The poetical works of Henry Alford :: :: University of Virginia Library

“Whether it be love, or it be science, that we handle, or whatever art pursue into its more secret places and higher forms, we must confess that we shall have found at length something (and that whereon all doth depend) which neither is nor belongs to, ourselves.”

In converse with a dear companion, the sources, progress, and accessories of youthful love are shown; and how this was not sufficient for the heart which yearned after the glories of God's Church.

The spring is coming round—the buds have burst,
And on the coppice-path, and in the bower,
The leaping spray of sunlight leaf-inwrought
Sports to the gentle bidding of the breeze:
And far away into the inner grove,

Bright green, the mosses cluster on the stems,
Till where the thickest arbour doth embower
Sweet solitary flowers of meekest eye,
That dwell for ever with the silent dews.
Sweet partner of my hopes, who through the young
And sunny years of life hast been to me
An opening bud most delicately nursed,
Methinks this day hath risen upon us two
As on the joyous earth and teeming wood—
To summon into life the folded flowers,
And bid our plant of love spring boldly up,
Fearing no check from frost, or blighting dew.
No one is present with us; none is here
But thou and I; so I may tell my thoughts,
Now thou hast picked thine apron full of flowers;
For I have much to tell.

Along the east
The clear pale light of the morn is brooding still;
And down our favourite path, on either side,
The little leaves are glittering in the sun;
So we will talk away the morning-tide
Under the soft bright April. Let us sit
Together on that slope, where cluster thick
The full-blown primroses, and playfully
The tender drooping wood-anemones
Toss to the breeze in turn their silver bells.

'Tis long since we were free to while away
So many hours in converse: and I feel
Strange yearnings to pour out my inner soul,
To open forth unto thee all the stores
Whereby my spirit hath been furnished
For the great war with evil.

Few have lived
As we have lived, unsevered; our young life
Was but a summer's frolic: we have been
Like two babes passing hand in hand along
A sunny bank on flowers. The busy world
Goes on around us, and its multitudes
Pass by me, and I look them in the face,
But cannot read such meaning as I read
In this of thine; and thou too dost but move
Among them for a season, but returnest
With a light step and smiles to our old seats,
Our quiet walks, our solitary bower.
Some we love well; the early presences
That were first round us, and the silvery tones
Of those most far-away and dreamy voices
That sounded all about us at the dawn
Of our young life,—these, as the world of things
Sets in upon our being like a tide,
Keep with us, and are ever uppermost.
And some there are, tall, beautiful, and wise,
Whose step is heaven ward, and whose souls have past
Out from the nether darkness, and been born
Into a new and glorious universe,
Who speak of things to come; but there is that
In thy soft eye and long-accustomed voice
Would win me from them all.

For since our birth
Our thoughts have flowed together in one stream:
All through the seasons of our infancy
The same hills rose about us—the same trees,
Now bare, now sprinkled with the tender leaf,
Now thick with full dark foliage; the same church,

Our own dear village-church, has seen us pray,
In the same seat, with hands clasped side by side;
And we have sung together; and have walked
Full of one thought, along the homeward lane;
And so were we built upwards for the storm
That on my walls hath fallen unsparingly,
Shattering their frail foundations; and which thou
Hast yet to look for,—but hast found the help
Which then I knew not—rest thee firmly there!

When first I issued forth into the world,
Well I remember—that unwelcome morn,
When we rose long before the accustomed hour
By the faint taper-light; and by that gate
We just now swung behind us carelessly,
I gave thee the last kiss:—I travelled on,
Giving my mind up to the world without,
Which poured in strange ideas of strange things,
New towns, new churches, new inhabitants:—
And ever and anon some happy child
Beneath a rose-trailed porch played as I past:
And then the thought of thee swept through my soul.
And made the hot drops stand in either eye:—
And so I travelled—till between two hills,
Two turf-enamelled mounds of brightest green,
Stretched the blue limit of the distant sea,
Unknown to me before:—then with strange joy,
Forgetting all, I gazed upon that sea,
Till I could see the white waves leaping up,
And all my heart leapt with them:—so I past
Southward, and neared that wilderness of waves,
And stopt upon its brink; and when the even
Spread out upon the sky unusual clouds,

