Lily Neil :: :: University of Virginia Library

Lily Neil

A poem by David Wingate

Wingate, David (1828-1892)

II.

III.

IV.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

XI.

LILY AND MARY.

XII.

XIII.

XIII. CONCLUSION.

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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.