Poems: By Menella Bute Smedley :: :: University of Virginia Library

A CHARACTER.

So noble that he cannot see
He stands in aught above the rest,
But does his greatness easily,
And mounts his scaffold with a jest;

Not vaunting any daily death,
Because he scorns the thing that dies,
And not in love with any breath
That might proclaim him grand or wise.

Not much concerned with schemes that show
The counterchange of weak with strong,
But never passing by a woe,
Nor sitting still to watch a wrong.

Of all hearts careful save his own;
Most tender when he suffers most;
Wont, if a foe must be o'erthrown,
To count, but never grudge the cost.

Sharp insight, severing with a glance
Greater from less, from substance shade;
Faith, in gross darkness of mischance
Unable to be much afraid;

Out-looking eyes that seek and scan,
Ready to love what they behold;
Quick reverence for his brother-man;
Quick sense where gilding is not gold.

Such impulse in his self-control,
It seems a voluntary grace,
The careless grandeur of a soul
That holds no mirror to its face.

True sympathy, a light that grows
And broadens like the summer morn's;
A hope that trusts before it knows,
Being out of tune with all the scorns.

On-moving, temperately intent
On radiant ends by means as bright,
And never cautious, but content
With all the bitter fruits of right.

Under this shade the tired may lie,
Worn with the greatness of their way;
Under this shield the brave may die,
Aware that they have won the day.

For such a leader lifts his times
Out of the limits of the night,
And, falling grandly, while he climbs,
Falls with his face toward the height.

A CONTRAST.

Trained tenderly by Heaven and Earth,
Up grew she to her gentle height,—
Grew to the level of the light
That shines by every placid hearth.

Her days so filled with joyful hopes,
If any one should fade and fail,
She hath no leisure to bewail;
As shuts the rose, the lily opes;

As blooms the lily, dies the rose;
And she can hardly see to choose,
Among the glitter of the dews,
'Twixt hope that comes and joy that goes.

For that she had was pure and sweet;
It lies upon her breast, a balm;
And that she seeks is sweet and calm;
It breathes a perfume at her feet.

And all around the world she looks,
And wonders about grief and sin;
She hath no evidence within;
She only knows of them in books.

Sometimes a little evil voice
Speaks, and is silenced by a prayer;
Sometimes she sees the face of Care,
That having wept, she may rejoice.

She touches sorrow with her hand,
Taught softly not to shrink nor frown,
But bring her pity bravely down
To depths she cannot understand.

The love which is her living fence
(No barrier, but an atmosphere)
Makes all surrounding shapes of fear
Servants and shields for innocence.

Her daily food of joy endues
Her aspect with such powers and signs,
That for all sadder hearts she shines
A very angel of good news.

The glorying eyes that watch her growth
Appeal to all the world around,
“Was ever such a maiden found?”
And “Who is worthy of her troth?”

Yet, under all, the feeling lurks,
As ever since the world began,
To make a helpmeet for a man
Is woman's perfectest of works.

So this fair pageant of her life,
This gradual walk through upward ways,
This melody of tuneful days,
Must finish in the name of wife.

But, slow of choice (no fairy now
Brings the fit princess to her prince),
Thought-shadows scarce have deepened since
Childhood lay smooth upon her brow.

And many a boldness fails before
The bright composure of her glance,
And stayed is many a swift advance,
And powerless much of worldly lore.

Checked hopes rebel; the mothers cry,
“See to what end these dreamers come!
She hath no heart except for home,
And man shall never hear her sigh!”

The sons among themselves aver
Their taste is for a shallower strain;
They have not cared to woo in vain;
They pass their blunders on to her.

But here and there a soul receives
Unconscious vision of its queen,
And fragrance as from flowers unseen
That have not yet come through the leaves.

You hear the soothing talk of some,
“They would not,—if they would they might,”
With vexed denials of the light,
And prophecies, “Her day shall come.”

But she through all the tumult sings
Delightsome melodies of dawn,
And sees not any shadow drawn
Upon the whiteness of her wings.

How first her tardy trouble grew
The watchers saw not; keen and wise
To note a difference in her eyes,
Yet it was there before they knew.

A dream with no interpreter,
The weaving of a happy spell
With some mute pathos of farewell,
Not hers, but childhood leaving her.

As if pale opal depths should warm
And kindle till the gem became
A living miracle of flame
Without its first mysterious charm;

So that capacity which lay
In the last petal of the flower
Becomes a fire, a pang, a power,
To sweep the softer life away.

Reluctant and ashamed, she sees
Her simple sovereignty depart;
And loses patience with her heart,
And pleads for strength upon her knees,

And tells herself 'tis false, and shakes
The trifle from her maiden fame;
Yet blushes when she thinks his name,
And knows each movement that he makes;

And finds herself in sudden tears,
Scorns her sweet nature as a crime,
Looks to the coming calm of Time,
And longs to overleap the years.

O little garden in the wood,
So full of safe and tender bloom!
God guide the footsteps that presume
To break thy breezeless solitude.

God bless the deed! for it is done,
The moment is proclaimed at last;
A word divides her from her past;
Her song is sung, her life begun.

He came from unfamiliar ways
To pluck this blossom for his breast,
With this one merit, that he guessed
At treasures hidden from his gaze.

From unfamiliar ways he came;
If you had set them side by side,
His life and her unsullied tide,
You might have thought his love was shame.

So judge not men. His name stood well;
He sneered his tedious modern sneer
At everything above his sphere,
And was contented in his shell.

The cynic scorn, that should have mailed
A finer thought, went through his soul;
A mean ideal held the whole,
And kept his conscience unassailed.

He was not better than he seemed,
Nor worse than he desired; he gazed
With condescension and amazed
On good weak men who toiled and dreamed.

That old name-heritage, which grew
In deeper days, is still the plan,
Though our serener “gentleman”
Shrink from the rigorous line it drew.

Not chivalrous, methinks, is he;
Not very truthful, for he needs
To hide at home his daily deeds,
On pretext “women should not see.”

But brave at heart and blithe of cheer,
A generous smile, a courtly glance,
A foot unrivalled in the dance,
The bearing of a cavalier;

Smooth polished by his upper throng,
And charitable as the light;
For they who burn not for the right
Find free excuses for the wrong.

She, in her listening sweetness, tries
The natural music of her part,
And, looking upward, thinks his heart
As much above her as his eyes.

Too wise to share her childish heat,
Too great to kindle when she moves,
Yet lifting her, because he loves,
From her due station at his feet.

He puts each nobler utterance by,
And scorns himself for what he is;
She (how she trusts!) reveres in this
Some choice reserve of modesty.

“I talk, he does; 'tis English rule
To do the deed and leave the talk;
I too, when at his side I walk,
May learn in such a lofty school.”

She goes so gaily to her fate;
They who might rescue stand afar:
“He is a man as others are,
And fit for any woman's mate.”

He loves her;—what do women seek?
Henceforth 'tis well; the two are one,
And that unholy past is done
Of which she must not ask nor speak.

He drops into his purer place
(These stronger beings must begin
With their full privilege of sin).
If there be memories in his face

Which daze her, she need never know
What comes between him and his bliss;
She only asks for leave to kiss
Some sudden aching from his brow.

But how these daily lives can blend
(I set a problem of the time),
Whose thought shall sink and whose may climb,
And whence the light, and what the end,

'Tis hard to guess. The day may break
When that slow painful pile of truth
Is heaped at last, and all her youth
Has but to mount and die awake.

When, film by film, the colours fade,
And she, where she believed, beholds,
And has no further hope, and folds
Her life into a prayer for aid:

Or sometimes, with a weary smile,
Remembers what she dreamed, and sighs,
And shuts her unreproachful eyes,
And whispers, “Yet a little while.”

Or her blind heart may stoop and lean
To where he stands, until she move
Under the burden of a love
Which will not let the sky be seen,

Till daily watch on ways of his
Makes her degrade the type, because
She will not see the broken laws;—
I think she will be saved from this.

Or—Let us lift the veil a space
From the last chance! She takes his hand,
While thoughts he does not understand
Have drawn the colour from her face.

“What is it, love?” He knows his power;
He holds her gently. Then she speaks,
And that pure paleness of her cheeks
Trembles and flushes like a flower.

“You must not frown. I have a shame,
A something which you ought to know;
I should have told it long ago,—
You will forgive, though you must blame:

“Before you wooed me I was sought,—
I know not why. I told you true,
I never cared for man but you,
Yet once I wavered in my thought.

“And I was vain, as girls are vain,
But, O! it was a fault to play
With one true spirit for a day!
I could not do the deed again.”

“So I, most confident of men,
Was not the first!” She shook her head;
For, “O! it was a fault!” she said,
And “I have wept for it since then.”

And “O! it was a fault!” he says,
And puts it from him as a jest;
Yet takes the word into his breast,
To keep it there for many days.

The wonder of that fault! It grows,
It speaks and thrills him in the night,
Till his cleansed eyes perceive the light
Of something purer than he knows.

White soul, with such a fault! He thinks,
Is, then, the darker soul more strong
Because it does the deeper wrong?
Because it fails? because it sinks?

Lo, touch by touch, a hand unseen
Paints a slow picture in his thought,
He cannot choose but see it wrought;
He knows such beauty may have been;

He knows it is! He once was blind,
But by this soft home-light discerns
Things he believed not once, and learns
To think more truly of his kind.

So for a year he holds his peace,
And meditates on noble things,
And listens while a seraph sings,
And all the meaner voices cease.

Till, laughing once, she says with pride,
“See, love, how sage your wife has grown!
You never check her with that tone
Of fond contempt you gave your bride.”

He looks at her with reverent eyes,
He clasps her with a generous shame;
“There was a revelation came
From your angelic fault!” he cries.

HERO HAROLD.

I.

In his tent, at fall of day,
Hero Harold loosed his mail,
As a bark which nears the bay
Drops on deck her clattering sail.

Eyes that look the looker through,
Brow that shame hath never bowed,
Lips that ne'er spake word untrue—
Where's a face so fair and proud?”

Came a stripling to the tent,
Watched him while an hour went round,
Saw his stately discontent,
Dared not greet him while he frowned.

Up the warrior looked at last,
“Friend” (his smile was something grim),
“Cheap thine hours, if one is past
Staring at my strength of limb!”

“Cheap my life,” the stripling cried,
“If it buy an hour for thee!
Harold! Death is at thy side—”
“There,” quoth Harold, “let him be.

“Death and I are friends of old.”
Then he spake in softer wise:
“Come thou near till all is told;
Shake the woman from thine eyes.

“Nothing in my life was made,
Since its fighting-days began,
Meet for laughter from a maid,
Or for weeping from a man.

“Warriors' tears are seeds of blood,
Girls go crying at a word,
Boys, if born for any good,
Cry for nothing but a sword!”

Sternly Siva set his face,
Smitten hard by friendly scorn,
And the babe in him gave place
To the savage lately born.

All the tender lines contract
When that fiery touch runs through;
As a Fancy to a Fact
Seems the old face to the new.

Change that melted as it came,
Swiftly as a hue of day.
But the face was not the same
When that moment passed away.

By such moments, hundred-fold,
Shaping life from now to then,
In those iron days of old
Babes were welded into men.

When the finished man appeared,
Strong and brave, and fierce and wild,
You might mutter to your beard,
“This has never been a child!”

Siva grasps the hero's hand:
“Hardly can I speak for shame,
For a lie is in the land,
And it creeps about thy name.

“When the silver daylight grew
Out of yonder gloomy hill,
Thorwold, found among the dew,
Lay, before his mother, still.

“Waked not when she kissed his lip,
Stirred not when they moved his sword;
Dumb as a forsaken ship,
Useless as a bowl outpoured!”

Harold shook his spear and laughed,
“Thorwold died; the word is true;
Still the point is on the shaft,
Who will try its force anew?

“On the broad noon-lighted plain
Fought we while the day went past,
Fought I till my foe was slain—
He is not the first nor last.

