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

All the day long, and the next night he sat,
With the dread Presence, in that chamber dim,
And neither stirred nor uttered any word,
Nor ate nor drank; and much they grieved thereat;
And greatly wondered, greatly pitying him:

Nor spake, nor stirred, nor gave one sign of life,
Or knowledge of the life that still went on,
Like one a-dream, or like a frozen stream
With the ice-grip upon its fret and strife,
So fixed was he, and changed as into stone.

Stony his face, his feelings stony too,
Stony and icy was the hard, set eye,
And stony felt the heart that would not melt,
And all his weary world a desert grew,
A wilderness of stones, where dead hopes lie.

Hushed were the household, as they came and went
A-tiptoe through dim lobby, and dusky room,
And whispered low of that heart-breaking woe
Which lined the young face as it sternly leant
On the clenched hand, and never changed its gloom.

They brought him dainties which he never saw,
The choicest of the vintage, old and rare;
They culled fresh flowers he loved in happier hours,
And laid them near him with a silent awe,
But they all knew he knew not they were there.

Two days he sat with that awed Silence dread,
Death's silence, deeper than to be alone,
And you could hear hearts beat for very fear,
Noting the corded hand, and fixed head
Which stared at that white Form with eyes of stone.

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For as they went in pairs, and passed his door,
The charm of terror made them pause and look,
And by the sight rouse to more utter fright
Their beating hearts that trembled so, before,
And no control of reasoned thought would brook.

Eerie and lone, the east wind moaning low
Billowed the carpets high on lobby and stair,
The timid mouse went pattering through the house,
And from the roof a spider dropped below,
Knotting its thread to his unmoving hair.

The dog howled from his kennel, and his chain
Harsh grated, as the owl screeched from the barn,
A phantom fear seemed ever creeping near,
And in the wood the wild cat yelled amain,
And boomed the bittern from the lonely tarn.

He heeded not, for nought outside he knew,
Swept by the rush and whirl of maddening thought,
And deaf and blind, with agony of mind,
At that dark tale which ever darker grew,
And all his soul to desolation brought.

For she had been his bulwark 'gainst the sea
Of doubts that lashed, and vexed his unquiet spirit;
His forest-land that stayed the desert-band
And drifting sand-storms from the fields which he
Cultured and kept that God might them inherit.

Him she had straitly trained in ways of truth
And righteousness and piety and awe,
Nor spared the rod to drive him unto God,
But with a ruthless method taught him ruth,
And schooled him in the Gospel by stern law.

Yet for that all she taught was surely good,
And for that she exalted God supreme
In all she did, and all that she forbid,
And for that love wrought in her hardest mood,
To him she had been type of worth extreme.

Now, Heaven and all the gods rushed madly down,
Like Dagon's house when its main pillar fell:
And truth and right, and all things clean and white,
Angel and saint, and the Eternal crown,
All, all seemed lost in thickest smoke of Hell.

Gone the fond vision of his trustful youth,
Gone all the awe of natural reverence,
Gone the pure love that seemed of heaven above,
Gone all the certainty of worth and truth—
The fell-mist clouded every higher sense.

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Could that be true which she, in falsehood, taught?
Could that be good, which, being ill, she praised?
And oh the pain, the ache of heart and brain!
To think that mother could be base and naught,
On whom as God's stern witness he had gazed.

For still our common Heaven is seldom reared
On solid arch of reason, firmly built,
But the high Faith that has to vanquish death
Rests on the lap where first we prayed, and feared,
And wondered in the dawn of thought and guilt.

Still lies its weight on mother-love and truth;
And oh the sorrow if her truth should fail!
Still its strong bands are her so just commands;
And oh the weakness when they break! and youth
Finds its Heaven dark, and hears the night-winds wail!

On the third day, he went out on the hill,
And wandered restless, yet unwearying;
Then sat him down, and with a rigid frown
Gazed steadfast on the yellow tormentil,
And little milk-wort peeping through the ling.

Long there he sat, as one by some fell blow
Stunned, which had loosened every joint and band,
And cast into amazement strange and new
All ordered thought, so that he did not know
The marks and bearings now of sea or land.

But coming from the breezy mountain top,
All saw a change, and yet with pain they saw:
For lightsome now, the cloud swept from his brow,
Words fierce and bitter from his lips would drop,
And laughter too that made them creep with awe.

Far stranger than the silence and the gloom
Seemed now the order sharp, and words precise,
And the hard reason that sounded out of season,
And satire grim that mocked the very tomb,
And clear, cool sense, prompt with its fit advice.

Seemed never madness like that perfect sense,
Seemed never raving like that reason clear,
So out of place, so without touch of grace;
Even dull, dim souls that were of judgment dense
Drew off, estranged, and shivering, and with fear;

Which made him harder than he was before,
And tipped his mocking speech with sharper scorn,
Till they were all met for the funeral,
When the mad impulse taunted them, and tore
Away the mask from every face forlorn.

