The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith :: :: University of Virginia Library

“Yea, the world is very evil, full of vanity and lies,
But the Lord is very patient, and the Church is great in might,
With her orders, her traditions, and her sacred mysteries
She can cleanse your sins away, and turn the darkness into light.

“She only has the seal of Power—the apostle's grand device,
Handed down through all the ages in a long unbroken line,
The glorious right to minister the bloodless sacrifice,
And offer it for you in sacramental bread and wine.

“Only her Priests may wear the robes befitting that great act
When bread and wine become the body and blood of God's true Son,
Only her prayers avail to realise the awful fact
And put into your mouths the life that by His death was won.

“What can your sects do for you? they may bring the child to birth,
But the child is never born, and the mother's breasts are dry;
So you pine away and perish, for their prayers are little worth
Without the priestly unction, and the grace that comes thereby.

“You build an ugly barn, which you call a Kirk, and then
One preaches in Geneva gown to men predestinate,

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This to go down into the pit with all his virtues fair,
And that with all his sins to pass to heaven with heart elate.

“And this you call the grace of God, electing whom He will,
And passing by the others in His absolute decree,
And the ransomed sing the praises of that grace inscrutable,
And your angels tune their harps to laud that monstrous sovereignty.

“Little help such teaching brings to him that wrestles with the lies,
The rogueries and vices that tarnish all our days;
Therefore do we lift the banner of the Church that loudly cries
To repentance of your errors, and the cleansing of your ways.”

So preached the Preacher to us once; an Oxford scholar, young,
With bare, thin face and sallow, bare and shallow too his mind;
A narrow spirit, with a pulpit rhetoric high-strung,
Something stale and commonplace, but very telling of its kind.

Rounded periods, rarely natural—fit movements of the hand—
Tones liquid, but monotonous—ejaculations oft
To emphasise a commonplace—a manner gravely bland
In private, but with women very winning, gracious, soft;

These had won the hearts of many, gathered crowds into his pews,
Though he had little light to give, and none at all to me;
And weekly in the Kirk the pulpit thundered at his views,
And at all who to the Woman, or the Beast might bow the knee.

A pretty Church-revival now sprang up, with dainty hymns
Artistically sung, and prayers with high intoning read,
And holly-wreaths at Christmas about the cherubims
That smiled with puffy cheeks beside the tablets of the dead.

There were candles on the altar, there was incense in the air,
A reredos, and a crucifix that towered up like a mast;
And with forty minutes' singing, and forty minutes' prayer,
And fifteen minutes' preaching, we were coming right at last.

Then he needed a new organ, and we had a grand bazaar,
And raffles winning money as you might at whist or pool;
And a lady-volunteer who carried on a pretty war
With a choir of surpliced children, badly trained at Sunday school.

'Twas not the simple worship of our homely Presbyters,
Nor yet the stately worship of the custom Catholic,
But a modern imitation, smacking of the milliner's;
Brand-new devotions fashioned on the model of antique.

To me it felt all hollow; but yet the youth had zeal,
Played pastor very diligent, had he had aught to say,

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Spent days among the sick, and by the fevered bed would kneel,
And patter o'er his little book, and hurry on his way.

Hilda took to him amazingly, went to his daily prayers
And school and district work, and now was rarely found at home;
Quoted his tinsel pretty words, was full of church affairs,
And when I jested at him was as crisp to me as foam.

Day by day the church she haunted, quite forsook her parish kirk,
Took to wearing dingy dresses, russet-brown or iron-grey,
Fasted often, made her life a weary penitential work,
With all its natural brightness now put carefully away.

Scarce an hour but had its service of reading or of prayer,
Scarce a day but was a saint's day, and her saints were very grim;
They frowned at every pleasure, and they smiled at every care,
And still she spoke to me of God, and giving all for Him.

Keenly I felt that, all the more the priestling was obeyed,
The lonelier life was growing, and we drifted more apart;
We had not any words, but something on her spirit preyed,
And ever-widening waters seemed to sunder heart from heart.

He led her on a way divine which was not human too,
And that, I wist, was not the way that Christ had walked of old;
And common, homely duty now a daily burden grew,
And common life was trifling, and all earthly love was cold.