“Bid his mother cease to grieve,
She has still two sons of might;
Let them, ere another eve,
Strive to slay me in her sight!”

Siva spoke with burning cheek:
“There, where Thorwold lieth stark,
Not of sunny war they speak,
But of murder in the dark!”

“Who are these that say such things?”
This was all that Harold said,
But his face was as a king's
When he lifted up his head.

Out he thundered, scorning odds,
Stalked into the judgment-hall,
And his face was as a god's
When he stood before them all.

There, while warriors held their breath,
Uncomposed by patient hand
Thorwold lay, a heap of death,
Heavy on the hollowed sand.

Up, with tossing arms untwined,
Rose the mother of the Grave
(So when sinks a desperate wind
Rises one reluctant wave).

Silence waits about the place,
Hero Harold backward draws
When that white and withered face
Flashes on him in the pause.

Then the general wrath brake out
In a vast and bitter cry,
Then they judged him with a shout,
Bade him choose his death and die:

Through the forest's pathless dark
All a summer's day to flee,
Or to drift in oarless bark
At the pity of the sea.

So Huscárlas doom their dead.
Harold spake with open brow:
“Never yet my foot hath fled,
Death could never teach it how;

“Give me to the unconquered sea!
Daily, since the worlds begin,
She is beaten gloriously,
Only to return and win.”

Siva panted, “Let him go!
Three must doom him!” “Three shall doom!”
Echo answers black and slow
From the brothers of the Tomb.

Forth they pace, and as by force,
Yet with calm and reverent hands,
Lift the mother from the corse
Till between her sons she stands.

Blood-drops on her silver hair,
From the bosom of the dead;
In her settled eyes' despair,
Hunger, that shall soon be fed.

From the Dark Decisive Three,
Lead they Harold to the strand,
Set his boat upon the sea,
Part the cable from the land;

Watch him through the sinking light
With his face toward the hills,
Where through spreading tracts of night
Shine the many-threaded rills.

Eyes that look the lookers through,
Brow that shame hath never bowed,
Lips that ne'er spake word untrue,
Where's a face so fair and proud?

Watched on every moving crest,
Lost in every hollow space,
Drifts the hero to his rest
With the sunset on his face;

Till where purple curves are high.
On the last faint fading line,
Into that unfathomed sky,
Down he drops without a sign.

II.

Under windless domes of sky,
Gradual blue that dips to gold,
Under clouds that where they lie
Melt, but never move a fold,

Slow soft dawns, unwilling, pale,
Of the coming noon afraid;
Films of moonlight, dewy, frail
(O! how fair in forest glade!),

Over crystal breadths that take
Light and shadow like a plain,
Moved by secret powers to make
Scarce a ripple in its train,

Drifts the bark; with softer will
Floats not any poisèd bird,
When the governed airs are still,
By no noise of plumage stirred.

Not a murmur where she drifts
Creeps to any listening cave;
Not a breath of summer lifts
Any foam-drop from a wave.

Where, unseen, the movements steal
Parted waters hardly chafe;
Just a whisper at the keel
Sayeth ever, “Still and safe.”

Like a chord that splits apart
Halfway through some placid psalm,
Showed that stormy face and heart
In the centre of the calm.

Ardours of rejoicing strife,
Mere delights of strength were there,
Agonies of hope and life
On the bosom of despair.

Now the morning time comes back,
All besprent with growing lights;
Now his foot is on the track,
Mounting to heroic heights.

Ha! the world is full of shouts,
Battle thunders on the blast,
He, with hand on falchion, doubts—
Is he waking? is it past?

But the waters close and clasp
All about his bright desire,
Soft as any loving grasp,
Ruthless as a ring of fire.

And the stillness and the sway
Of the boat, the sky, the deep,
Seem to coax his heart away
Till it drifts with them asleep.

As a dreamy touch that strays
On the keys at set of sun
Opens up a thousand ways,
Ceases ere it follows one;

So his eyes grow vague and vain,
Heavy with a hope unfound,
So the prelude of his strain
Dies in silence, not in sound.

Have you seen a sudden ray
Break into some woodland gloom,
Showing, shedding on its way
Streams of unsuspected bloom?

Waking where its tremors move
Such new glory in the place,
As the blush and smile of love
Wake on some neglected face?

What you saw was fair and sweet;
Fairer, sweeter far, I ween,
Flash of Ebba's dancing feet
Down the seaward slopes of green.

Where they pass, wind, water, hill,
Sing and quiver with delight;
When they pause, the world is still,
Watching for a second flight.

Now they touch the spray and swerve,
Now they brave it,—see her stand
With the shallow crystal curve
At her ankle's golden band.

Planted so, she leans, she plays,
On the wind against her breast,
While one doubtful hand delays
With the clasping of her vest,

And youth's seeking eyes pervade
All the limits, ere they bow
On a nearer wonder laid
At her feet. She sees it now,

That forlornest thing,—the sea,
Thrusts it in with scorn, and cries,
“Useless is this dust to me,—
Take it, earth!” and there it lies.

Half in spray and half on sand,
At her living feet a face,
And the pleading of a hand
Flung against her sandal lace,

But there still—and colder than
The slow waves that as they choose
Push this mockery of man
All about the bitter ooze.

Wise with sudden pity, she
Crouches on the broadening sands,
Draws the poor head to her knee
With a nursing-mother's hands,

Pours the treasure of her breath
Down on breast and brow and face,
Pleads so tenderly with Death,
That at last he grants her grace.

See, a sigh, a throb, a start,
Thrill against her clasping arm
(Near that young abundant heart
Even marble might grow warm!).

Sweet hope-murmurs in his ear
For rough wind and water-moan,
Purest eyes, that, very near,
Melt the horror from his own.

So he wakes; and so at last
Harder souls may wake from strife,
Losing all a stormy past
In the life that gives them life.

III.

When Bird Ebba first was wed,
Wroth I ween was all the land;
“Was there none of us,” they said,
“Worthy of the damsel's hand?

“Other homes might make her great,
Other arms might hold her safe,
Must she search the seas to mate
With a phantom and a waif?

“Who is Harold?” Harold heard,
As the careless sea may hear
Wail of discontented bird,
Crying that a storm is near;

For his soul had set aside
All the harder dreams of youth,
And was standing glorified
In the tender light of Truth.

New unconscious dreads of sin
Steal to him he knows not whence,
And a faint voice tells within
Mysteries of innocence.

In his veins a purer fire,
In his voice a softer key,
On his heart the word “Aspire!”
This is Love for such as he.

Turning back reluctant eyes
To the tumult and the stir,
Sees he Ebba's face, and sighs,
“Not a shade must fall on her.”

Soon the old fame-hunger wakes,
And the mighty joy of swords;
But from Ebba's face it takes
Generous thoughts and gentle words.

(So the lovely morning flows
Round some dark terrific tower,
Till it softens, till it glows,
Till it blossoms like a flower.)

“Come,” he cried, “for Ebba's love,
Let us strive a summer's day!”
Then a summer's day they strove,
And he bore the prize away.

Still they show the place of meed
Where he pitched the bar and ball,
Where he clove the beechen steed,
Where his leaps outleapt them all;

Where his wonder-shafts went true,
Chased by unbelieving eyes;
Where his foes to earth he threw,
Stretched his hands, and bade them rise;

His big heart no faster beat
(Such composure in its strength)
Till he sate at Ebba's feet,
Just a little flushed at length.

Then it bounded; not for fame,
Not for shouts along the air,
But for one soft touch that came
For a moment on his hair.

“King you are!” the people cried,
“Son of waves and king of men!”
So to Harold and his bride
All the tribe bring homage then.

Raise the roof and plant the hearth,
Sow the field and drive the kine,
Great sea wedding gentle earth,
For a blessing and a sign.

So they lived through night and morn,
Peace and war, and joy and tears;
So were sons and daughters born,
Links among the changing years.

No man dared to wrong the poor,
Never foe by treason bled,
Never stranger from the door
Went unwelcomed or unfed.

Till at last a stranger came,
Standing, hoary, in the gate,
Saying softly Harold's name,
Like a man who fears his fate.

Watching strangely while he spoke
Harold with his sons around,
Like a great storm-beaten oak
In a growing garden-ground,

Saying “Harold,” and no more;
Harold lifts his stately face;
“Enter, friend, the day is o'er,
Come and rest, and take your place.”

Then their meeting looks were blent
In strange question and reply;
Over Harold's visage went
One vast wave of memory;

And his soul went swiftly through
Precious and familiar ways,
Where the very ground was dew,
In the sweet beginning days.

“Siva!” (Ebba thrills to feel
That sure arm about her waist,
Ever thus in woe or weal.)
“Harold!” And the men embraced.

“Harold, we have mourned you long,
Time has cleared your noble name;
All the land that did you wrong
Calls you home in love and shame.

“In the hall, the field, the chase,
Sombre council, festal board,
Wail they for your empty place,
Clamour for your useless sword.”

Slowly Harold smiles around;
Place so filled, and sword so tired!
For a warrior wived and crowned,
What is left to be desired?

Having played his glorious part,
Here he stands, and here should fall—
But the great tide in his heart
Rises till it covers all!

Now the morning time comes back,
All besprent with growing lights;
Now his foot is on the track,
Mounting to heroic heights.

Still for him does sunset gild
Those last hills he used to climb,
And the old man's face is filled
With the glory of his prime.

Yet he speaks not. Ebba speaks,
With that arm about her waist,
And a blush upon her cheeks,
Sweeter than the first he traced:

“Let us seek this land of thine!”
Harold says below his breath,
“Speak thine own heart, speak not mine!”
“Nay, but they are one,” she saith.

So, to satisfy his heart,
Where the great grief burned unseen,
Harold and his wife depart
To the home that might have been.

When the good white cliffs he saw,
First he shouted, then he sighed,
Then his children turned with awe
From their father's tears aside.

When his keel was on the shore,
All the tribe came down to greet;
Somewhat slower than of yore
Seem their Hero's coming feet.

To the hills he lifts his eyes;
“Nothing changed!” his lips proclaim.
Then he sees the men and sighs,
“Ah, but nothing is the same!”

Turning from the accustomed sea,
Stretching forth benignant hands,
This vast weight of memory
Makes him stagger where he stands,

Makes him fall. But, ready there,
One, for ever near him, draws
To her breast his silver hair,
While the rushing people pause;

Pours the treasure of her breath
Down on cheek, and lip, and brow—
Ah! but this familiar death
Shrinks not from her presence now.

Will the old fame-hunger rouse?
Hear the people's shout and song!
Bind a chaplet for his brows!
Praise his name, and tell his wrong!

Closer grew the wife's embrace:
“Hear you what they shout?” she cried;
But he, looking in her face,
Only said,“My love!” and died.

THE LITTLE FAIR SOUL.

(A PARABLE.)

A little fair soul that knew not sin
Looked over the edge of Paradise,
And saw one striving to come in
With fear and tumult in his eyes.

“Oh, brother, is it you?” he cried;
“Your face is like a breath from home;
Why do you stay so long outside?
I am athirst for you to come!

“Tell me first how our mother fares,
And has she wept too much for me?”
“White are her cheeks and white her hairs,
But not from gentle tears for thee.”

“Tell me where are our sisters gone?”
“Alas, I left them weary and wan.”
“And tell me, is the baby grown?”
“Alas, he is almost a man.

“Cannot you break the gathering days
And let the light of death come through,
Ere his feet stumble in the maze
Crossed safely by so few, so few?

“For like a cloud upon the sea
That darkens till you find no shore,
So was the face of life to me,
Until I sank for evermore;

“And like an army in the snow
My days went by, a treacherous train,
Each smiling as he struck his blow,
Until I lay among them, slain.”

“Oh, brother, there was a path so clear!”
“There might be, but I never sought.”
“Oh, brother, there was a sword so near!”
“There might be, but I never fought.”

“Yet sweep this needless gloom aside,
For you are come to the gate at last!”
Then in despair that soul replied,
“The gate is fast, the gate is fast!”