113

This was his thought, These neigh-bours all have known
The shameful fact, and yet have silence kept;
They made no din, for wealth can gild a sin;
They never told me, that I might atone,
But fawned like beaten hounds, and round her crept.

Hollow and false our life, and this they knew;
Hollow and false, although I knew it not;
And she is gone, and I am left alone,
To right the cruel wrong I did not do;—
So bitterly he spake from bitter thought.

THE WILL

Kinsmen and friends and neighbours, all of you
Giving me the sad honour of your presence,
I thank you, as I surely ought to do,
For judged by looks, you are not here for pleasance:
I see each face shaded by doleful gloom,
I hear but dismal whispers round the room;
And therefore the good custom of our land
Offers you wine and cake and potent spirit,
Which the sad heart, by scriptural command,
Should take upon occasion fit to cheer it:
Drink, then, and stint not whisky good or wine,
Your souls are heavy, and the cost is mine.
Friends, I am young; I wot not how the chief
Mourner should act on such occasions solemn,—
Whether to bury my face in handkerchief,
Or stand up silent as a marble column.
I ne'er was at a funeral before,
I never saw such faces as I see,
I never heard such creaking of a door,
And no one swearing at it furiously;
Perhaps I should be silent, or should groan—
All of you did it when our Pastor here
Spake of the crown which had become her own
The moment that she left our lower sphere;
Forgive me, friends; I am not used to these
Appropriate moans, appointed agonies,
Which sigh the weary to their place of rest,
And groan the saints to mansions of the blest.
The Pastor spoke good words and excellent—
I hope his name is mentioned in the Will;
It will be hard to have canonised a saint,
Yet find no church or cleric codicil
For all the charity that did by her
Handsomely, as became her minister—
Yet everybody groaned, and looked as sad
As if the glorious crown were something bad.
Now, for myself, when once the wick is crushed,
I ask not where the light is, which is not,
Nor where the music, when the harp is hushed,
Nor where the memory which is soon forgot.

114

Death comes to all; that's certain; heaven and hell
Are just as you believe, or don't believe:
But Faith is hard, and therefore we will leave
That matter, if you please, for time to tell:
But come or life or death, we all must dine,
And come or joy or sorrow, wine is good;
And be her gathered savings yours or mine,
The Will must needs be read and understood;
And therefore when we've laid her in the ground,
And smoothed the turf upon the lowly mound,
We'll dine here, if you please, and read the Will—
And by my Faith it will be rare to see
How sinks the glass of most sweet charity
At this bequest and that odd codicil.
Pray come; I've killed my beeves and broached my wine,
The living die, but living, they must dine;
The dead depart, but then their goods remain,
To soothe our sorrow, and relieve our pain.

Some murmured “Shameful!” “Shocking!” “Bad, too bad!”
“His mother's funeral too!” and “Drink, I fear!”
“Enough to call down judgments on us all”;
And others hinted that he must be mad;
Yet all came back to feast, who bore the bier.
And seated at the head of that full board,
Outstretching his great limbs, his eye on fire,
Young Austen quaffed the brimming ale, and laughed
A scornful laugh, and bade his guests accord
Good heed to duty ere they fed desire.

We'll take the Will first, as a tooth-some whet;
It's hanging o'er us like a pending debt,
Spoiling all appetite, forbidding rest
With hopes uncertain of a rich bequest:
Lo! here are cousins thrice-removed, but blood,
Thicker than water, sticks to one like mud.
When poor, they wounded not my mother's soul
With humbling gifts of money or of dress;
But if they shrank with sorrow to condole,
They failed not to congratulate success,
But when she needed nothing, nought they spared
In costly tokens of their fond regard.
The Will, the Will, then! she was good and wise;
Their blushing virtues, no doubt, they forgot,
And did all this as though they did it not;
And so the Will will be a glad surprise.
And you, her Pastor, faithful to your charge,
You scrupled not to tell her, round and large,
How hard the rich do find the way to heaven,
As camels through a needle's eye are driven.

115

She liked not sermons much, I must confess,
Even slighted them as marrowless dry-bones,
And wanting bread, she said they gave her stones,
But she could not forget your faithfulness.
Nor yours, good doctor, ever at her call,
But never called, because she physic hated,
Moreover she was never sick at all;
But still the yearly fee was ne'er abated,
Though powder, pill, or potion, great or small,
Blister or clyster, never knew in her
What healing virtues they might minister.

But where is she to whom the place belongs,
The bonnie May, so dear to all the glen,
Prankt with her flowers, and tripping to her songs
In those white robes that witched the hearts of men?
Old neighbours, ye whose lives are memories
Of better days, when all was sunny and blithe,
And in the wet grass ye would stay the scythe
To catch her greeting smile at sweet sunrise;
She came and went 'mong you a gleam of light,
That warmed the heart, and made the old Hall bright;
There was no mate seemed good enough for her,
Nor any fate but that she would confer
Honour upon it, as religion brings
Glory and beauty to the highest things.
Of course, you're here to see how wrong is righted,
And justice to the orphan is requited.
The Will, the Will, then; let us have the Will;—
For all our hopes it surely must fulfil.