What was it? People told me he was verging toward Rome;
But Roman or Genevan, mattered little unto me;
God had His little children out at nurse in many a home,
Who laid their Bible on His lap, or Cross upon His knee

That could never work this mischief; all the churches had their popes;
And I cared not for Pope Calvin more than Pius; as for beads
And crucifix and censers and chasubles and copes,
If she had a fancy for them, they were prettier things than creeds.

What was it, then, that chilled her into forsty silence now,
As days went dimly by, without the wintriest gleam of mirth
To brighten up her wistful look, or clear the clouded brow?
And wherefore did she sigh like one a-weary of the earth?

For all the house grew silent, and her laugh was never heard,
That wont to ring so cheery, and she sang but doleful hymns
About the pilgrim's travail, and the comfort of His Word,
And the home that is eternal, and the shining seraphims.

I comprehend now better what it was that preyed on her
As she brooded in her loneliness, and yearned for higher love;

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For her heart went upward, dreaming of that little visitor
Whom God had taken from her arms into the heaven above.

She thought we were not worthy to rear the child of God,
Our home-air was too worldly for so pure a soul to breathe,
And while she meekly bowed beneath the chastening of the rod,
About the rod of sorrow she would twine a holy wreath.

Ever her heart was longing for the life that is not here,
And love that death can never touch with withering of its bloom,
And for the tender blossom that she laid with awe and fear,
Yet with absolute assurance, in its little grassy tomb.

Upward her daily musings soared in wonder, hope, and awe,
The heavenward meditations of a heart that found no rest,
Save in thought-reflected vision of the glory where she saw
The children with the Father folded in among the blest.

All this I learnt long after, when I read the secret Book
Of her solitary musing, blurred with many a tearful stain;
I had thought her cold unto me when I saw her absent look,
But her soul was longing for the lost that cometh not again.

I also found the priest upon her tender scruples played,
Eager to make a saint now of the mediæval kind,
Inventing fresh atonements, as the restless heart betrayed
Their failure in the cravings of the still remorseful mind.

She was daily in his thoughts, and she was ever in his prayers;
He watched her sickly thought with pride, and nursed the deep disease:
Oh the honour to his work, the rich reward of all his cares,
To have the training of a saint in evil days like these!

But this I knew not at the time; and as I cast about
For any likely reason this new sorrow to explain,
And could not find it in my work, nor in my deepening doubt,
There sprang up in my brooding heart a thought of bitter pain.

For calling up the former days which happily had flown,
I paused at Winnie Urquhart, with her talent and conceit;
Hilda was jealous at the time, I saw it in her frown,
And heard it in the tapping, on the carpet, of her feet.

Was this the shadow on our life? and could her love expire
In fumes of jealous anger, and in self-tormenting thought?
Had she so little faith in me, and in the altar-fire
Which I had tended like a charge that from the heavens I got?

My heart had never wandered for a moment from its place;
My faith had been unshaken, and unshadowed for an hour;

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But now a chill crept o'er my soul, a gloom came on my face,
And my distrusted love became a deep distrustful power.

And thus the strangeness grew—a silent gulf between us twain,
A wan, still water, drifting us yet more and more apart:
A life of wrested meanings, and of keen mistaken pain,
While each, with wistful longing, wondered at the other's heart.

Yet once I tried to draw her close again, for love is strong,
And oh my love yearned for her love, and oh my heart was sore!
But cold love is slow to warm again; and now the nights were long,
Like a stretch of barren sand upon the day's unhappy shore.

But one bright summer evening—all the sadder for its brightness—
I sat in the green arbour looking to the sleepy town;
Slumbrous-sweet syringa-blossoms hung about me in their whiteness,
And the summer in its glory bore the burden of its crown.

Sat the coney on its haunches 'mong the grey sand near its hole,
Crouched the hare in the long furrow where the tenderest barley grew,
And I bade the living creatures loving welcome in my soul,
For life was not so lonely with them frisking in my view.

A yellow bee was drumming in the foxglove, where it showed
A spire of purple-spotted bells upon the sunny brae,
And my heart went back a-dreaming far along the changeful road,
Till thought passed into tears, and all the scene grew dim and grey.