“I cannot move this mighty weight,
I cannot find this golden key,
But hosts of heaven around us wait,
And none has ever said ‘no’ to me.

“Sweet Saint, put by thy palm and scroll,
And come undo the door for me!”
“Rest thee still, thou little fair soul,
It is not mine to keep the key.”

“Kind Angel, strike these doors apart!
The air without is dark and cold.”
“Rest thee still, thou little pure heart,
Not for my word will they unfold.”

Up all the shining heights he prayed
For that poor Shadow in the cold;
Still came the word, “Not ours to aid;
We cannot make the doors unfold.”

But that poor Shadow, still outside,
Wrung all the sacred air with pain,
And all the souls went up and cried
Where never cry was heard in vain.

No eye beheld the pitying Face,
The answer none might understand,
But dimly through the silent space
Was seen the stretching of a Hand.

APRIL SHADOWS.

He said there was on earth no fairer sight
Than April shadows from the tall green flags
We taunted him with overflows of light
From walls of sunrise upon Alpine crags;
Or pageantries of tropic flowers that swoon
In the vague, passionate atmosphere of noon;
Or ranks of crested tumult in the deep,
Or banners of broad tempest on the sky,
But he went murmuring, like a man asleep,
About those April shadows constantly,
And once I thought I heard him call them “grand.”
I smiled, but scoffed not. Then he took my hand,
And, looking at me gravely, like a man
About to tell a secret, thus began:

The great flags grow sedately. Down in glades
The riot and hurry of the rising spring
Know them for rulers. All their emerald blades,
Threaded with fires of gold, stand near the shades,
Kept trimly ready for some fairy king;
A blossom hides in every guardian sheaf
Till summer calls it. Each particular leaf,
Sharp as a spear and tender as a plume,
Lets fall its little breadth of crystal gloom
To wave and flutter on the windy grass,
Or to lie still, if not a sigh should pass
The lips of patient evening. None can name
The colour of these shadows, for they keep
The tiny snow-stars and the cups of flame
Safe in their shelter, softened, yet the same,
Like sights we love remembered in our sleep.
On the fine limit of their lines of night,
Grasses are gems, and lingering dewdrops sparks;
They are not shadows, they are ambushed Light,
They are not lights, but they are lustrous darks,
Films which no force can rend, no skill hath wrought,
Impalpable and permanent as thought.
I saw them first—and here he dropped his voice,
As if he feared to wrong a sight so choice

By talking of it rashly—on a day
Of long delight, just at the brink of May;
All through rich silence of the woods I heard
The young world growing. Aimless and at ease,
Moving or pausing, like a joyful bird
Who dips and poises on the swinging seas,
For ten delicious hours, at last I found
These shadows making wonderful the ground
For none to see. A sentinel I stood
And watched. No louder footstep than a fay's
Touched the frail echoes, till with long delays
A slow, soft sunset filled and flushed the wood,
And sank and left us.
Then I understood
How all the sweetness of this day of days
Had passed into the shadows, till they wore
(Like that enchanted ring which seals for good
The long love-volume after and before)
Its glory in their heart for evermore.

THE FISHERMAN.

Fisherman, speak to me; why so lonely
Sailing away when the boats come home?
“I have a little one, I must find him,
Out where the sunset kindles the foam.

“Dying he talked to the wild green water,
Out of his window he watched the spray;
How should the daisies have power to keep him?
Somewhere the sea-gulls watch him at play.

“Empty and cold is the shore without him,
Empty and dry must it ever be;
Let me alone, for the sea consoles me,
Out in the waters he waits for me.

“Empty and cold is the house without him,
Empty and dark through the open door;
Will he not laugh when he hears me coming,
Coming to carry him home once more!”

Bars of wet sunshine the boat sprang over,
Shaking her sails into sheets of gold;
Back through the moonlight she drifted darkly,
Rocking at random, empty and cold.

A MEETING.

Two that wrecked each other's hope,
Parting coldly in their prime,
Met upon the downward slope,
Taught by tears, and calmed by time,
Under Autumn's perfect trees,
Dropping bright remembrances.

There they spread their stories out,
Face to face, and hand to hand,
Looking back with wistful doubt
Into the forgotten land
Where the wheels of life went fast,
Hardly seen till they were past:

Looking where the dawn had been
Till each grey and pallid line

Shivers with a sun unseen
Which must never rise and shine,
And the Moment, lost and vain,
Comes before their souls again:

Saying softly, “Yes, I think
You were there,—you came at ten.”
“In your hair was something pink;
How I hate the hue since then!”
“Hate a harmless ribbon!” “Nay,
I have pardoned it to-day.

“I remember what you said.”
“But you laughed, and I despaired.”
“Did I laugh? I was afraid
You might fancy that I cared.”
“Be content, your pride shall be
Scatheless as your heart for me.”

“Something in your voice assures
You have angry feelings yet.”
“Something told me then in yours
That you would not—quite—forget;
Just one foolish moment lit
Hope,—that laugh extinguished it.”

“Sure the flame was very weak!”
“'Twas your silence let it die.”
“If a man's hope will not speak,
Can a woman's heart reply?”
“Had I spoken?” “Do I know?
It was very long ago!”

Face to face, and hand in hand,
Looking at those eastern skies,
Is the light along the land
Only borrowed from their eyes?
Can the song of birds be drawn
From a memory of dawn?

Lo, the hill, the sea, the plain,
Flushing with familiar rose!
Look away, and look again,
But the colour stays and grows!
Wherefore stand amazed and dumb?
Knew you not that morn must come?

A REMEMBRANCE.

Other thoughts have parted me
From thy tender memory;
Spaces like a cloudy sea
Lie between mine eyes and thee.

Buried sunsets heave and glow
Where I would but must not go;
Purple storm and golden veil
Make the lovely distance pale.

O! I want, across the cloud,
Once to hear thee speak aloud;
Not with those faint tones that seem
Like a summons in a dream;

Not with those faint tones that fleet
Daily by me in the street,
Ceasing but to sound again,
While I turn my head in vain.

One vast moment, to content
Hunger of my banishment;
One strong clasp, and then I know
I could bear to let thee go!

WAITING FOR THE TIDE.

(SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE. Painted by W.W. Fenn, Esq.)

Come down, those shadowed sands invite,
And that soft glory on the deep;
We breathe an atmosphere of light,
Subtle as dew, and calm as sleep.

See, here and there, beyond the foam,
A sail is shining like a gem;
I think the boats are coming home,
We'll linger down and look at them.

Not yet; the tide is shy, and stays
By this grey limit of our pier;
It doubts, it trembles, it delays,
Yet, all the while, is drawing near.

The boats and we must wait its will.
O pleasant patience! They to make
(While we behold them and lie still)
A hundred pictures for our sake.

O happy patience! Not a hue
Can flutter through the changing air,
Or mould the cloud, or touch the blue,
That is not meant for them to wear.

And as they watch the glimmering sand,
That warms the film within the foam,
They know the welcome wave at hand,
The tender wave that lifts them home.

It comes; they pass; each turning sail
Is first a hope, and then a bliss.
Come home and dream a fairy tale
Whose end shall be as sweet as this!

“WIND ME A SUMMER CROWN,” SHE SAID.

Wind me a summer crown,” she said,
“And set it on my brows;
For I must go, while I am young,
Home to my Father's house.

“And make me ready for the day,
And let me not be stayed;
I would not linger on the way,
As if I was afraid.

“O! will the golden courts of heaven,
When I have paced them o'er,
Be lovely as my lily walks
Which I must see no more?

“And will the seraph hymns and harps,
When they have filled my ear,
Be tender as my mother's voice,
Which I must never hear?

“And shall I lie where sunsets drift,
Or where the stars are born,
Or where the living tints are mixed
To paint the clouds of morn?”

Your mother's tones shall reach you still,
Even sweeter than they were;
And the false love that broke your heart
Shall be forgotten there.

And not of star or flower is born
The beauty of that shore;
There is a Face which you shall see,
And wish for nothing more.

“ONCE UPON A TIME.”

Not only echoes from the past
Talk to us in that tender phrase;
It rings upon our hearts at last,
A watchword for the coming days:

When, having reached those heights of rest,
We point to where we stood below;
And how we scaled each tedious crest,
With hopes how faint, and steps how slow!

How once we shrank from toils which prove
The test and triumph of our might;
And once we basely doubted Love,
Which now surrounds us with its light.

O! that we could this hour begin
The lesson of our evening time,
And say to parting, pain, and sin,
“We knew you—once upon a time!”

A DISCOVERY.

The languid world went by me as I found
A jewel on the ground,
Under a silent weed,
A nameless glory set for none to heed.
“Stoop, see, and wonder!” was my joyful cry,
But still the languid world went only by.

I drew it forth, and set it on a hill;
They passed it still.
Some turned to look,
And said it was a pebble from the brook,
A dewdrop, only made to melt away,
A worthless mirror, with a borrowed ray.

Then on my knees I shouted forth its praise,
For nights and days.

“See with your eyes
A diamond shining only for the wise!
How is it that ye love not at first sight
This unfamiliar treasure of pure light?”

I set it on my breast. Then, with a sneer,
The world drew near.
They knew the sign
And secret of my praise; the thing was mine.
They left it to me with a bland disdain,
And hugged their tinsel to their hearts again.

I showed it to the dearest soul I had:
“You are not mad;
Let them go by;
We know it is a diamond, you and I.”
Coldly he answered, “If you love it so,
You need not me to praise it. Let me go.”

“It is my sin,” I cried with bitter tears,
“That no man hears.
I'll fling it down;
Some nobler hand shall set it in a crown.
I shall behold it honoured ere I die;
But no one could have loved it more than I!”

A GIRL'S LOVE-SONG.

It was an April morning
When my true love went out;
The wind had never a warning;
The sky had never a doubt.
Leaves and blossoms were lustres
On oak and maple and beech;
Hopes were hanging in clusters
A little out of reach.

He wandered—he and no other—
Down by the little white brook;
The stones sang one to another,
“A king is coming; look!”

The brook said, laughing and leaping,
“Peep, and you shall see.”
Through the leaves he went peeping,
And there he saw—Me.

Saw me, took me, crowned me,
There, as I stood in my shame;
I knew that he had found me,
Before I knew his name.
I went where I was fated,
Dumb with fear and surprise.
A week and a day I waited,
Before I saw his eyes,

I gave him never a whisper
For all the words he said;
The brook was a pleasant lisper,
It talked to him instead.
Brook, you told my emotion,
Hearing him plight his vow!
Brook, you have not a notion
What I feel for him now!

WHEN THE NEWS ABOUT THE ‘TRENT’ CAME.

Faint as a sigh the weary light
Touches the verge before it drops;
The rustle of descending night
Is felt through all the breathless copse.

A great slow shadow dims the sea,
And ships come softly through its haze,
Like passing shapes seen doubtfully
By eyes that ache while sleep delays.

A ship had brought us word at morn,
How some mad world beyond the sea
Stood up to fling a look of scorn
In face of England's majesty.

And all our land was thinking war;
I, too, with powerless hopes and hands,
Watched while each pale deliberate star
Struck this wet purple in the sands;

And felt, for each red boss of rock,
Now blackening as the night-time grows;
Each curve of these cliff-walls that lock
Our precious freedom from our foes;

For each small circuit traced by foam,
And marking England to my sight,
Each fringe and fragment of my home,
I could have wished to die to-night.

“WINDY AND GREY THE MORNING.”

Windy and grey the morning,
Rainy and low the light;
A woman wandered by me,
And, O! her cheeks were white!
A man came out to meet her,
But never a word he said,
Till she laid her hands upon his breast,
And whispered, “He is dead.”
They two looked at each other,
And the love and the loss of years
Went over their faces like a cloud,
Breaking into tears.

I knew she had been watching
The sorrowful long night through,
And when her watch was over,
A sweet life was over too.
I knew he had been waiting
For a word which he felt before;
But faint hope came with her coming step,
Then went for evermore.
They two looked at each other,
And silently passed away;
And the winter sun went wearily up,
To make another day.

