University of Virginia Library

The silvery veil of Sleep came trembling down
Like sweet snow white and warm in a silent world,
And softly covered up the face of life.
The nurse-like Spirit laid my body to rest,
And went to meet her Bridegroom in the night,
Who comes like music o'er the star-shored sea,
And clasps her at the portal with a kiss.
When lo, a hand reacht thro' the dark, and drew
Her gliding silent on, and looking up
The unfeatured gloom grew into Charmian's face.
I read her look, and we two wandered forth
In the cool glory of the glimmering night:
The Earth lay faint with love at the feet of Heaven:
Her breath of incense went up thro' the leaves
In a lown sough of bliss. Warm winds on tip-toe
Walkt over the tall tree-tops. Above us burned
The golden legends on Night's prophet-brow;
The Moon rose o'er the city, a glory of gold;
Around us Life rehearst Death's mystery.
And Charmian wore her luminous loveliness
As in a stole of sorrow; by day she moved
In some serene elysium; queenly-sweet,
And gracious; breathing beauty; a heaven of dreams
In her large lotus eyes, darkly divine:
Warm wingéd Ardours plumed her parted lips.
But now her blooming Life's luxuriant flower
Seemed withered into ashen spirit-fruit,
And like a spirit flasht her white, lit face!
Portentous things which hid themselves by day,
Sweet-shadowed 'neath her sunning beauty-bloom,
Came peering thro' the dim and sorrowy night.
Her lips, red-ripe to crush their fire-strong wine,
Pouting persuasive in perpetual kiss,
Were thin with anguish, bitter with pale pain.
And from the windows whence her Beauty laught
As Age went by, a life of suffering lookt,
And perisht visions flasht their phantom light.
White waves of sea-like soul had climbed, and dasht
The red light from its heaven of her cheek.
Her bounteous breast that breathed magnificence,
And billowed with proud blood, sighed meekly now.
The flowers her Spartan spirit crowned her with
For the life-battle, dropt about her dead.
Diaphanous in the moonlight grew her life
With all its written agony visible;
Down the dark deep of her great grief I stared,
And saw the Wreck with all its dead around.
And my heart melted in its mournfulness;
She moaned, as hers were breaking in its pain;
And then her voice vibrated piteous as
A Spirit wailing in a world of tears,
But stifled half its pathos not to hurt.
“Earth sleepeth in the moonlight's mystic grace,
The breath of blessings round her; and all heaven
Is passing thro' her dream; it trembles near;
She feels the Seraph-kisses on her face;
But she will wake at morn in tears to find
The glory gone—all was a dream o' the night.
And thus my young Life slumbered, dreamed, and woke!

“It ran in shadow like the woodland brook,
Feeling its way, with yearnings for the light,
Until it surges flashing in the sun,
And takes a crown of glory on its head.
Even so I found him whom my soul had sought,
And fled into his breast with a cry of triumph,
Who lit up all things beautiful for me.
And thro' my happy tears there lookt in mine
A face as sweet as morning violets,
A face alight with love ineffable,
The star-like heart-hid wonder trembling through:
And o'er me leaned,—as Spring-heaven over earth,
Dropping her love down in a rain of flowers,—
To feed me with all flowers of delight,
And crown me as his queen of all delight.
“Light hung a garland grace about his brow;
His voice, like footprints in the yielding snow,
Sank deepest with its softest fall of words.
He gave the casket of his happiness
Rich with Love's jewel for my hands to keep.
Around his stalwart beauty twined my life,
In golden oneness, and in proud repose;
And like a God he claspt me with his strength!
And like a God he held me in his heaven;
And all the air was golden with my God.

“Alas, that Woman's life divorced from Man's,
And seeking to be one again in love,
So often flies back thro' the grim wide wound!
Alas, that Time should crown with fruit of pain,
That seed from Eden whose fair flower is love!
They tore me from my Love! they thrust him forth,
Spurned his rich love, and scorned his poverty;
Rent all the twining tendrils of my life
To shrink back bleeding in their desolate home.
My heart was shivered like the charméd cup
That, breaking, brings the Hall in ruins round;
And every fragment mirrored the great wrong!

“And while my mind yet wandered dark and dumb,
They sold me to a Worldling wrinkled, rich
And rotten, who bought Love's sweet name for gold.
They drest me in bride-flowers who should have worn
The white and wimpled weeds of widowhood,
And led me forth, a jewelled mockery!
'T was like a wedding with the sheeted dead,
In silent hurry, and white ghastliness.
No bosoms beat Love's cymbals music-matcht;
No blisses blusht, no bridal-kisses burned.
The ring was on my hand, few saw the chain
By which my Husband drew me to his home,
And many envied me my happiness.
That night as we sat alone I felt his eyes
Burningly brand me to the core, his Slave.

“I dwelt within a golden world of wealth,
Which flamed a glistering glory, bloomed a warmth
Without, within was cold as a fireless hearth.
The Image of Nuptial Love to which they led me
A maiden sacrifice i' the Sanctuary,
That should have raised me, smiled my tears away,
And into quickness all my coldness kist,
And fed with precious oil the lamp of love
That in my heart, as in a tomb, burned on,
Was a gaunt Skeleton whose grave-like arms
Glaspt me for ever to a loveless breast.