Oh, sad our withered hopes amid the flush of leaf and flower;
Sad the winter of the spirit with the summer's wealth around;
And the weird feeling came again upon me in that hour,
That life was but a shadow flitting dimly on the ground.

Shadowy joys, and shadowy sorrows! shadows all I felt and saw!
The old sense of unreality came back on me again;
I had dreamt, and I was waking, and the morning air was raw,
Or perhaps I only dreamt that I was waking up to pain.

There was a fate upon me, and it drove me on and on,
And I must “dree my weird,” alas, whatever it might be;
Yet was I but a shadow among shadows sitting lone,
And waiting for the doom that moaned around me like the sea.

Then Hilda came up softly, and softly sat her down;
I knew that she was very pale, and very often sighed,
Although I looked away from her unto the sleepy town
Expecting that sure fate which from afar I had descried.

'Twas all as if I knew before the thing that was to be;
'Twould not have startled me to hear that I must die that night!

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Yet 'twas as if a shadow of no moment unto me,
A fate and yet a dream—and very strange, yet very right.

In silence and constraint we sat, a short while, side by side,
While leaf by leaf she plucked the flower in pieces at her waist
With thin and trembling hand; and with mechanic foot I traced
Senseless scores upon the gravel, to be speedily effaced.

“I would do right,” she said, “and yet I know not what to think,
For things are not the same now as they used to be before;
And from the cross appointed us we may not dare to shrink,
Nor close the ear to Him who standeth knocking at the door.”

I knew this was her woman's way of drawing near to me,
A hint that, like a bud, a little sunshine would unfold,—
A feeling out for any touch of answering sympathy,
That all the burdened secret of her trouble might be told.

And oh I should have let my heart flow freely out to hers,
I should have met her longing, and mingled it with mine,
I should have wooed her o'er again, pleading with all that stirs
The woman and the human, till she felt it was divine.

But I was never ready yet, was always wise too late;
Right words come swiftly to my pen, but slowly to my lips;
And there was that Greek-feeling of the coming on of Fate,
Which dulled me with its shadow like the gloom of an eclipse.

And under all there lay the petulant, brooding sense of wrong,
That her jealous love distrusted mine, that trusted once for all,
And had been true to her as is the music to the song
That subtly links its movement unto every rise and fall.

Then, something seemed to break in me. I thought I heard it snap,
Like string of lute or viol, and I did not seem to care;
There was no more to win or lose; my life had lost its sap,
And shook but leafless branches creaking in the wintry air.

I scarce know what I answered, but it had no touch of grace;—
'Twas something about making crosses where no cross was meant;
The anguish and the deadness drove me into commonplace,
And the commonplace fell on her like a heartless argument.

And still I see the great blue eyes, strange-gleaming like a ghost,
From out of her pale face, as she made answer with a moan;
“At least, I shall not have to pay the price I dreaded most;
God's love will break no human heart, unless it break my own.”

She had brought to me her burden, and she brought it all in vain;
O cursed conceit of being right which kills all noble feeling!

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A little word of kindness would have saved a load of pain,
A little word of love had wrought a miracle of healing.

She meant to tell me all her grief, and all her young heart's care,
And all the fond atonements she was minded then to try;
She meant to seek my counsel for the purpose that she bare
On a scrupulous, troubled conscience that was sorely vexed thereby.

And I,—I had not heard her; but with blankest commonplace
Had turned away from eager eyes that pleaded as for life,
Had spoken in tones of iron, with an unmoved iron face,
And every word a cruel stab as with a cruel knife.

Now both again were silent; then she sighed, and went away,
And by and by I rose, and passed down to the moaning sea,
Until the moon arose, and spread long tresses on the bay,
And silent stars, with sad rebuke, seemed looking down on me.

Next day, I watched her going, calm, about her household work,
Putting everything in order, sorting all with bated breath,
Desk and drawer, and banded letter; and her face was like a mask,
While she put all in its place, as one prepares for coming death.

I could not but remember how, when that hope made us glad,
Which ended in a little grave in the dim land of peace,
She, hoping not for motherhood, had tidied all she had,
And writ out full directions for the time of her release.