A LETTER.

Where were you when I suffered? My heart was very faint;
It wanted a heart to lean on; where was yours at the time?
I hope you were happy somewhere; I hope no passing taint
Of the chill air I was breathing troubled your softer clime.

Always I think about you, and I am afraid at night;
For before I dream I fancy, and my dreams are fancy-marred;

And I see you lying wounded, with your face upturned to the light,
And I cannot stoop to kiss it; and, oh, my dream is hard!

Last night I read and waited, there was but the light of the fire,
When I thought you stood behind me, and I dared not turn my head.
Why was my heart so poor as to shrink from its best desire?
I think you were here for a moment; but when I turned, you were fled.

Where were you at that moment? were you thinking of me?
Were you watching the turbans wind up the dry brown slope?
And when they reached the top, and you knew they looked at the sea,
Were you dreaming of England? had you an hour of hope?

O! that hope is so dreary! I have it always here;
Whenever it plays me false, they tell me I must not doubt.
But though we call it hope, it is only a mask for fear;
And it never lets me rest, and I think it is wearing me out.

You will hardly know me again, I am grown so pale and thin;
I looked in the glass to-day, and my face is old and strange.
And I felt a pang of dread when they told me the mail was come in;
For I thought if you came home, that you would not like the change.

I suppose you are brown and fierce, and your eyes are ready to flash;
You walk erect and swift; you have always something to do.

Ah, you men are happy! you live with a burst and a dash;
Weeping wastes us away, but work ennobles you.

I am a pain in my home; they watch me with looks of distress;
Always they soften their tones when they ask me “Dear, will you go?”
And because I want them to smile, I often smile and say “Yes;”
But as the dance grows gay, I wish I had dared to say “No.”

For I should not like, when we sit together, and talk, and trace
Our joy coming step by step through the gloom while you were away,—
I should not like to see one doubt flit over your face;
“Perhaps she hardly missed me, her life was so light and gay.”

Ah, a letter again! It brings no tidings to me.
I have hardly the heart to look, and I feel too tired to speak.
What, you are coming home! you are crossing the dear, kind sea!
You are rushing home to me now! I shall see your face in a week!

He is coming! where are you all? He is coming! do you not know?
See, I am kissing the words which I was afraid to read!
What are you saying, mother? why do you look at me so?
“Ten years younger,” mother? Yes, I should think so indeed.

AMPOLA.

Twenty-five shots!
And, out of all the spots
Where a man could stand and shoot,
You would have said, “Not there.”
Anywhere else it might be done,
But not there!
If we could plant a gun
There, at the battery's foot,
There, at the enemy's breast,
Of course the Fort were won;
But that's a grim jest,
The old tale of a rest
For a lever to lift the sun—
A thing not to be done.

Under that rushing rain of flame,
To stand still, and aim—?
Fie! send them not!
There is no man alive
Could fire a single shot.
But Italy found a pair
To stand JUST THERE,
And fire twenty-five.

See, the gun's in its place!
Through rags of smoke, in the ring of your glass,
You may see a busy face,
Or a quiet figure pass
Hard at work, and so near
You almost fancy you hear.
One loads, one fires—that's all!
(All but the hope and the fear.)
Now they look up and smile,
If they had a minute to spare
They would stop and shake hands there;
Italy, give them a cheer,
And get ready to charge, for while
You look, there's a breach in the wall.

The gap grows large.
Not wide enough yet for a charge,
But nearly—they work with a will!
One, he is but a boy,
Has such a look of joy;
The other, a year or two older,
A little grave and still,
But not a whit colder,
Like a man who knows
What he leaves, and where he goes,
With ready heart;
Why not?
He has done his part.
He was on Marsala's shore;
If he must leave the land he frees,
Love goes with him under the sod;
He gives a gallant soul to God,
And Garibaldi sees,—
He wants no more.
That's the tenth shot!

The blast
Of the shells rushing past

Is shaking their hair—
On they work, and God takes care—
Death not in, it is the air!

Twenty! The wall gives way.
The two look back to their ranks,
And nod, and say,
“Excuse us for making you wait so long!
You are getting ready? Thanks!
In a minute you may come.”
They are quite at home,
Not a fold in the brow—
They are getting used to it now;
We are afraid no more!
Twenty-four.

Twenty-five. Is anything wrong?
Take the glass and look!
What do you say that you see?
Nothing—? Your hand shook;
Pass it to me!
Twenty-five—ere I fix,
It will be twenty-six.
Now! There's the gun.

But the place is void.
What lies on the plain?
Do not look again!
Dead, shattered, destroyed!
With their work done.
All but the name lost,
All dead but the deed;
So, and at such cost,
Ampola was freed.

Note.—Two of Garibaldi's volunteers performed the exploit narrated in these lines.

OUR WELCOME TO GARIBALDI.

Welcome, because the glory of thy wreath
Had never shade nor stain;
Because thy sword sprang never from its sheath
Except to cleave a chain;

Because thy hands, outstretched to all who live,
Armed, not for thine own sake,
So strong to save, opened so wide to give,
Do not know how to take;

Because the crown thy brows have put away
Shall for thy name endure;
Because the life thou scornest every day
As a child's hope is pure;

Because thy foes can reckon to thy charge,
Only the noble crime
Of faith too liberal and love too large
For this unworthy time.

And when a land made feeble by despair
Could only writhe and groan,
Thou, making war beneficent as prayer,
Didst succour her alone.

What others dreamed, thou didst. Oppression fled,
The hope of years was wrought;
Thou only unamazed, whose daily bread
Had been heroic thought.

And when thy dark hour came, which comes to all,
Thou didst not lose thy crown,
Nor stain it, seeming greater in thy fall
Than those who cast thee down.

Out of the deep still speaking to the heights
In accents of a king;
With conscience which through thirty sleepless nights
Could find no place to sting.

Therefore the heart of England welcomes thee
As to thy proper throne;
Therefore the light and life of Italy
Seem almost like our own;

Nay, by these modern watchfires, as they burn
On heights of hope or fear,
Our old familiar Freedom may discern
How great she is, how dear.

And, taught by men who, suffering, win the same,
She, suffering, won of yore,
She, counting years for hours, may take some shame
That she has done no more;

That any poor or vile are in her lands,
Shaming the great and free;
That any soil yet lingers on the hands
Stretched forth to welcome thee!

IN THE MEANTIME.

“In the meantime England, France, and Austria are making representations at St. Petersburg on behalf of Poland.”

(Telegram) “Leo Frankowski, having recovered from his wounds, was executed at Lüblin.”

In the meantime do not hurry the sword out,
Let them be patient,—they surely can wait;
Will all the blood of their noblest when poured out
Alter in England a tax or a rate?

Wrongs may be bitter, we have not to bear them;
Cannot hearts break without making a fuss?
Heroes are plenty, and Europe can spare them;
We never stir till the shoe pinches us.

Let the rocks split under tyranny's hammer,
Crush the great thought by the pitiful fact;
Women and children are welcome to clamour,
We, too, can talk, but don't ask us to act!

In the meantime, while sweet morning is breaking,
Scenting the world with the dew of her breath,
One noble victim, with wounds freshly aching,
Feebly and gallantly moves to his death.

Three months ago how they dreaded and cursed him!
How rose the land at the flash of his eye!
Now with stern patience his captors have nursed him
Till he can stand while they lead him to die.

One wistful glance to the far faint horizon,
Somewhere on earth there is freedom he knows;
Then to the scaffold—the altar he dies on!
What shall the sacrifice gain for his foes?

This! Men shall tell it, indignant and breathless,
Weep for the anguish and blush for the crime;

This death of shame shall in honour be deathless—
But we avenge it not, in this mean time!

Land in the midst of rich Europe that starvest,
Stretching thy hands, in thy weakness sublime!
This is thy seedtime, be sure of the harvest,
Martyrs are earning it in the meantime!

SONG.

Take me from these dreary shades,
Lift me to some softer morn,
Where the laughing light invades
That old silence of the glades
Which was born when trees were born;

Where the docile winds take care
Not to ruffle any brook,
Lest queen-clouds that pace the air
Should not find a mirror there
When they pace, and pause, and look;

Where the dazzling nights endure
Till the day has passed its spring,
And where starlight is so pure
That no bird is ever sure
Whether it should sleep or sing.

Somewhere there is never rain,
Never trouble in the air,
Not a sigh of fear or pain,—
Take me to that land again;
I am sure I once was there.

SLAIN.

Let her lie upon your heart while she faints,
Where she slept such a short time ago;
O! she's young to be crowned with the saints—
Hold her fast, mother, do not let her go!

The roses are not dead on her cheeks,
There is but a passing chill in their bloom;
It will melt when she smiles, when she speaks—
Hush! was not that her voice in the room?

She is looking like a babe as she lies
With her ringlets swept aside and apart—
Ah, mother, keep the tears in your eyes,
If they fall upon her face she may start.

Did some one break her heart with a word,
Having grasped it at first as a prize?
Did it flutter from his hand, like a bird
Which goes a little way, and then dies?

He remembers the joy of her face,
The love in her smile, and the light,
When, shrinking, she met his embrace—
Bring him here, let him look at her to-night!

O! first came the wonder and the doubt,
And the pale hope fading day by day,
So wistfully she wandered about,
Like a lost child asking its way;

And then came the silence and despair,
And the sighing after wings like a dove,
And the proud heart bleeding into prayer,
But hiding all its wounds from your love.

It is over and the tale is all told,
And the white lamb lies dead in the frost;
You may cover up its limbs from the cold,
But you cannot find a life that is lost.

We were thinking that she moved, but her cheek
Was but stirred by the breast where she lay
Heaving a moment, while we speak,
With the quiet sobs forcing their way.

Let them come, poor mother, let them come;
You must turn when your tears are all done
To a blank in the sweet talk at home,
And a name on a little grey stone.

A PLEA FOR BEAUTY.

I heard there was no place among the powers
For Beauty; that she stands not in the plan;
That even the tints which glorify the flowers
Came but for use, and not for joy to man.

Ah, sophist, tracing through gradations fine
A wondrous story hid from eyes more dull,
You know how beauty comes to tint and line,—
Tell us, what makes the beauty beautiful?

We will be glad because the crocus takes
Such tender curves before her buds are riven,—
Because at morn the wave of colour breaks
Like a great burst of music over heaven,—

Because each accident of light or shade,
The copse, the cliff, the field, the shore, endears,—
Because no living thing can grow or fade
Without a charm that touches us to tears,—

Because the Voice proclaiming all things good,
Even to the least a twofold work imparts,
And colours, tempting insects to their food,
Are banquets for our grateful eyes and hearts.

Note.—“Nature cares nothing for appearances except in so far as they may be useful.” “Some naturalists ..... believe that very many structures have been created for beauty in the eyes of man. This doctrine, if true, would be absolutely fatal to my theory.” Darwin's “Origin of Species,” pp. 83 and 199.

WHAT WE MAY SEE.

Lying in the shadow, looking at the sky,
Proud sweet hours glance back at us, smile in passing by;
Show us something to regret, leave us where we lie:

Show us growths of crimson cloud that lean on mossy glades;
Airs that move below the leaves, making lights and shades;
Wonders hiding in the depth, while the glory fades:

Show us shafts of golden Hope that soar across the blue;
Darkness fleeing softly with no footprints on the dew;
Silence waiting, full of songs, till the Dawn break through;

Faces twain that meet and pass as if they had not met;
Eyes that woo the world but have not known each other yet,
Softly heartless as they glance, “we see and we forget.”

Meeting next with doubtful looks, a little grieved and stirred,
(O! how the caverns murmur ere the coming wind is heard!)
Fixing gaze and rising blush, a birth without a word.

Why must new Hope be ever born in troubles and in fears?
Why must the grey cloud rise and break before the Day appears?
Why breaks it into bliss for some, and why for some in tears?

The cloud is hence, the time is come, the old Delight begun!