They understood him not, but felt the tone
Of irony that hardened all his speech,
And mocking laughter that, coming quickly after,
Crept fast, and tingled keen through flesh and bone.
With shock of shame as deep as words might reach.

But when the Will was read which all bequeathed,
Monies and lands, unto her only son,
Nor other name named, but with mark of shame
Or bitter taunt, a biting scorn that breathed—
A scorn she never hid, and spared to none;

Straightway they rose in wrath, and left untasted
The ample viands, scowling as they went;
And silent long, remembered now the wrong
Done to the heir, nor heeded, as they hasted,
His urgent pleas that they were weak and faint.

Surely they needed food, and must not go
Till they had tried his beeves, and drunk his wine;
Would not the priest say grace for them at least?
And might not some strong waters break the blow?
But only the cool lawyer stayed to dine.

116

He stayed to dine, and yet he did not dine;
For lo! the heir must have the village poor
To eat the feast, unblessed by Christian priest;
And he too high and dainty was, and fine,
And flouncing forth, indignant, banged the door.

So, with the lame and halt and maimed and blind,
And all the pauper world for miles about,
The feast was high, and noisy revelry,
And with their songs they startled the night wind,
And shook their tattered duds with drunken shout.

For he, with strange, wild recklessness would stir
All weird and eerie thoughts to feed his mood,
And nought too grim or gruesome seemed for him;
Maddened, that night, by memory of her,
He shrank from all pure springs of bright or good.

So it went on until the morning broke;
And when the morning broke he was alone,
The household all had vanished from the Hall
At the strange coming of the beggar folk,
And now again he felt his heart like stone.

One only word he spake: “O misery!
Never to see her, hear her nevermore,
No hope of change—oh pitiful and strange!
And she went drifting on that sunless sea,
And she lies wrecked upon that silent shore!
“Dead! and this wrong unrighted, unrepented!
Dead! and to me this horrible bequest!
Dead! and my faith, too, dying in her death!
Mother, O mother!—if you had relented!
But now there is no joy for me or rest!”

And at the morning's dawn he rose and went
All through the house, and every window barred,
And every door he locked on every floor,
And with the keys his weary way he bent
Along the mountain pathway, rough and hard.

Faintly the sunshine tipped the clouds with red,
Faintly the spring-birds fluttered into song,
The mountain stream rippled as in a dream,
And dream-like in the mist the sleek kine fed
On the low meadows, moving slow along.

And slow and weary up the glen he passed,
Weary and slow amid the dim, slant light,
Until he stood beside the old pine-wood
Above the red crag which its shadow cast
O'er the dark pool, and water-lilies white.

All round the rim still rustled the tall sedge,
Broad leaves of lily paved the pool within,

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The water-hen, unconscious now of men,
Oared herself, rippling outward from the edge.
And with her young brood paddled out and in.

And standing in the pine-wood's darkling shade,
He hurled the keys down, with a mighty curse
Upon his lips! his soul in dark eclipse,
And with the keys, the Will that she had made,
And strode in gloom across the moor and furze.

But as he sped along that trackless way,
Stumbling o'er snake-like roots that twisted white
On the black peat, and caught his hurrying feet,
The strong-knit moral fibre claimed its sway,
And kindlier feelings brought a sweeter light:—

A sweeter light that humbled him, and shed
Upon his jagged nature calm rebuke,
And made him hate his anger passionate;
And by and by he lifted up his head,
Knitting his forehead with a resolute look.

Lord God, to whom the hidden things belong,
Pardon my burdened, darkened spirit, long
Prying at every crevice of this wrong.

Burdened and darkened, mad to find some light,
And in my madness making deeper night;
Calm Thou my heart, and help me to do right.

I do remember her, the gentle May,
Like a soft morning star whose melting ray
Hung, lingering, dewy o'er mine early day;

Faint as a dream of something white and pure,
A shapeless form that search would not endure,
Which ever changing, ever seemed unsure;

Yet ever in its wavering loveliness,
It brought to me a sense of tender bliss,
Like lips that from the past clung with a kiss

A downy cheek that warmly lay on mine,
And eyes that shined on me a light divine;—
A shadow, and its voice an echo fine!

One task remains to me; let me but find
The secret of those children left behind;
No oath that binds to wrong can ever bind.

Or if it do, better the curse I bore
Than bind upon a mother evermore
This bitter wrong, and bolt her prison door.

Too late? I know not, for He changeth not;
Too late? Our hearts change, and they change our lot;
Who ever changed, and yet no mercy got?

But be it fruitful of a curse on me;
And be it fruitless, mother, now to thee;
It is the right, and that is all we see.