They say, the strange new life that throbs beneath a mother's heart
Feels often liker death; I cannot tell; but when I came
By chance, then, on the sorted drawers, and understood, in part,
Their meaning, oh the anguish, and the fear, and sense of blame!

And now again she hung above her boxes all the day,
And went about the house, too, with a look premeditate,
Silent, counting all the linens, putting things in drawers away,
And by the less disorder making home more desolate.

Books were gathered from the tables, and shelved in order due,
Things that crowded on the mantelpiece were laid aside in drawers,
Familiar old disorder now took shape as neat and new,
And there was bundling of receipts, and labelling of jars.

She wrote out for our maid some thoughtful counsel for the days
When I should be alone, and where to find what I might need,
And what my special likings were, and what my common ways,
And ended with a prayer that Heaven might bless her in her deed.

I knew not this till after; and I could not then divine
The meaning of the order, and the look of rooms to let,

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The packed and sorted linens, neatly marked with numbers fine,
And careful noting of accounts, and clearing of her debts.

Only the days went by, as haunted by a coming Fate,
That well I knew was closing on me, like the darkling night,
Till reaching home one evening, I found no loving mate
Fluttering around our little nest amid the waning light.

Instead, there was a letter on the mantelpiece, that leant
Against the marble clock—a blotted letter, sealed with black;
I did not need to read it then, to find out what it meant,
As I saw the tremulous letters, faintly scrawled upon the back.

And yet it stunned me for a while; I held it in my hand,
Staring at the superscription, though I wist not what I saw;
I know I locked the door too; for my sorrow could not stand
The gaze of the scared housemaid, half in pity, half in awe.

Alone! my soul would be alone! it was a lonely lot
That henceforth must be mine; but now I wanted solitude;
Like wounded deer that leaves the herd for some secluded spot
To die in, so I shut me in, and felt that it was good.

I broke the seal, and read I knew not what, but all the night
I paced in silent anguish up and down the silent room,
Now longing that the darkness might never see the light,
Now praying for the light to scare the horror of the gloom.

I have it now, that letter—it is brown and tattered now,
Often read, although its every word is burnt into my brain;
And well where every falling tear had blotted it I know,
And every blot is in my heart a scar and aching pain.

THE LETTER

Husband and Dearest, be not wroth with me,
Because I leave you for a little while—
Only a little—one day to return,
A better wife, and make a brighter home,
For therefore do I go, with breaking heart;
And secretly, for it would break your heart
To let me go; and yet I needs must go,
That worse may not befall, and we, the more
We rub together, be but more estranged.
Often I thought to tell you all the thought
That brooded in me. But you did not care
To speak of what might grow into debate;
And I was fearful, knowing you have much
Upon your mind, and that it is not well
To fret the current of your larger thought
With small obstructions. What I mean is this:

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Indeed, I did not mean to hide from you
My purpose, or to purpose anything
Unworthy; for wherever I may be,
My wifely heart goes with me, and the troth
I vowed to you; and that you know right well.
But things are no more as they were with us;
Somehow the light has gone out from our life,
And we, together living, live apart
In joyless solitude. I blame you not,
Except that your too tender cherishing
Fostered my self-love, making much of me,
Petting myself, and pitying myself
Too much already. Mine alone the blame
Of that dim separateness. For I was not
The wife you needed, though I tried to be,
And never woman's love was more than mine.
I have not shared the burden of your thoughts,
I have not understood you, nor forgot
Myself in your high purpose; my small lamp
That feebly glimmered, failed, of course, to light
The two large chambers of your life. Perhaps,
I never should have been a wedded wife;
Perhaps it had been better had I died,
When God took baby from us. I have been
Foolish and fretful, selfish, useless; only
I loved so absolute—that is my excuse.
Had I but loved my God as well! But there,
The more I strove that you should cleave to Him,
The more I seemed to lose my hold of Him,
And drifted as you drifted, helping not
Your soul, and hurting mine own faith, as day
Slipt after day, with ever dimmer sense
Of things unseen in me, and harder thoughts
In you, until I felt my darkening way
Was darkening yours, and dropping into death,
As we more alien grew in all our thoughts,
In feeling more estranged, in ways more sundered,
And God appeared the farther from us both.
That is the bitter end of all my striving—
Harm to my own soul, cruel hurt to thine!
And yet I meant so well; only I tried
A work beyond my power; except the Lord,
Do build the house, the builder builds in vain.