Shine Heaven, and listen Earth, because once more two hearts are one,
Once more the world grows beautiful in Love's unsetting sun.

O faces, can you be the same? was all this light concealed?
O eyes, what have you looked upon? what founts have been unsealed?
O world, art thou created fresh? or art thou but revealed?

Let us behold you near before you pass into the night;
O faces, let us see you well because you are so bright;
Lying in the shadow, let us watch the light!

TWO JOURNEYS.

Under the straight, still Indian sun
Went forth a pompous train,
To see some due obeisance done
For England's name and reign.

Gaily the leader stooped and smiled
Over his young wife's breast,
For there she hid her firstborn child
With a whispered “Rest, love, rest!”

Through shining tracts of silk and gold,
Through courts that spread and blaze,
Like vast flowers opening, fold by fold,
Into a world of rays.

Through dream-tints such as swim and float
O'er eyes that shut sun-blind,
Through air that feels each trumpet note
Rush through it like a wind;

Between live walls of swarthy eyes
Proudly the rulers march,
The pale sweep of the sultry skies
Was their triumphal arch.

But the babe saw only that white breast
Wherein it softly lay,
And heard the whisper, “Rest, love, rest!”
And knew not night from day.

No hint from swarthy lip or eye
Betrayed the brooding crime;
O wife, young wife, make haste to die
Before you see that time!

Never a minute to kiss and part
When her true lord was slain,
She set her babe against her heart
Before it broke in twain;

And she hid by day, and by night she fled
From that unholy place,
Where to the skies her tombless dead
Looked up with silent face.

When she came to the long sea-sand,
Down she sat and sighed.
“Husband, husband, reach your hand!
Would that I too had died!

“Oh, never for me the dawn will rise
But I shall see that day
When the cruel sunbeams smote your eyes,
And they did not shrink away.

“And through the night I shall always hear
My horse's hurrying feet,
And the shudders of my ceaseless fear,
And my babe's low breathing sweet;

“And all the sounds and all the sights
Till the kind hour when I die
Shall thrust those dreadful days and nights
In the wounds of memory.”

But the babe saw only that white breast
Wherein it softly lay,
And heard the whisper, “Rest, love, rest!”
And knew not night from day.

Oh, must not mother-love be strong
To cover its darling thus?
Is there never an angel clasp and song
To do as much for us?

ON THE DEATH OF PRINCE ALBERT.

Out of a tomb the world's hope went of old,
While angels shone around, Force shrank away,
And weeping Love, eternally consoled,
Went back to labour in the light of day;
And still about our graves our hopes are rife;
Thence the remembrance of a noble life
Starts like a resurrection. Seal and crown
Are set on honour there. We trust the dead;
But living hands tear their own banners down,
And leave us kingless, sighing to be led.
And oft, when living tongues but mourn or rave,
Unanswerable accents from the grave

100

Utter decrees of patience. Let us hear
Those accents now. Softer they could not be,
Calming both grief and joy; for both are near,
And in this placid lake of memory
Both gaze, and grow more pure by what they see,
And, not forgetting, to their toils depart,
Each with a gathered flower upon the heart.
Well may those weeping eyes which once have seen
A perfect thought fulfil itself in deeds,
Dwell only on the days that might have been,
And watch the form, more bright as it recedes.
She asks no painter's skill; the sun may strike
His sternest image, let it but be like.
Nothing was there to soften or to hide,
And nothing to regret, save that he died.
No gain can match the glory of her loss;
It lights the future, where she walks alone,
Not pausing, not afraid to bear her cross,
Borne by a thousand hands, yet still her own.

101

WHAT HEAREST THOU?

What hearest thou?

I hear hearts break,
One or two, here and there;
Cries to the dead, who do not wake;
Prayers, but no answer to prayer;
Words that smite and sting;
Wrongs that only weep;
Weak Truth wearily murmuring,
As she tosses in her sleep.

Woe to thee! Hast thou found
Nothing else under the sun?
The wheels of life go fiercely round,
But they bear the goddess on.

102

What hearest thou?

I hear Earth shout;
Summer leaps from her lap;
Songs have girt her about;
Never a silent gap;
Tongues whisper “Rejoice”
In every flower that glows;
Love's triumphant voice
In every wind that blows.

Wings are on thy feet,
A trumpet fills thine ears;
Thou hearest thine own heart beat,
And thou hast not time for tears.

What hearest thou?

I hear what the cloud
Says, kissing the hill;
The Future restless and loud,
The Past reproachful and still;
Worlds in the air that send
Echoes to my frail lute;
Ah, though I love you, friend,
Touch me not and be mute.

103

True thy music and fine,
Sweeter would it seem
If a hand were clasped in thine,
E'en though it broke thy dream.

What hearest thou?

I hear God speak,
It is the only sound,
Through clamour, sob, and shriek,
As the fierce wheels go round;
Words I hardly hear,
Dark and faint and few;
One thing only is clear,
That which I must do.

Follow that voice to-night,
Ask not where nor how;
It once said, “Let there be light,”
Darkness waits for it now.

104

THE FUTURE.

A figure wanders through my dreams
And wears a veil upon its face,
Still bending to my breast it seems,
Yet ever turns from my embrace.
And sometimes, passing from my sight,
It lifts the veil as it departs,
And eyes flash out with such a light
As never dawned on waking hearts.

There is no need of sound or speech
Or toiling through the troubled years,
The rapture of that smile can teach
More than a century of tears.
And this I know, if it could move
Out of my dreams into my days,

105

One service of unbroken love
Should fill and crown my life with praise.

Love with no doubts and no demands,
But generous as a southern June,—
Vast brotherhood of hearts and hands,
Choir of a world in perfect tune—
No shallow sunset-films to gild
Far summits which we dare not climb,
But ceaseless charms of hope fulfilled,
Making a miracle of time.

How sure, how calm, the picture seems!
How near it comes, beheld, possessed!
It is not only in my dreams
I feel that touch upon my breast.
It thrills me through the barren day,
It holds me in the heart of strife,
No phantom-grasp that melts away,
It seems—it is—the touch of Life!

We look into the heart of flowers
And wonder whence their bloom can rise;

106

The secret hope of human hours
Is hidden deeper from our eyes.
In helpless tracts of wind and rain
The work goes on without a sound;
And while you weep your weak “In vain,”
The flower is growing underground.

We know the lesson; but a cry,
Bitter and vast, is in our ears;
One life of fruitless misery
Shakes all our wisdom into tears.
Thronged by the clamorous griefs that say,
“Behold what is, forget what seems,”
I can but answer, “Welladay;
There is that figure in my dreams.”

107

EREMOS AND EUDÆMON.

Some souls go broadly up and down the world,
Plucking full-fruited joys, and some are set
Like trees that spread their unrepining arms
About the gentle air, endure the storm,
Enrich themselves with luxury of leaves,
Grow to the light, persuade all passing birds,
And see the seasons pass them and are still;
And some are captives, with a square of sky
In a blank wall, their sole sad heritage
Of the world's beauty. Unto such the stars
Are precious, and the phantom-walk of clouds
That ruffle no blue smoothness where they move,
And all the marshalled silences of light,
Warmth, darkness, dew, that make the growth of time,

108

And winds that sing of liberty and distance,
And tall grass-blooms, or air-blown chance of leaves,
Whereby, as by strong argument, they learn
That forests are which they shall never see.
So they, like men who stand upon a cliff
To watch the far keel trace in lucent fields
Its long dim groove, imagine all the course
Which they behold not, and desire their dreams.
Eremos, in my parable, had watched
For half a life the slow secluded years,
Which gave him nothing, but received from him
The fragments of those fine capacities
That broke ere they were filled. Yet he lived on,
And was afflicted by his inward strength
Finding no outlet through the grey restraints
That closed him round. But when the rush of youth
Was past, and every pulse of hope had ceased,
There came a stillness such as torrents leave
In hollows by their course, smooth water-nests,
Where ferns may brood and foam-bells linger long,

109

And a whole delicate blossom-world may grow
In breezeless leisure on unfretted banks.
Then woke a second dawn of hope,—a hope
Coveting nothing,—energies of patience,—
A brooding patience that developes life
In narrow limits and from little things,
Discerning in its corner of the earth
All powers and possibilities of being.
As one long listening to a winded horn
Hears the whole birth of music, while another
Hears but the scant soon-ended monotone,
So grew his senses quick. On his bare walls
The shadows told him how transparently
They lie where lawns are greenest; to his ears
The distant dropping murmur of a brook
Revealed the roar of ocean; the great sky
Consoled him with its glory; and his heart
Knew the first hidden softness in the wind
Against his cheek, and woke to faith in summer.
Appeased by this long courage, Circumstance
Mutely began to drop into his days
Some momentary jewels; first, a seed,
Which, resolutely nursed, became a rose,

110

And, fainting not among the prison airs,
Beset him with the pleasure of its growth,
Until it seemed his soul; for in his soul
Each tender tiny promise of a bud
Struck such a pang of joy. It talked to him
As infants to new mothers,—with its face,
Breath, blushes, kisses,—lovely modes of life
Needing no words. He tended it by day,
And saw its stature rise to his caress
As if it stood on tiptoe till he stooped;
And his night-dreams were fragrant with it. There
Daily vicissitudes of light and air
Were hopes and dangers in a long romance,
Whereof his flower was heroine, and himself
The slave who lived to shield and cherish her.
This was not all. Across the narrow space
Through which the sky beheld him, many shapes
Began to pass,—women and men with hearts,
Free steps, and large horizons. As they went
To various aims of labour or delight,
Some saw the lonely man and were content
To grace him with the leisure of a pause.
His still thought moved to meet them,—capable,

111

Impulsive, sympathetic. Now, at last,
O! now, at last, Eudæmon came to him
And told him of the universe. Eudæmon,
A king of life, who never knew a grief.

Under the tearless sunshine of his face
Some feeble things might fade; but, too much light
Is not a common evil in the world;
Call it a welcome danger, veil your eyes,
But never wish the sun quenched! 'Tis no lamp
To read by, but a fire to feed the spheres.
Growth should be more than reading. The mere sight
Of such august consistency in bliss
Was to the gazer strength. “This is a man,”
He said, “and I, the captive, am a man.
The seed which angels set becomes a tree,
But each lost germ that dwindles into dust
Was born a future tree. I will be proud
Of what I might have been if the great seasons
Had made no compact to destroy me.”

Thus
He argued; but affection followed fast,

112

Outstripping reason, grasping her cold hand,
Lifting her up to unacknowledged heights
Where the feet sink in fragrance, and far earth
Seems luminous and placid as a sky.
He loved Eudæmon; all his frost-bound springs
Were loosened in this summer, and spread forth
Into a ceaseless river. Never think,
O! never think, Eudæmon's heart was cold!
He went not like the others; he returned,
Leaned through the casement, answered love with love,
Gave himself largely, spoke his wonder out,
Changing, so said he, coins for virgin gold;
And grew so generous in his gratitude,
You might have thought him evermore in debt.

So in unwearied converse passed the hours.
If one had gathered through a wider space,
The other brought his pearls from such a deep
That you must practise diving all your life
If you would reach it. When Eudæmon talked
From tropic pageantries to polar glooms,
Or told what cities suffer, do, and think,
Making a banquet of his garnered stores

113

To tempt his friend, that other ate and drank,
Alert, insatiate, joyful. Afterwards,
Not roughly, but in some mild natural pause,
He asked,“O brother, have you seen the moon?”
“Ay, friend” (amazedly), “some thousand times.” “But do you know the moon?” Eremos said,
And then revealed such wonders of the moon,
Such fine suggestions, such eventful clouds,
Such long gradations of remembered change
Wrought with slow touches, every touch a truth,
That, while he spoke, lifting astonished palms.
“Nay, on my soul, I never learned the moon!”
Eudæmon cried; “I prithee tell me more.”
So each to each gave honour and delight,
One with no need, the other needing all,
Yet seemed the richer soul to gain the most,
Being eloquent with wide comparisons;
While he, who scarcely felt a joy before,
Was shy with his new glory and confused,
Holding his breath to watch it.

