University of Virginia Library

O tender youngling of the flock, 'twixt whom
And me no bright entrancing bonds may live
Of mutual thought and close fraternal love,
Ripening thro' happy interchange of deep
Large secrets, and the intimate communing
Of equal spirits; who to me dost prove
Only a petted plaything, to be kiss'd
And fondled with quaint pranks of babyhood;
Who windest sunny flowers about my heart,
But where no warmth for the cold winter-time
Nor comfort dwells: how can I choose but wish
That thee some earlier birth and near my own
Had lighted up from the other life to this!
So hadst thou been to me a nest for all
My timid speechless thoughts, which from thy fond
Discourse and that dear fostering neighbourhood
Had caught expressive voicefulness unknown
Before; so hadst thou been a quiet tarn
Where pent-up feelings had gush'd forth and slept
Themselves to peace in its sweet sympathy;
My crown of joys hadst been, and in all grief
The oblivious poppy over aching brows,
Moist with cool-dropping kisses, thou hadst twined.

O chiefly blest—whether in ingle nook
Or banner'd hall or warm luxurious room—
Who find around the loved paternal hearth
Some one twin-spirit, dearer than the rest
As likest to their own,—with whom apart,
Nursing her trusted face, to sit and feel
Each other's thoughts, till from the silence grow
Low earnest whispers, deepening thro' long eves
Of twilight intercourse and loving talk
Most unreserved and holy! Surely this
Is Love's delight indeed,—by thought of self
Or passion'd touch unstain'd.

O once there came
Near me a gentle girl,—a child in years,
But with the golden earnest of her prime
Most rich about her—looking like the dream
Of a fair Future, all the more divine
As yet unmoulded into shape and free
For Fancy's ripening touch to dash new tints
And graces o'er the undevelop'd whole:
She, being at rest, did dwell apart from thought,
Possess'd of passive beauty and a vague
Large heaven of unexerted love—a crude
Chaotic Eden, where no creature was,
But all fair things were just about to be,
And holy thoughts and good were evermore
In motion to be born; but, when she spoke,
The silent light within her honied eyes
Grew speechful, kindling upward as it felt
A quickening soul, and, looking out between
Long dimpling waves of rich untrammell'd hair,
Awoke the slumbering sweetness of her mouth
To some expressive meaning sweeter still.

Her by the craggy margin of the sea
My mated steps did lead; a gentle thing,
And most refreshing to the weary sense
Cloy'd with thick glut of creatures all untrue
And erring, who, in fairest excellent guise
Boasting to train their fragrant womanhood
And feed its large capacities to life
Most full, most pure, most delicate, do yet
For not a part in all their complex selves
Owe suit to Nature! Not with eyes like theirs
She look'd across my face into the blue,
And watch'd the pleasant lights arise and move
Along its waters, rippling to the shore,
And smiled to see how beautiful the Earth
Did make herself, smoothing and silencing
Her ruffled charms, and rising thro' her soil'd
Hot robes against the coming of the Night,—
And wonder'd if there could be any joys
That lived away from these and dared not come
To shame their bliss beside them. Thus with blithe
And girlish talk we shorten'd the sweet length
Of sward upon the cliff; and evermore
By conscious slides inwoven stealthily,
She in the rounded hollow of my arm
Was half enwrapt, nor sought to move away.

Then did I probe more deep toward the core
Of her dear nature, trenching bold and far
On the grim bounds of common intercourse;
And spake of sisters and a sister's love,
And spake of brothers and a brother's needs,
And how the young affections and the fond
Instinctive bias of their unripe souls
Centre in her; and upward, how the large
Fair workings out and due developments
Of all within them lives of good and pure,
From opening childhood to the dawn of Love—
Yea and beyond—are minister'd of her.
Thus I—nor more; for then I did perceive
Within the artless meek simplicity
Of her sweet acts a new existence rise,—
An inner strange reluctance—a decline,
Faint and most vague, from that close confidence
Wherein we revell'd. Ah, I saw it born—
Not yet a thought, but only like the pause
'Ere Feeling changes,—saw it rise, and soon
Over the fair horizon of her brows
Blush into consciousness.