I sat me down upon a wooded cliff,
Watching the earth's last daylight fade away,
Till that the dim wave far beneath my feet
Did make low moanings to the infant moon,
And the lights twinkled out along the shore;
Then I looked upwards, and I saw the stars,
Sirius, Orion, and the Northern Wain,
And the Seven Sisters, and the beacon-flame
Of bright Arcturus,—every one the same
As when I showed them thee.—“But yesternight,”
I said, “she gazed with me upon those stars:
Why did we not agree to look on them
Both at one moment every starlight night,
And think that the same star beheld us both?”

But I shall weary thee.—That very night,
As I past shorewards under the dark hills,
I made a vow that I would live on love,
Even the love of thee;—this all my faith,
My only creed, my only refuge this.
So day past after day; and every one
Gave me a fainter image of thy face,
Till thou wert vanished quite: nor could I then—
No, not with painful strain of memory,
Bring back one glimpse of thy lost countenance.
Then I would sit and try to hear thy voice,
And catch and lose its tones successively,
Till that, too, left me—till the very words
Which thou hadst written had no trace of thee—
But it was pain to see them. So my soul,
Self-bound and self-tormented, lingered on,
Evermore vainly striving after love,
Which evermore fled from her, till at last

She ceased to strive, and sunk, a lifeless thing—
No sense, no vigour—dead to all around,
But most to thee. Meanwhile the golden hours
Of life flowed on apace, but weary seemed
The universe of toil, weary the day;
I had no joy but sleep, rare visitant
Of my lone couch.

What times of purest joy
Were then my brief returns:—what greetings then,
What wanderings had we on our native slopes:
What pleasant mockings of the tearful past.
And I remember well, one summer's night,
A clear, soft, silver moonlight, thou and I
Sat a full hour together silently,
Looking abroad into the pure pale heaven:
Perchance thou hast forgotten; but my arm
Was on thy shoulder, and thy clustering locks
Hung lightly on my hand, and thy clear eye
Glistered beside my forehead; and at length
Thou saidst, “'Tis time we went to rest;” and then
We rose and parted for the night. No words
But those were spoken, and we never since
Have told each other of that moment. Oft
Has it come o'er me, and I oft have thought
Of sharing it with thee; but my resolve
Has been spread over with a thousand things
Of various import, till this April morn,
And we have shared it now.

But soon again
I left my home. There was no beauty now
Of lands new seen, but the same dreary road
Which bore me from thee first. I had no joy
In looking on the ocean; and, full sad

With inward frettings and unrest, I reached
That steep-built village on the southern shore.

Sometimes I wandered down the wooded dells
That sloped into the sea, and sat me down
On piles of rocks, in a most private place,
Not without melody of ancient stream
Down-dripping from steep sides of brightest moss,
And tumbling onwards through the dark ravine;
While the lithe branches of the wizard elm
Dangled athwart the deep blue crystalline.—
Often the memory comes o'er me now,
Like life upon a long-entrancèd corpse.
I knew not then aught of that inner soul
That giveth life to beauty—knew not then,
How moments of most painful vacancy
In beauty's presence, print their footmarks deep
On the soul's pathways, and how glory and light
Shine from them at a distance;—how we gather
Our treasures in the shade, and know them not
Till they steal lustre from the living sun,
Flattering the new-born vision of our souls
With richest stores of unprovided joy.

Sometimes I sat and strove to gather hope
Out of the blank cold future; but the years
Of onward life grew darker as I looked:
I saw sad shapes mustered along the path,
Beckoning with silent finger, and young hopes
That bloomed most delicately, stretched clay-cold
And ghastly pale upon the earth; and then
Hot tears burst from me, and my sinful soul
Wept herself dry in utter solitude.