So the spring
Flowed into breadths of summer and was still;
And summer's passionate arms gave up the world
Out of their clasp, and autumn carried it

114

With pomp of splendid sorrow to its grave,
Where the white silence covers it for long,
But not for ever, and the friends were blessed.

Then Time, the powerful enemy, who keeps
His surest shaft till it can wound the most,
Gave his dark signal, and Eudæmon went.
O! what unequal pain in that farewell!
Grieving he went, but warm expectancy
Dried the scarce-fallen tears, and the quick hand,
Loosing its strong regretful hold, reached up
After new gifts of life. But in the cell
Was tumult and resistance and despair.
For many days before the day of fate
Each momentary joy became a terror
Coming to say, “I go;” and all the while,
By night, by day, one never-answered thought
Roamed up and down, a caged and furious wish
Seeking release, “What can I do for him?
O brother, benefactor, saviour, friend,
What can I do for thee?” There was no room
For the other thought, “How can I live without him?”
Which some might deem more natural; but this love

115

Had made an end of self. So, even at last,
When the hearts brake asunder and the hands
Shrank from and then prolonged the final clasp,
The same unanswerable wish arose,
“O! for my comfort, can I give him nothing?
Can I do nothing for him?”—With a spring
Like one on whom a revelation breaks,
Leaving no choice, he caught his growing rose
(A slender plant) and plucked it by the roots,
And laid it on that deprecating breast
Ere the vain gesture checked him. “For my sake.”
He cried, “receive it. If I give not all,
I have given nothing. Nothing now to me
Is all I had. Only the thought of you
Shall fill and cover every part of life;
And when I know my rose has died with you,
Its unforgotten bloom shall comfort me
More than its presence.”

With that word they parted,
And he that went was blind with gentle tears,
Tender with kind regrets, and not forgetful,
But constant, speaking much across the seas,
And telling where he went and what he did
And how he loved, and sending gifts and flowers

116

And all atonements possible for pangs
Which cannot be appeased.

But he that stayed
Wept little and sat still, watching his dead
With that sad vigilance which only ceases
When the grave shuts. We know what follows Death.
Why, even in happy households such a loss
Strikes all the music from our daily talk,
Nay, half the language; for we use not freely
Words full of memory. He looked no more
For change or hope or comfort. He sat still.
In all his life was nothing but this loss.

Years melted, and Eudæmon came again.
The links of that long chain across the sea
Had dwindled; for the periodic task
Of written talk is hard to many hearts;
Few only warm it with such living breath
That it becomes a voice. The links had failed;
But with his first light spring upon the shore
He caught the broken chain and hurried on,
Love in his face and tokens in his hands
And histories on his lips,—to cast them all

117

Upon the turf of a forgotten grave.

He filled the winds with sorrow. “Here lies one
Who loved me with immeasurable love,
Giving me all he had. O, see your rose!
Will you not stretch your hand to take your rose?
I have it on my heart. You have not known
How I remembered you. Your days were cold
And your death lonely. I am come at last,
But that ‘Too late’ which slays the souls of men
Has sundered us for ever.”

One stood by
And, partly understanding why he wept,
Gave him this comfort: “Have you brought a rose
(I think you said so) to this flowerless grave?
The poor soul murmured much about a rose
Before he died, and once I heard him say
How, through the long mist of his many griefs,
He saw one moment of such pure delight
That all the distant Past was bright with it,—
The moment when he gave away a rose.
I know not what he meant; I saw him smile
When that remembrance settled on his face,
And, with the smile upon his lips, he died.”

121

LADY GRACE.

A Drama, IN FIVE ACTS.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

MEN.

CRANSTON, a lawyer.
CAPTAIN DE COURCY, nephew to Lady Grace Aumerle.
LORD LYNTON.
FITZERSE Man of fashion, friend of De Courcy.
RAYMOND Man of fashion, friend of De Courcy.
CAPEL Man of fashion, friend of De Courcy.
SIR GEORGE SANDYS.
Servants.

WOMEN.

LADY GRACE AUMERLE, a rich young widow.
ROSA WILMOT, her niece.
MRS. VANE Woman of fashion.
LADY MELVILLE Woman of fashion.
EMMA, Mrs. Vane's daughter.
A Sister of Charity.
A Maid.

SCENE. —Lady Grace's house and garden—Cranston's office—Sir George Sandys' lodgings—A room in a London club-house—A drawing-room at Mrs. Vane's.

122

ACT I.

Scene I.

—Cranston's Office.
Cranston writing at a table.—Servant attending.
CRANSTON,

looks up.
This is for Lord Lynton. I am sorry that I cannot go to him sooner, but the whole morning is engaged.

SERVANT.

So I told him, Sir.

CRANSTON.

You showed Mr. De Courcy and Miss Wiimot into the private room?

SERVANT.

Yes, Sir; half an hour ago.

CRANSTON.

Have they anything to amuse them?

SERVANT.

Only cigars, Sir.

123

CRANSTON.

Cigars!—for both?

SERVANT.

The young lady said, Sir, as she had often wished to smoke, and now she'd try, and the gentleman said he'd teach her.

CRANSTON.

Very good. I'll receive Lady Grace here. (Bell rings.)
See if she has arrived.

(Exit Servant.)

Now this rich widow. I, who am the son
Of her sire's steward, have not seen her face
Since it looked up at me through childish tears;
I see the leafy light across it now
As she stood deep i' the moss, while I, aloft,
Shook all the hazels. 'Twas a fair face then—
But morn is fair on every face. Mine, too,
Touched by that early lustre of the woods,
Might—Pshaw! I am glad my name is changed since then;
I do not wish her to remember me.

(Servant announces Lady Grace Aumerle.—Enter Lady Grace, in the deepest mourning. Her manner is very haughty.)

124

CRANSTON,
aside.
The echo of her sobs is three years old,
Methinks it might be fainter!

LADY GRACE,
drawing back,
Sir, your pardon.
I thought this was the lawyer's private room.

CRANSTON.
Madam, it is.

LADY GRACE.
But then—Where is the lawyer?

CRANSTON.
Here, Madam.

LADY GRACE.
Not the clerk. I seek your master.

CRANSTON.
He is not here.

LADY GRACE.
He was appointed here
To meet me at this hour. Where loiters he?

125

CRANSTON.
I cannot tell you, for I never saw him.

LADY GRACE.
Some blunder frets me; I must summon patience
Till it is cleared.
(More courteously)
Write, Sir; I'll not disturb you.

(Seats herself.)
CRANSTON,
advancing.
Forgive me, Lady Grace—
(she starts and looks displeased)
You think me young,
But I am all the master in this house.
Work hath a heavier tread than Time. I seem
An old man to myself.

LADY GRACE,
looking at him.
You cannot be
The—person—who conducted our affairs—
Who was much trusted—and who gave advice;
I think you could not give advice?

CRANSTON,
smiling.
I sell it,
Like other men of law.

126

LADY GRACE.
Ten years ago—
(You were at school then)—

CRANSTON.
Were you married then?

LADY GRACE.
I am not here to answer questions.

CRANSTON.
Nay,
Your pardon; questions are the seed of law,
Without them we are fruitless. If you need
My poor but ready service, you must yield
The pearls I dive for,—let them be true gems,
Or you'll not like their setting.

LADY GRACE.
Sir, I think
You play with me. I am a woman—troubled—
Walking without a staff where I was used
To feel an arm about me. I am here
For counsel from white hairs and practised wits,
Known to my house by years of rendered service,

127

To me more briefly, but yet certainly;
And you, who talk to me of fruit,—your thoughts
Are covered with the useless bloom of youth,
We know not what they shall be.

CRANSTON.
What they are
Your husband knew (forgive the needed pain!),
And was content. My alphabet was law,
I lisped it ere I walked. This house's head
Took me a child, and trained and trusted me,
Clerk, pupil, partner, heir. I was yet a boy
When first your lord, a stately gentleman,
Sought counsel at our hands; he talked with me,
Liked me, and asked for me again,—I wearing
His notice like a crown. As years went on
I had his hope and honour in my hands
By many a pledge, till now, our chief being dead,
I, whom he gave his office and his name,
Have his experience, too, and without help,
Rule prosperous affairs. If you doubt still,
I'll bring you written witness.

LADY GRACE.
This suffices.

128

I see that you are older than you look;
You show it when you speak. Then you know all?

CRANSTON.
More than yourself, perhaps. I know you are ricl,
A queen, upon conditions. That you hold
Sway over two, your husband's niece and nephew,
Whom you have never seen, though their long future
Lies in your grasp; according to your will
You give them all or nothing.

LADY GRACE.
Are they here?

CRANSTON.
They wait your summons.

LADY GRACE.
I would prove the children.
I am old myself—you smile—I have done with life;
I trace its mazes from a toilsome height,
And can guide others.

CRANSTON,
shaking his head.
You can point the way.
Light for shut eyes is darkness.

129

LADY GRACE.
It may shine
So softly that you cannot choose but look
To see what tender thing has tempered it.
I mean, Sir, to make goodness beautiful.

CRANSTON.
You can do that.

LADY GRACE.
It should not need the doing;
But beauty unperceived is music dumb.
I want to show these hearts what virtue is,
That they may love it.

CRANSTON.
Ay, and what is virtue?

LADY GRACE.
You will not find it in the world; it grows
Most often from a grave, and blossoms best
When foreheads that it should have crowned are cold,
And eyes that longed for it are blind for ever.

130

CRANSTON.
Why, so it is with fame and so with love.
It is the law of life that life should cease
Before its end is gained.

LADY GRACE.
A bitter law,
Which I accept not for these two young hearts.
I have them in the bud; I have the morning,
The generous To be. Mine to fulfil,
To train, guard, guerdon. Should we hide our past
In our own bosoms? Mine I mean to set
At the root of their fresh future. They shall grow
Out of my kind decay, and come to fruit
Just when I wither.

CRANSTON.
I'll not threaten you
With stormy noons or cankered flowers, ill growth
By purest nourishment. I'll say you seek
What cannot be; you sign the doom of Hope
Before her trial. The form is in the seed;
You nourish what you know not. In the dark,
Deliberate crystals mould themselves by laws

131

Unchangeable and uncommunicable.
Strive not to stretch one angle half a hair;
You can but break it. Let the children go.
The noon of your own life is still to come.

LADY GRACE.
Past, past!

CRANSTON.
You cheat yourself with words; you toll
Before a death, and music of new health
Shall ring the funeral strain to silence.

LADY GRACE.
Sir,
You are bold. We'll speak of this no more. I came
Not for myself. I wish (myself unseen)
To see these children; can you find a means?

CRANSTON.
Madam, I'll show you, in my private room,
A chink i' the wall. It was my master's office,
And he was one who loved to play the spy
Upon his servants.

LADY GRACE.
It is well. I thank you.

132

I want to read their faces while you tell
My project for their lives.

CRANSTON.
I know not yet
What is your project.

LADY GRACE,
giving a paper.
It is written here.
(He opens it.)
Nay, do not read it now; the time cries haste.
(He folds it up.)
Yet, if you wish—

CRANSTON.
Madam, I have no wishes;
I am an instrument for doing work.

LADY GRACE.
I did not say so.

CRANSTON.
No? I am too bold
To think you graced me with so much observance,
I'll leave you for a moment. I must see
A clear way to your ambush. Wait me here.

(He is going; she follows him to the door.)

133

LADY GRACE.
I did not mean to wound you.

CRANSTON.
O you charm
The sting out of the wound.

