University of Virginia Library

VI.

Oh, lovers of all ages, kingdoms, climes,
How have you suffer'd! What a motley crew
Would throng the earth could all your buried hordes
Collect from out the scatter'd dust of Time
And re-assume the human shapes you wore!
Yet, could you carry in your wither'd hands
Some record telling of the hopes and fears
That thrill'd you once, I ween that each of these
Would bear a closer semblance to the other
Than would the fashion of your winding-sheets!
The legend 'graven on the scarabee,—
The pictured emblem of the Ninevite,—
The roll of papyrus, held in the grasp
Of the illustrious mummy,—all of these
Translated, doubtless would resemble much
Our modern hist'ries of despairing sighs,
Or those still further from us,—tales of loves
Antediluvian or prë-Adamite,
When, haply, in the groves now fossilized,
Haunted by monster Megatherium
And Plesiosaurus, mortals liv'd and lov'd
And sinn'd, as now they live and love and sin.
Constance had wept when she had read the first—
The kind sad letter of her outraged lord
But now she felt as is supposed to feel
The worm that has been trampled till it turns,—
The malice lurking in each spiteful line,
The pent-up poison flowing from this pen,
Let loose at last, as from the adder's tongue—
The base injustice, the impatient wish
Thus to exaggerate and multiply
Her fault, all this directed at herself
She did not dare resent—it was deserved—
But what she felt she never could forgive
Were those envenom'd arrows aim'd at him
Her love, her life; the angry crimson blood
Rush'd to her cheek as she read o'er again
Each bitter accusation. Well she knew
That he had fallen from his high resolve,
But then her heart would have it that he fell
Fighting against some superhuman pow'r—
A power he had striven with for years—
She would not think that that belovèd form
Concealed a cruel calculating heart
Such as she heard had sometimes lurk'd beneath
A mien deceptive. Yet these lying lines
Then she bethought her how she oft had heard
Wise saws about the fickleness of men,
And how they love to pluck forbidden fruit,
And how, when tasted, they will fling away
What they have striven with such pains to grasp—
Or how a man will often in his heart
Despise the woman who will yield to him,
Loving some other, who is hard and cold
And unrelenting;—how upon the paths
Of men like these, lie many faded flow'rs
Strewn with the years, and trodden under foot,
Loves of all shades and colours—many-voiced,
With song-notes variable as the birds'
By sunny shores, and under alien skies
Beguiled and won. She sadly thought, “Alas!
“I may be such a little thing to him—
“A passing thought—a moment's light caprice,
“Whilst he is, oh, so very much to me!”
Then sadly she prepared her to depart,
An outcast and an exile; first she tore
Into a thousand fragments, which she burnt,
The hated letter. With a sinking heart
She bade a sad farewell to ev'ry spot
She lov'd so well. The garden she explored,
And gather'd from each glossy evergreen
A dear memento—laurel, box, and fir,
Cypress and rosemary, and one dark spray
Of sad funereal yew, to which there clung
A single waxen berry; these she bound
Into a garland, and thereon she wrote
“This wreath of leaves was gather'd in the garden
“Of Eden;—to be kept for evermore.”
She did not know, who had not seen as yet
The bright luxuriant gardens of the South
How little like the fancied fields of Heav'n
This one would seem in an Italian's eyes,
Accustom'd to behold in his own land
Such blaze of blossom—such a brilliant sun!
But unto her it seemed as tho' the doors
Were closed upon some earthly paradise,
As soon as swung the heavy iron gates
Of Denzil Park, behind the speeding wheels
Of the old-fashion'd carriage, on the morn
She and her maid departed on their way—
So much she lov'd the home that was his home,
The sacred spot where she had seen him first.
Her maid, who watch'd her shyly, wonder'd why
Lady L'Estrange's eyes were fill'd with tears,
When she herself was all too pleas'd to leave
The dull old mansion and the tiresome trees
Of dismal Denzil, and to go to Town,
But Constance felt as if her heart would break,
“Good-bye” she thought, “Dear trees, dear shaded walks,
“Earth that his feet have trod—good-bye, good-bye!
“Good-bye, old house, where he was born and bred,
“Where he may dwell some day, and some day die,
“Home of the buried fathers of my love!”
Thus Constance quitted silent Denzil Place,
To face that stern relentless outer world
Of which she knew so little. Never more
For her those gates unfasten'd;—ne'er again
Fell her light footstep on the polish'd floors,
Nor were the dim old oaken panell'd walls
Flatter'd again by that sweet flitting shade
Caressing them. The old house stands and waits,
And all its windows look like straining eyes
Watching for Constance,—for the fairy thing
That suddenly became identified
With its moth-eaten records of the Past.
Ah, never more! those windows wait in vain,
Thro' all the changing years she will not come,
No more her sunny head and wistful eyes
Will grace the empty open window-frames!
She came and went, as vanishes a dream,
And the old house is waiting her in vain.