Tears may not wash away the spirit's stain:—
The soul that sitteth down in dreariness,

Telling her sorrow to herself alone,
Is not the purest; for the very sting
Of the heart's bitterness hath power to spread
Most pestilent corruption, and its wound
Festereth within untended. Sin is a fire
Self-hated, self-tormenting—a wild pest
Of rabid flame, that roareth to be quenched,
And may not but in blood. Sin will have blood;
And if it find it not, will wrench abroad
The very heart that holds it, and will dip
Its hissing fangs deep in the purple stream,
Tainting the very issues of all life
With foul black drops of death; and, not so quenched,
Feed on the young supplies of vital joy,
Scorching the inner fountains of the soul.

But, like the sunrise on the dark wild sea,
There rose upon my spirit a great light:—
I was like one fast fettered in a cave,
Before whose dull and night-accustomed eyes
Some naphtha-fire, up-flaring from behind,
Marshals strange shadows on the rifted vault:—
Till there came by One of mild countenance,
And beautiful apparel, at whose touch
My chains fell round me, and I followed on
Up rugged steeps into the outer day:
But so sight-blasting was that lurid night,
That the clear light was all too pure for me,
The gentle moon too beautiful: but soon
I shall look forth undazzled; and ere long,
With purified and unbeclouded sight,
Gaze the broad sunshine in his place on high.

—“She hath loved much, and therefore is forgiven:”
Then Love is first; and, in the sleep of sin,
Come sudden startings of brief consciousness,
And breaks in the dull slumber, as from sounds
Of sweetest music, that give instant joy,
But mix the after-dreams with strange regret;—
As one who, wandering in the summer night,
Is ware of sudden light, and, looking up
Betwixt Orion and the Pleiades,
Sees pass along a trail of white star-fire,
That fades upon the night and leaves no trace;
One moment he rejoices, but the next
His soul is sad, because he is alone:—
Or (for we love to chase similitude
Into its close recesses when we speak
Of things but shadowed forth and half-defined)
Like one who hath seen play across his path
A glimmer of faint lightning, and stands still,
Breathlessly waiting, till the deep long moan
Of far-off thunder from a low-hung cloud
Hath died into the air,—then sets he forth,
By slopes of bright green larch, and hedgerows sweet
With thickest roses, to the cottaged knoll,
Where gleams against the blackness, pinnacled
From out its elms, his light, tall village tower

What can be purer than a soul forgiven?
He who hath never fallen, may err perchance
In the admission of a vague desire;
But when the spirit hath come out from thrall
Into the upper air of liberty,
She hath no backward longings, but looks on
Up the steep pathways of unfolding light.

Knowest thou not that it is sweetest far
After the languid pulse and sunken eye,
To go abroad beneath the sunny heaven,
Freely to breathe, and feel through all the frame
The indifference of justly-balanced health?

It may be that all evil teems with good:
It may be that the sorrows of this state
Are but the birth-pangs of a glorious life,
And all the hindrances of mortal flesh
A grosser matter than shall polish off,
Brightening the silver which it erst obscured.—

But stay we here, for we may search no more:
The heart is deeper than the power of words:
And language, many-voiced, doth not suffice
For all the combinations of pure thought;—
Even in the reasonings of the over-wise
Speech hath a limit, which she may not pass;
Then how much rather, when we talk of Love.

I have been somewhat cruel to thy flowers:
For I have cheated them of a few days
Of modest pride; they might have lived, perchance,
Hung round our shady arbour, duly fed
From the evening water-pot;—or, for quaint show,
Stuck deftly among leaves that knew them not,
Puzzled the after-thoughts of passers-by.
Their bloom is shed; but I have fetched for thee
Flowers blooming in the inner grove of thought,
Sweet nurslings of a never-fading spring—
The sunshine trophies of a victory
Fought for in frosts and darkness, and achieved
Only by light from heaven to see my foes.

Plato, Repub. b. vii. 1.