It was the voice
Of one that cried in the rich wilderness
Of her young heart concerning things to come:
Strange things, that made her shudder with delight,
And quake with doubt and dread: 'twas the thick breath
Of tropic airs, or shreds of wondrous things
That floated on the waves about her soul
And prophesied new worlds: it was a range
Of busy shadows in the lively clouds,
Telling of deeds that in some far-off zone
The round earth hides. Oh, she nor knew the voice,
Nor kenn'd the warm exotic gusts, nor read
The meaning of those spectres in the clouds:
But I knew—thro' her green full-foliaged life,
Twinkling with starry fruit to the quick winds
And promise ever-new, I saw it glide—
The lean lithe snake—and in her glowing ear
Hiss the new knowledge which in this our land,
Like a mad mother, leaves its proper child
The foundling Modesty, and slinks away
To suckle broods of stiff Proprieties,—
A sickly spawn and heated into life
Apart from nature: hiss thro' her hot ear
The first faint thought of coming Womanhood.

She knew that she was naked—she perceived
That like a veilless Venus she had stood,
Not unadored, before me. The black truth
Was rousing all that never woke before—
All false refinement, all remember'd rules
Till then unknown, and kneading all things up
To shame within her; But with stern resolve,
Ere she had wove the near obsequious words
To a scant garment, and array'd herself
In tatters of convention, I swept off
My clinging soul from hers, and rising up
Like a young storm upon the mountains, crush'd
My bruised hopes into atoms at a stroke:
And with no pitiless eyes, but full of mute
Indignant sorrow, and strong self-reproach
That any yearnings should have hoisted sail
I' the teeth of prudence, silent moved away
Toward mine ancient dwelling in the tombs.

O little sister, not unlike to her
Thou shalt arise—but lovelier unto me,
In that thou art for evermore a friend:
Thee from the chaos of thy babyhood
And this blind feeble working to and fro
Of undevelopt natures, our strong hands
Shall lift with odours and blithe minstrelsy
Into the zones of order and repose;
Not soulless order, stagnant dull repose,
But such wherein the patient faculties,
Woo'd of congenial atmosphere serene,
May grow to symmetry. Thy spirit thus
Shall fructify and prosper, like a thought
Within a human soul, that hath its birth
Upon the godlike hills, and is wrought out
By meditation and intent desire
To something heavenlier still. All lovelinesses
That dwell upon the face and on the limbs
Shall come and cluster round thee like a hive
Of vernal bees; in light and elegance
And pure nobility, the fair Greek forms
Repeat themselves in thee; nor only thus,
But all the secret sculptors from within
Shall shape thy lucid features and thine eyes
To more intelligent beauty; and untaught,
I' the growth of understanding, shalt thou be,
And slow unconscious budding of the mind,
To clasp the feet of patronising gods
And send thy helpless soul incessant up
In steams of adulation; nor allow
The bulk of Knowledge to o'ershadow thee
And in the warm and hissing vase of Life
Foam out her frigid fountains without stint
Method or law: Beloved, thou shalt learn
To think—to give a reason of all loves
And young opinions cooling o'er thy soul;
To cull with wisest fingers and discreet
The scatter'd worth of books and scenes and men,
And range them round a Central Principle,
Elect and precious, lasting, sure, divine,—
And spread them softly under thee, until
In every nook and corner of thy heart
Pillow'd on some sweet truth thou mayst abide,
And be at rest for ever.

Having grown
Thus patiently and pure, until thy face,
Coming and wooing for the nightly kiss,
Ask scarce a bend, nor need our loving lips
Stoop far to melt and soften against thine,—
Thou shalt discourse at quiet times with me
Concerning things of old—the excellence
And fair proportion of thine upward course—
The truths thou knowest, or wouldst know—the glints
Of glory that have shot across thy soul
Out of the early dark, which doth evolve
New orbs and sudden comets evermore
Upon thy keener gaze; shalt touch again
The blithe quick bells of childhood, and with joy
Rain the sweet memories from thy soul like tears
Into the lap of mine; unfolding too
Whate'er thou hast of purpose and of hope—
Fair seedlings of that unborn coronal
The years do string for thee. And 'ere we cease
And part, perchance with silverest voice serene
Of girlish gratitude thou shalt declare
‘I knew not then, but now I dearly know
The meaning of thy love—how tenderly
We two have grown inwoven, till at length
Thou art a best of brothers to my heart,
And I a perfect sister unto thee.’