And sorrow-born contentment till the last?

Eben.
And now the end is near. The tale is told.
You will go with me, Alice, when the glen

186

With hyacinths and violets is sweet,
And you shall of the fairest of the fair
And sweetest of the sweet a lapful take,
And you will scatter them where Lily lies,
For Lily's sake, my warbler. Will you not?

Alice.
Yes, if you show me where she lies. But where
Is Walter's grave? and what became of him?

Eben.
Oh, Walter went abroad.

Alice.
And died abroad?

Eben.
Oh no, he did not die: he's living yet.

187

“Yet?” Alice cried, and both her brothers stared,
And echoed, “Living yet!” But when they saw
Their mother, unsurprised and silent, sit,
As if their wonder was not one to her,
They guessed the truth, and smiled when Alice said,
“Ah, that is why you said you knew them all.”

Eben.
Ay, Alice, that was why I knew them all.
But now, while yet the book is open, sing—
Sing me the song I taught you yesterday.
Sing low, as if the song were but a thought
Born of the story I have read to you.

188

Alice
(sings).

Oh, boulder brown,
That sitteth by the sea,
Until the faithful tide
Returns to thee!
Not one of those art thou
That waits to mourn,
For what is surer
Than the tide's return?

But, boulder brown,
Behind thee on the beach,
High 'mong the grass,
Beyond the spring-tide's reach,
Wave-worn like thee,
A sister boulder mourns,
Because the faithless tide
No more returns.

189

And so, of joy
What surety is there here?
A day is pleasant,
Or, perhaps, a year;
But bright waves wear thee, boulder brown,
And then
Recede, like pleasures
From the souls of men.

THE END.