“He was a cruel Tyrant, just too mean
To murder, altho' pitiless as the grave;
A human ink-fish spreading clouds around
When eyes of tender ruth would come too near.
He had a thin-lipt lust of power which lookt
On torture in no rage of fiery blood,
But with infernal light of gloating eyes.
And yet I strove to love him. O my God!
While reaching from the heights of blessedness,
To pluck the rainbow-fruit Heaven held to me,
How had I fallen into a chasm that closed
Its dark inevitable arms, and crusht
Me, bruised and blind! I struck, and struck, and beat
With bleeding strength, in vain. A hundred hands
Fought in the gloom with mine as water weak.
At every step there stirred some hissing snake.
I felt as one that's bound, and buried alive;
The black, dank death-mould stampt down overhead,
And cried, and cried, and cried, but no help came.

“I heard the sounds above me far away;
The feet of hurrying Life, and loitering Love;
Rich bursts of music, hum of low sweet talk;
The dance of Pleasure dancing in her heaven,
And rustling rain of a thousand dear delights.
I knew the pictured world was lighted up,
And bloomed, like bridal-chamber, soft and warm:
How sang the merry, merry birds of bliss;
How Beauty's flower-guests stood crowned and drank
The health of Heaven in its own golden wine.
But not a crumb of all the glad life-feast,
Nor drop of all the wanton wealth for me.
And if I stretcht weak arms to clasp my world,
A wormy mouth to my wild warmth was prest.
And if I turned to lift a prayer to God,
Above me burned two eyes like bottomless pits
In which a nest of devils lurk and leer.
And down my night there stoopt no smiling heaven,
With golden chances of a starry throne,
And beckoning looks to bid me come be crowned.

“Around me rose the phantoms of the dark,
The Grave's Somnambules troubled in their dream,
Who walk and wander in the sleep of Death,
And cannot rest, they were so wronged in life.
The crownless Martyrs of the marriage-ring!
Meek sufferers who walkt in living hell,
And died a life of spiritual suttee.
They came to claim their kin in misery,
And show me, as they passed in solemn train,
Their symbols of unutterable woe,—
Scarred loves that bore the rack and told no tale;
Tear-drownéd hearts and stifled agonies;
The bleeding lips struck dumb by brutal hands;
Slow murders of the curtained bridal-bed;
The silent tortures and the shrouded deaths.

“I wandered with them in the pitiless night
Who seek the jewel fallen from Life's crown;
Oft stumbling, bled upon the cruel thorns,
But rose, and struggled on. I strained mine eyes
Upon the dark, and raised mine empty cup;
Surely with one gold drop of honey-dew,
Somewhere the heavens ran o'er t'enrich my life?

“Then came to me a thing most sweet and strange,
As tho' an Angel kist me in the night,
Or Magic Rose flusht sudden in the gloom.
A loosening charm wrought in my brain; the weight
That ached to be dasht out in utter death,
Was melting like a wintry clod in flowers.
In love's dead ashes burst a spark. I cried,
‘O sweet light-bringer, in a bloom of dawn
Rise, let me see what treasure I have found!
My little Bird shall hurry out the night,
Till all my world is toucht with rosy gold:
My little Bird of God shall sit and sing
The dear day long, the dearer for the dark!
My rich, warm jewel, crimson with sweet life,
Come shine where now I cross but empty palms,
And clasp the new love-raiment radiant round.

“‘If thou rise beautiful from Sorrow's sea,
As Venice, Sorrow's child, is Beauty's Queen,
Perchance thy little smiles, my Babe, may bring
Some human softness in his face, and I
Shall kiss the hand that hurts, for thy dear sake.
And I shall walk with thee, my Child, with thee,
Beneath new heavens, on an enchanted earth.
When I enfold thee in my arms, sweet Babe,
My heart will scarcely breathe lest it should wake
The sleeping wings of its new-nestling bliss.
When thou art born, my Child, all will be well;
For surely Love but vanisht in the dark
To come back in the morning with my Babe;
And all the sweetness liveth on when all
The bitterness is past; and eyes that yearn
Wet thro' the gloom are glorified at last.
Soft baby-fingers feeling round my heart
Shall melt its frost; and baby-lips shall draw
My tears in milk, and suck my sorrows dry.
All hell may wrestle in one human heart;
All heaven will nestle in my drop of dew.’

“It came, my dazzling dawn's re-orient hope!
My tiny babe, with its sweet mournful eyes!
And the pale innocent but fanned his hate
To frenzy; for, in many a desolate day,
And midnight, lying with my heart awake,
I had turned tearfully to look upon
A precious picture worn by Memory,
And in its beauteous image grew my Babe:
Its luminous look had gathered all the light
That lost beloved Presence left with me.