Bear with me; I am full of self-reproach,
As well I may be, and I must atone
For that so fruitless past, ere peace will come.
I have shunned sorrow, comforting myself
Till I have lost all comfort in myself;
And now I must seek sorrow for a while,
And wear the crown of thorns, and bear the cross.
And find a new life in them. Do not try
To hinder that on which my heart is set,

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Which will redeem my life from shallowness,
And make its homely service, by and by,
Truer and purer; both to thee more helpful,
And happier to myself, forgetting self.
A little while, and then I shall come back,
Wiser by lessons gathered where the shades
Of the Eternal fold around man's life,
Saying, Be still, and know that I am God.
A little while—and but a little while,
Not long enough for either to forget,
Yet long enough for you to look beyond,
And find the fountain of a surer peace
Than ever I could give. A little while.
And we shall wed again, and make a home,
Where Christ will dwell with us, as we recall
This break of our young marriage.

Farewell, now;
'Tis hard to write, and could not have been spoken;
And yet it must be: farewell, my beloved.
I have gone over all the house, and left
Some tears in every room, and take with me
Its picture in my heart. I think that all
Is left in order; if there's aught forgotten,
Forgive me, for my heart was very heavy.

I know you'll not forget to plant fresh flowers
Around the little grave. 'Tis nothing; yet,
When I return I would not like to see
Another picture than I bear with me.
You cannot doubt the love I bear to you,
You cannot doubt the grief that weeps for you,
You cannot doubt the purpose that for you
Would school my heart by earnest discipline;
You cannot doubt me, even in leaving you
A little while, and but a little while,
For surely God will spare me unto you.

As I read that blotted letter, with its love so fond and true,
Again in the dim morning, I was stung with new regret;
Why had I mooned away the night, when there was that to do
Which still might heal our sorrow, and restore my darling yet?

O misery! O misery! to have been rich indeed,
And to have wasted all that wealth of love by cold distrust!
And what were I without her, but a shivering, withered reed
With the glad water at its roots all gone to summer dust?

I did not wish a wiser wife—I only wanted her?
How could she think I cared for bookish women or their praise?
If she only saw my heart, and if she only felt the stir
Of pain and shame and self-contempt I had for all my ways!

I hurried to our priestling; I was sure he had to do
With this fresh sorrow of my life; and I misjudged him not;
He was fain to make atonement where atonement was not due,
And manufactured crosses when Providence forgot.

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I found him high and haughty in a saintly kind of way,
But he allowed that she had joined a pious sisterhood
Who from a distant harbour would be sailing on that day,
To nurse the wounded in the war, and do the dying good.

I waited not for more; 'twas idle to dispute with him:
He had the true ascetic heart that knows no tie, or care
Of wife or child or kindred, and was fain to sing a hymn
For “those in peril on the sea,” when I was fain to swear.

O that journey to the seaport! O the thoughts that surged on me!
O the reasons I would urge! the triumph I must surely win!—
But the anchor had been weighed, the ship was dropping out to sea,
And I only looked on crowded decks, and heard confusèd din.

I saw the ship sway o'er the bar, I saw the hurrying crowd,
And the sailors sang light-hearted, and the landsmen gave a shout;
But song and shout were in my ear lamentings low or loud,
And whether all were truth or dream, I could not well make out.

I rushed along the granite mole that stretched far out to sea,
Where angry waves were howling loud, like hungry beasts of prey;
O cruel waves whose crashing drowned the cry that came from me!
O mocking waves that heeded not, but bore my love away.

The rain came down in plashes, gusty, sputtering in my face,
And little, gushing runlets flowed down by me to the sea;
I felt their chill, but recked not, and shivering for a space
Sat on the dripping stones, and leant my face upon my knee.