(Exit.)
LADY GRACE,
alone.
A fitful man,
With histories in his eyes. I would not pain him;
I should win him for my friend, that he may work
With me in this new field. A lawyer's clerk!
Impossible for friendship! Yet, I know not,—
I do not think he is a common man.
He will not help me. No man helps a woman
Unless he loves her; therefore women use
To win the hearts they do not care to keep,
For service' sake, not love's. I could not do it.
I hold a heart as sacred as a soul,
Living or lost for ever. I must fill
My place alone. These young ones whom I love,
They must be full of fine capacities
And noble chances; all things are at first.
The boys and girls who weary me with life,

134

Who mock its toils and make its glory gossip,
Had futures in them once. Why died the light
On the day's threshold? Something slew it there;
Some breath from a base fact which poisoned it
Ere it had come to strength. Life shrank and fell
Before it felt the undying kiss of truth.
These I can shelter; these—

CRANSTON,
re-entering.
I'll lead you, Madam,
Into your hiding place.

LADY GRACE.
I follow you.

(Exeunt.)

SCENE II.

—A Room in Cranston's House.
Captain de Courcy lies back in an easy-chair, smoking a cigar. —Rosa sits on a footstool at his feet, with a cigar between her lips.— Silence for a little while.—There is a partition down one side of the stage, showing a small side chamber, into which Cranston and Lady Grace enter.—He shows her the aperture through which she is to look.—She sees, starts, and turns to him with an expression of dismay.—He smiles and shakes his head.
CRANSTON,
aside.
No harm, a frolic only.

135

LADY GRACE.
Ay, a frolic.
I'll not be harsh.

DE COURCY,
taking the cigar out of his mouth and laughing.
Cosa stupenda! brava!
That lasted a full minute.

ROSA.
By my watch
(Holding up her watch.)
It lasted twice the time. Is this the way?

(She puffs out the smoke.)
DE COURCY.
Superb!

ROSA.
I don't much like it.

DE COURCY,
eagerly.
But you will.
Habit is all the world in everything.
Few have the gift, but all can persevere
Till they achieve it. I myself at first

136

Had shrinkings; now, I tell you, I can smoke
Ten hours a day.

ROSA.
Delicious!

DE COURCY.
O, it smooths
The edge of time so sweetly. Hours slip on;
You are awake, and I suppose things happen,
But you don't know what happens; you just feel
A general sense of happening. Nothing hurts you.
I think your dearest friend might die at your feet,
And you,—of course you would be sorry, yet
You would not be uncomfortably sorry.
There lies the beauty of it.

ROSA.
O, you men!
You are such misers in your privilege
You hardly let us share it as an alms.

DE COURCY.
Why, thankless child—

137

ROSA.
O yes, you teach it me;
But would you teach your wife?

DE COURCY.
Hum—ah—my wife.—

ROSA.
I know you would not.

DE COURCY.
Well, I think I would not;
You see—one's wife—there's all the difference—
One's wife must never be a theme of talk;
She must not be a Person, she's a Wife
(I think the Bible says so); she must stay
At home while we go out, and be content
Under all changes, and make no demands.

ROSA.
But why not smoke at home?

DE COURCY.
Well, well, she must not.
'Tis clear. It is the nature of the thing.

138

One does not want one's wife to steep herself
In such unvexed composure.

ROSA,
mimicking him.
No, one does not;
One wants to make one's wife uncomfortable
Just now and then, for a change.

DE COURCY.
You twist my meaning.

ROSA.
Cousin de Courcy, I must tell you this,
I never should have guessed from what I see,
You men were better than we women are
If'twere not set down as a certain fact
In sermons and the ‘Saturday Review.’

LADY GRACE,
aside.
The child has wit.

CRANSTON.
Not edgeless. By your leave
I'll make a third. Time presses.

(Exit Cranston.)

139

Scene III.

Captain de Courcy, Rosa. To them, Cranston.
CRANSTON.
I am afraid
I have made you wait.

DE COURCY.
We have not needed patience.

ROSA.
Now that's a compliment. My courteous cousin,
You grow more polished while I look at you.

CRANSTON.
While? or because?

ROSA.
O, pardon—I forgot you.
(To De Courcy)
Talk to him, cousin.

DE COURCY.
I'll exert myself.
Rosa, I think this is a time for men.
(To Cranston.)
Now, Sir, you sent for us; we are not used

140

To come at summons, but we understood
This was from Lady Grace; and we are bound
In a certain sense—that is, not bound, but yet
Bound in a certain sense—to do her pleasure;
That is, we see not why we should not do it,
And, in a certain sense, I mean—

CRANSTON.
I see.
And Lady Grace, who speaks to you by me,
Has charged me to make known her purposes.

DE COURCY,
quickly.
What is her purpose?

CRANSTON.
You shall hear it now.
I am to read this paper.
(Cranston unfolds a paper. They draw eagerly up to him. He reads.)

“I have determined to make a home for my niece and nephew, Miss Wilmot and Captain de Courcy, and to treat them in all respects as if they were my own children, and I hope that they will try to think of me as of a mother,—”

141

DE COURCY,
twisting his moustache.
I'm not so fond of mothers!

ROSA.
O, for shame!

DE COURCY.
I mean no harm—they're very well for daughters,
But men should have no mothers. They're a tie;
You can't forget them; 'tis as though you had
Your boots (good boots) just half an inch too tight,
A trifling obstacle to all you do.
Regulars are oppressive—volunteers
Intolerable.

ROSA.
I'm content. I find
My doings and my goings often checked
For lack of the convenience of a chaperon;
Not that I feel the need.

DE COURCY.
She may control you.

ROSA.
Well, she may try.

142

CRANSTON.
Your pardon; I'll read further.
(Aside)
I count the pulses of that listening heart.
(Reads)

“I do not wish to exercise any restraint upon them,—”

ROSA,
interrupts.
That frightens me. Fair promises of freedom
Come ever most from tyrants.

DE COURCY.
I can hear
The clank of fetters. Go the way you choose,
But this is mine and I like company;
Keep your own hours, I'll wait for you at meals,
Sit up for you at nights, and never scold,
But only sigh and shake my head at you;
Read what you like, but tell me why you like it;
Spend as you please, but let me see the bills.—
Maternal liberty!

ROSA.
Let's hear the end.

143

CRANSTON,
reads.

“I do not wish to exercise any restraint upon them, and the only condition which I desire to impose is that they should be perfectly open with me. I hope to enter as much as possible into their pursuits, and I wish them in return to enter into mine. There are to be no concealments between them and me. I shall resent nothing but deception, and I trust that as we learn to know each other we shall be happy together.”

(As Cranston reads, his voice expresses increasing dissatisfaction.)

CRANSTON,
aside.
Hope, leaning on a menace, can but fall.
O, woman, you were sleeping in a wood
And dreaming of a city! Human souls
Cannot be set in nosegays.

DE COURCY.
Now it's out!
Confound me if I join in her pursuits!

ROSA.
It need not trouble you, because you cannot.

144

I shall be set to darning! or, perhaps,
Reading to sick old folks, or teaching children.

DE COURCY.
We men can read.

ROSA.
Not well.

DE COURCY.
She might begin
With our pursuits, as we are two to one,—
I'll teach her smoking.

ROSA.
And I'll make her hunt.
(To Cranston)
O, Sir, you know this aunt, describe her to us.

CRANSTON.
I only saw her once.

ROSA.
An hour's enough.
I know a new man in a minute. You,
Being a lawyer, must read faces. Tell us
What hers told you.

145

CRANSTON.
A language with no teacher,
Clear in itself. A sorrowful short poem
Sung in the twilight to a fevered man,
Making him dream of peace.

(Enter Lady Grace. They start and appear confused.)

SCENE IV.

Lady Grace, De Courcy, Rosa, Cranston.
LADY GRACE,
advancing.
I have stayed too long.
(Aside. (Aloud.)
Children, forgive me! I remember nothing
That I have heard.

CRANSTON.
Nothing?

LADY GRACE.
I said so, Sir.
(To the others.)
O, do not look ashamed, you show my fault.
Youth's privilege is mocking what it knows not;
But when you know me,—if I win your love

146

(And I shall try for't), you may stand amazed,
Like one who shoots a shaft in Fairyland
And finds a burst of blossoms where it struck.

DE COURCY.
Madam—I would say, Aunt,—we did not mean,
That is, we meant but in a certain sense,—
We hope, that is to say, we fear—

ROSA,
taking Lady Grace's hand.
I don't.
I see at once you have delicious eyes,
And I'll be fond of you.

LADY GRACE.
I'll not deceive you;
I am a beggar for your love. Give alms
Of its untested plenty, only alms;
You must not squander; you must save for claims
Stronger than mine; but I may quench my thirst,
Yet leave the source untouched.

ROSA.
The source?

147

LADY GRACE.
Your heart.
It lies so deep you have not looked at it.
A master hand shall find it.

ROSA.
Or find out
That there is no such thing. I had a heart
And a doll at five years old. I played with them
Till I out-grew such trifles. Who can tell
Under what dust of broken toys they lie?
Let no man dig them out; I should not know them.

LADY GRACE.
I would I had known you ere that heart was lost.

DE COURCY.
O Aunt, she talks—

LADY GRACE.
I do not judge by words.

ROSA.
There, you had best be dumb!

148

DE COURCY.
I tell you, Rosa,
It is a time for men.

LADY GRACE,
looking timidly at them.
We are yet strangers,
But we shall grow familiar in our home.
I want you to say home.

ROSA.
H, o, m, e,
You see I can spell it.

DE COURCY.
Aunt, she does but jest.

ROSA.
I'm published with a key, like a boy's Ovid;
Let me translate myself.

DE COURCY,
aside to Rosa.
You are unwise;
Please her at first, that you may please yourself
For ever afterwards.

149

ROSA.
O politic man!

(Servant announces Lady Grace Aumerle's carriage.)
LADY GRACE.
You'll come with me?
(She takes Captain de Courcy's arm.)
Thanks, nephew. I am gay
With such a cavalier.
(As they go out they remember Cranston, who has silently
watched the last scene; they bow to him.)

LADY GRACE.
Good morning, Sir.

(Cranston bows gravely. Exeunt Lady Grace, Rosa, and De Courcy.)
CRANSTON.
Forgotten like her glove, which she picks up
Without a thought!
Why sent she not her lackey to farewell me?
The music of her lips was never meant
For a lawyer's clerk. O hand, O little hand,
You have not graced me with a passing touch;
But you may be closed in such a mighty clasp
That you have not room to quiver! I have seen
Nothing so lovely since I saw the morn

150

Blaze through a purple Apennine, and weave
The world into a garment for its glory.
We see such pictures now and then, and know
That somewhere upon earth there lives a face
Meet to be set in them. Well, I have found it!

END OF ACT FIRST.

ACT II.

SCENE I.

—Cranston's Office.
Lady Grace, Captain de Courcy, Cranston, seated at a table with writing materials.
CRANSTON.
And this is all?

LADY GRACE.
He tells me it is all;
I am sure his word is true.

DE COURCY.
O, have no fears!
If in your bounty you release me now,

151

I know the weight and weariness of debt,
And shall eschew it.

LADY GRACE.
Promise not too much;
Only be true with me. I cannot measure
The height of your temptations.

DE COURCY.
There it is.
You cannot know how life besets a fellow.
You women have no wants;—at least, I mean
You women do so happily without
The things you want. We, who are men, must have them;
And therefore, meaning well, we spend too much
Against our will, because we cannot help it.
But, I'll be careful now.

LADY GRACE.
I am sure you will.
(To Cranston.)
Give me the paper.

(Cranston places a paper before her and stands behind her chair, pointing over her shoulder.)

152

CRANSTON.
Here you write your name.

LADY GRACE,
signs it.
I am glad my little name can do so much.

CRANSTON.
It can do all. (She looks up.)
I mean no mystery;
'Tis the name ever, writ below the page,
That gives the page its force. The words that heal
Or wound, from one, are, if another sign them,
Merely a gust of vacant syllables.

LADY GRACE,
giving Captain de Courcy the paper.
There, nephew; not a sound,—I'll have no thanks;
Only be true to me.

DE COURCY,
kissing her hand.
I were too false
For pity, were I false to you.