“He poured his poison in the brimming glass
My babe-joy-bearer lifted to my lips,
And dasht its golden vintage in the dust.
I ran the gauntlet of his hell for years,
And fell down on the threshold mad. My Child!
They took my Babe from me, my pleading Babe;
And when the pretty one pined for me, and cried,
Straining his dim eyes for me till he died;
They called the Mother in to see her child
That lay there in the little shroud with all
Its beauty folded up for God in heaven:
Dead! dead! its dear eyes closed by stranger hands.

“Much misery hath not made my spirit meek:
Mine agony rends the bridal-veil: I cry,
Come see what ghastly wounds bleed hidden here!
Behold where all the Tortures of the Past
Are stored by Law, and sanctified for use.
I drag my burthen to a nation's throne,
And pray deliverance from this Tyrant's power.
Pity me, all good people, as ye sit
Within the golden circle of sweet marriage,
Loving and loved, glorying and glorified;
Whose love makes life so dear, that when ye die
And sit on heavenlier heights, your eyes will search
To find the garden where Love's fruitage grew;
The nest from whence your pretty nurslings flew;
Our old World smiling thro' its cloudy fold,
And love it for the marriage love of old.”
She ceased, and from afar methought there came
Across the night an echo sad and low,
Love answering love, heart crying unto heart.

“In the merry spring-tide when green buds start,
Wings break from the husk of care,
And the dead beauty blossoms again in my heart,
As I dream of the things that were;
The buried Past lifteth a radiant brow;
Some phantom-bark toucheth life's shore;
And it floateth me far from the sorrowful Now,
Into Love's happy Nevermore.

“She rises before me, that Darling of mine,
Whom I lost in the world so wide;
O come to me, come to me, let thine arms twine
About me, my life! my Bride!
Ah me! I am breaking my heart to see
But the Image enshrined at its core;
Yet Memory's sighs bring a balm to me,
Out of Love's happy Nevermore.

“How I poured all my life in a beaker of bliss
For her! how I held the cup,
As the leaves, though the wanton winds will kiss,
Their tremulous dews hold up!
And my mind it walkt in a raiment white,
Where starry thoughts reared a dome;
And the feast was spread, and the chamber alight
For the guest that never came home.

“Lovely she was as the lily is white,
When the beauty of morn it wears:
Pure she was as the perfect light
That haloeth happy tears.
Hearts straightway rose from the shadow and cloud,
Where the light of her presence kist;
Yet over the might of the proudest she rode,
Like Music, as she list.

“Love, rosy clear, in her cheek's faint dyes,
Its first sweet bloom just took;
Love came trembling up in her eyes,
As the stars in a happy brook:
Dear eyes! they were dreams of heaven, with a dance
Of light in their deep rich gloom;
Whence the smiling heart lookt like the golden glance
From the pansy's purple bloom.

“O Darling of mine! does she ever think
Of the old-time thoughts and things?
O Darling of mine! does she come to drink
At these wormwood spirit-springs?
For I sometimes dream as I bend above,
That the kiss of her lips clings there,
And the fading balm of her breath of love
Is eloquent in the air.

“If we met unaware, just to ease her heart's pain,
Would she fall on my bosom and sob?
Or would old memories glide thro' her brain
With never an added throb?
Is her pillow e'er wet in the dead night-hours?
When the heat of the day is o'er,
Does she turn, like me, for a handful of flowers,
Into Love's happy Nevermore?

“O there is no heart that loves on earth
But may live to be loved again:
Some other heart hath the same dear birth,
And aches with the same sweet pain.
And Love may yet come with a golden ray
Shall lighten my life's despair:
But Love hath no second shaft can slay
The first love nestling there.

“In the merry spring-tide when green buds start,
Wings break from the husk of care,
And the dead beauty blossoms again in my heart,
As I dream of the things that were:
The buried Past lifteth a radiant brow,
Some phantom-bark toucheth life's shore:
And I am borne far from the sorrowful Now,
Into Love's happy Nevermore.”

All this was but the imagery of dream;
For when the Morn in restless radiance rose,
Her breath of beauty palpitating light,
With clouds of colour smiling from the ground;
A sparkling ecstasy in the blue air;
And I with marvelling eyes had broke the seal
Of slumber, read the letter of my Dream,
Lo, Charmian was a fair and smiling Woman!
And oft the dimple gleamed upon her cheek,
To vanish like a dew-drop in a rose;
And oft her laugh with reckless richness rung,
And shook a shower of music-pearls around.
I peered into the windows of her eyes,
As one might come by light of day to look
Adown the glade where he had seen the dance
Of weird Elves in the night, but finds no trace
An aspect of the Graces! who could know
The wreathen face that writhéd in my dream?

But still, as in my Dream, I see her stand,
Too living for a picture in romance,
Telling the wild stern story of her wrongs,
Holding the great Curse up to heaven for ever,
To call God's lightning down, altho' it kill
Her with her wedded Curse. And in my Dream
The kings and queens of prospering love go by,
And little heed this Martyr by the way;
This poor weak woman trembling 'neath her load;
This life fast fettered to a festering corse;
This love that bleeds to death at many wounds:
This passing Tragedy of Soul within
Our five acts of the Sense, that breaks its way
Thro' human hearts i' the Theatre of a world.