What followed then I cannot tell, I cannot tell how long—
Sounds that made my blood to tingle, laughter mingled with long sighs;
And now I was athirst, and now was choking in a throng,
And ever one pale visage looked on me with yearning eyes.

O God forgive us, Hilda; and God be good to thee!
O my cold, distrustful silence, it was not the better part!
And oh what would I give to bring my love back from the sea
Whose billows, ever breaking on me, break my very heart.

Where art thou? Where, my darling? the noise of war is stilled,
The wounded sun them at the doors, or cripple through the street;
I ask them of my darling, and they tell me who were killed,
Of the soldiers in the trenches, or the sailors in the fleet.

They tell me of the sisters, but they never speak of her;
There was a Sister Bridget, whom they never name without
Rubbing a sleeve across the eye, and talking of the stir,
When they broke out of the trenches to assail the great Redoubt.

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I wait and ask, and wait in vain; she passed away from me;
The last glimpse that I had was when the ship swayed o'er the bar;
And all the hope of love went down into the stormy sea,
And never tidings came from it, or from the storm of war.

EPILOGUE

A mighty city of tented streets,
And never a house of brick or stone,
And the pulse of the city throbs and beats
As if in a fever burning on;
Nothing but tents in all the plain,
Nothing but bronzed and bearded men,
With clashing sabre and jingling spur,
Plume of feather, or crest of fur.

Here are banners, and there are flags;
All of their bravery now is stained;
As the wind flutters their tattered rags,
Lo! where the powder and blood are grained:
And the heavy air has a fœtid breath:
Is it of blood? or is it of death?
How the wild dogs and the birds are fat,
Gorged where they lazily perch or squat!

Now, at a tent-door steeds are champing,
Now they are galloping forth with speed;
Down the long streets there are companies tramping,
Grimly silent, on some fell deed;
Some in the wine-shop are drinking hard,
Some are gaming with dice and card;
Many a jolly stave trowls from those,
But these are coming to oaths and blows.

Hark! to the call of the bugle horn,
Or the quick rattle of mustering drum!
Swift to the summons, at even or morn,
Bronzed and bearded, the gallants come.
Balls from the rifle-pits ping about,
Great guns boom from the big Redoubt,
And the angry hiss of the burning shell
Screams through the fire and smoke of hell.

Far on the outskirts stands a tent,
And over the tent a great red Cross;
Balls lie round, but their force was spent
Long ere they rolled o'er the silent moss;
A cross is over the silent gate,
A cross on the arm of them that wait,
Emblem of pity and healing and peace,
Bidding the wrath of war here to cease.

One comes out of it, grave and sad;
Just a whisper, and then returns;
What are the tidings now? good or bad?
Still she lives, but the fever burns.
Then again silence reigns all about,
And the twilight pales, and a star comes out,
But yet the air seems to pulse and to throb,
Now and again, with a stifled sob.

Sudden, the sob is turned to a wail;
What is it? where is it? Hush! the door
Opens again now, and all hearts fail;—
He too is weeping, for all is o'er.
It is not night, and it is not day;
Calm in the twilight she passed away,
Just as the star, where the cloud was riven,
Pointed her way through the opening heaven.

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Near the tent-door was a sickly group,
And oh the tears ran down their cheeks like rain;
One said, “There is not a man in our troop
But would have died just to save her a pain:
I would have died for her; so would a score of us;
Broken and maimed, she was worth many more of us;
God help the poor fellows, now she is gone;
She was like my mother when last I was down.”

When it was told at the drinking bar,
The flagon untasted was dashed on the board;
Hushed was the chorus of glory and war—
Others were trusted, but she was adored.
No one shuffled the cards again,
Rattled the dice now, or called a main.
“Who's for the trenches? we must have it out;
Now is the time, lads, to try the Redoubt.”

Belted with hell-fire, and shrouded with smoke,
Girdled with rifle-balls as with a wall,
Yet with a yell from the trenches they broke,
Plunging through rifle-balls, hell-fire, and all.
'Twas not for glory they stormed the Redoubt;
'Twas that the grief of their wild hearts must out.
That was her monument; and they cried,
“God and Saint Bridget!” as each man died.