LADY GRACE,
to Cranston.
My thanks

153

Are largely yours, for all your words were help
Which the kind utterance doubled. In your hands
I have left (you know it) twice the sum there told;
(She touches the paper.)
And, in your presence, let my nephew hear
He may draw it when he needs it,—he, the judge,
Not I, nor you; you counselled me to trust him,
And thus I follow counsel. I'll not know
When it is spent, nor how; I'll only pray you
(To Captain de Courcy.)
To spend it with a little nobleness.
There are such mighty wants in all the world
To wring our human pleasures from our grasp!
Give something for a cause, not all for self,
Which, being pampered, suffers. So, farewell.

(Exit Lady Grace.)
DE COURCY.
More thanks than language holds! A fair escape;
Only a text; it might have been a sermon.
Well, she's a generous woman. (To Cranston.)
Now the money.

CRANSTON.
You have it in your hand.

154

DE COURCY.
Ay, but the rest.
You heard the lady; neither when nor how
Will she inquire the fashion of the giving;
So let the when be now; the how, in notes,
Crisp, clean, and cheery Bank of England notes.
Well, Sir?

CRANSTON.
I heard you say your debts were paid.
This haste—

DE COURCY.
Pshaw, man, there is no harm in haste.
One cannot tell a woman all one's debts.
Go, you're a man of the world.

CRANSTON,
turning on him sharply.
No, I am not,—
Not of your world. Mine has another manner,
And keeps a thought of honour in its heart.
There, take your gold.

(Pushes a portfolio to him and sits down at the table, turning his back.)

155

DE COURCY,
takes the portfolio.
The manners of your world
Are truly not like mine. (Aside.)
I hit him there.
These working fellows can't be gentlemen.

(Exit.)
CRANSTON,
alone.
Deceived, poor heart! O, if I were thy fate,
Thy life should be a lovely melody,
Where, to the gentle question of a pause,
Some added charm still answers, till the end
When all the measured flowing rests at last.
It cannot be. Were it but to stretch my hand
I must not. I to drag her from her height!
Besides I have this letter on my soul,
Pressed by her dying lord into my hands.
(Takes out a letter and reads.)

“If my wife marries again, as I earnestly desire that she may not, she shall forfeit by the act half her fortune, which shall pass to my nephew, and the other half shall be secured to her second husband for his sole use and behoof. A sealed codicil to this effect is deposited in my lawyer's hands,

156

but I desire that this my determination be kept secret from my wife, and not revealed to her save in the event of her marriage.”

'Twere base to woo her in the dark, I knowing
What dawn will show. I am barred from her for ever.
Fie, what a jest! I am barred from that which lies
Utterly out of reach, and dream I touch it!
Yet—yet—when last she graced me with a look,
I found a tender shadow in her eyes.
Nay, if it be so, I must close mine own.
I have so much of manhood that I choose
Despair betore dishonour.

(Exit.)

SCENE II.

—Smoking-room at a London Club-house.
Lord Lynton, Sir George Sandys, Fitzerse, Raymond, Capel, all smoke in silence.
LORD LYNTON.
You will confess she's handsome.

SIR GEORGE.
Not my style;
A little slow, you see. I like them fast.

157

FITZERSE.
I thought no style could come amiss to you.
Fast, said you? why, I thought you liked them all.

SIR GEORGE.
No, on my honour, Ned, I never said so.
I may have said—but quite in confidence—
That I'm a little fortunate with all.
'Tis strange, now,—among friends one speaks the truth—
How good they are to me. I am not vain;
I know my faults. I see where others pass me.
I've seen a fellow ten times handsomer—

LORD LYNTON.
No, no!

SIR GEORGE.
You laugh. Say twenty times,—what matter
If I come first to the goal? Crowns are not made
For those who grace them, but for those who win them;
We, in these wiser days, approve the man
More than the vestment. You shall see Adonis
Unpartnered, while some bright-tongued Caliban

158

Picks his nice footsteps through a heap of hearts,
Lying so close he treads on one or two
For want of thought.

LORD LYNTON.
Poor hearts!

SIR GEORGE.
Poor man! Believe me
There's a sharp sting in finding out too late
You have hurt something helpless. Envy not
A man so conscienced.

FITZERSE.
Are there many such?

SIR GEORGE.
No, by the hopes of women; two or three
Sufficing for the world.

FITZERSE.
One were enough.
I wonder what the ladies say of us
In their seclusions!

159

SIR GEORGE.
Did you never hear?
I had the chance once; in a country house,
Stalled by good hap next to a gathering-place,
Where a whole bevy groomed their golden manes
Just before sleep,—air sultry—windows wide—
I in the balcony—a mist of words
Whirling against the moonlight.

LORD LYNTON.
Fie! you listened.
I hope you heard some mischief of yourself.

SIR GEORGE.
Too much, too much! But honour holds me dumb.

FITZERSE.
I'll wager what you heard was as a spur
To drive you from the house.

SIR GEORGE.
Some traitor told you.
I went next day. I had no heart to meet
Looks which I could not answer.

160

FITZERSE.
Pshaw, Sir George!
You should say no before they ask, and save them
From their own hopes.

SIR GEORGE.
One cannot always show
That one sees through the gauze. Besides, one fears
A possible blunder.

FITZERSE.
Is it possible?

SIR GEORGE.
Fitzerse, you are young. Time and the world must set
Their future polish on your future wit.
I, as a friend, advise you,—do not talk
Too freely to a man who has a Past,
Lest a smile scathe you.

FITZERSE.
Thanks; I'm not afraid,
Only a little sceptical.

161

SIR GEORGE.
You doubt me.

LORD LYNTON.
Come, come.

SIR GEORGE.
His doubts are very natural.
By what he knows he judges. Me he knows not.
Be patient with him, he has time to learn.

RAYMOND.
Let's hear the lesson, Capel, shall we not?
Now, Sandys!

CAPEL.
Now, Fitzerse!

FITZERSE.
I have said nothing.

SIR GEORGE.
We know it, man; say something now—we listen.
Proclaim your vast experience!

FITZERSE.
What I think

162

I say, of you, or any man,—not more
Of you than of another.

RAYMOND AND CAPEL.
Hear, hear, hear!

FITZERSE.
O, you may laugh. I stand by what I say.

SIR GEORGE.
Dear fellow, stand by it, but say it first!

FITZERSE.
I think—and this is what I meant to say—
Men scorned by women speak of women lightly,
As you of Lady Grace.

SIR GEORGE.
She could not scorn,
Being unsought. I do not like the lady.
She may be fair, but she has preaching eyes,
And I breathe no Amens. Her niece, I grant you,
Is drawn with softer touches.

FITZERSE.
I am sure
You have not found her so.

163

SIR GEORGE.
Be not too rash
In such assurance.

FITZERSE,
to the others.
Do not listen to him.
He may be king of thousands, but this one
(I chance to know it) sits at liberty.

SIR GEORGE.
You know it?

FITZERSE,
I have said so.

SIR GEORGE,
Knowledge lies
In consciousness, which makes itself a fact
Unto itself, but seen in clearer light
May be but half a fact, more false in use
Than a whole falsehood.

FITZERSE.
Talk your metaphysics
To other ears. I speak of what I know.

164

I had the lady's tablets at a ball
To hide them from this happy gentleman,
Lest he should write his name there.

LORD LYNTON.
By her wish?

FITZERSE.
I never yet forestalled a lady's wishes,
Nor thwarted them.

SIR GEORGE.
Ah, dear Fitzerse, you have learnt
Hardly the alphabet of women's ways;
Those pretty idioms where two noes make yes
You cannot read. A wish? A blind, a blind,
Transparent to a scholar.

FITZERSE.
Do you think
She wished to dance with you?

SIR GEORGE.
I know she did.

FITZERSE,
And hid her tablets!

165

SIR GEORGE.
Could I sue for them
Having them in my hand? It is so sweet
To be entreated.

FITZERSE.
But she danced not with you!

SIR GEORGE.
There I reproach myself.

LORD LYNTON.
Oh, she'll forgive it.

SIR GEORGE.
Her pardon pressed so close upon my fault
There was no space for seemly penitence.
See now, Fitzerse, you doubt me. Shall I prove
More than I hint?

FITZERSE.
Prove anything you like.

LORD LYNTON.
What, champion, you draw back?

166

FITZERSE.
Not for a moment
I'll swear he can prove nothing.

SIR GEORGE,
becoming animated.
I will prove
That she lies at my mercy, that I hold her
So balanced on the hair-broad edge of fancy
That at my word, my will, my look, she falls,
Taken or left at pleasure.

FITZERSE.
Be ashamed
Of such a boast!

SIR GEORGE.
That would I, were it boasting.

CAPEL.
But who shall judge?

SIR GEORGE.
Fitzerse himself! I'll stand
By his award. My proof shall be as loud
As a great school-bell, thrusting its “Too late!”

167

On breathless culprits, who excuse themselves
But venture no denial.

RAYMOND.
Bravely said.
No fairer test could be devised.

CAPEL.
But time;
Name us some limit; spin not miles of web
To snare one butterfly.

SIR GEORGE.
Oh, time's a trifle.
What's to-day? Thursday; and I'm booked tomorrow
For Greenwich. So—so—can you keep your patience
Till Monday?

FITZERSE.
Pshaw!

SIR GEORGE.
I know it's rather long;
But these dear creatures want a little time.

168

I could not do it quicker. Hurry business,
Sentiment, never!

FITZERSE.
Curse your sentiment!

SIR GEORGE.
And welcome. Will you take a bet?

FITZERSE.
I scorn—

RAYMOND AND CAPEL,
interrupting.
Come, come, you fear.

FITZERSE.
Not I! I'll take his bet
Twenty times reckoned, stretched through twenty weeks,
And am so sure of his defeat I'll venture
Double the sum with you or you or you,
Any or all.

ALL.
Hear, hear!

(Sir George takes out his tablets and writes.)

169

FITZERSE.
What have you written?

SIR GEORGE,
reads.

“I engage to prove, to the satisfaction of these witnesses, by Monday next, that a certain lady, not to be named here, is so far devoted to me that it is manifestly at my choice, not hers, whether I make her my wife or not.”

(He looks up.)
But this must go no further; keep it close.
I would not make a scandal for the world;
And I might have to marry her in earnest
If you are indiscreet.

RAYMOND AND CAPEL.
No fear, no fear!

SIR GEORGE.
On Monday, then?

FITZERSE.
On Monday I shall see you
Wiser and humbler.

170

SIR GEORGE.
That's a pious hope.

(They take leave. Exeunt all except Sir George Sandys.)

SCENE III.

Sir George, alone.
SIR GEORGE.
I never fail, because I never try
If failure blurs the distance. I can read
This girl as I ride past her. Oh, 'tis plain!
Her gods are Change and Notice; out of the light
She is torpid. She would sooner writhe than sleep;
Sooner be stared at by reproachful eyes
Than left unseen. Had she but half a heart
She had been lost ere now; but careful nature
Has made her cold; and so she walks unscathed,
Like those mean things that slip across the brooks,
And sink not, for no water touches them.
Now, tired of calm, disdaining ill report,
Stung by restraint, I find her. I have met
Her eyes; I know she holds me for a man
Unconquered. I may tempt her by a triumph
To some sufficient boldness; then we part,

171

She careless, I content, leaving our names
For a week's talk, which might have been a month's
On less occasion. Were my life a tale,
Told by a dozen honest witnesses,
I should not guess the hero.

(Exit.)

SCENE IV.

—Lady Grace's Garden.
Lawn and croquet-ground with players.—Lady Grace and Rosa advance.
ROSA.
Aunt, you called me.

LADY GRACE.
I want you for a moment. (Takes her hand.) Did you say
You had no secrets?

ROSA,
aside.
If she guesses this
I am undone. (Aloud.)
Why, if I had a secret
I could not keep it for an hour. I talk
To everything. If people will not listen,
I'd tell it to a bird, a flower, a kitten,
And find or fancy sympathy.

172

LADY GRACE.
No need
For such devisings. I am not a girl,
That's true, but not for that you shrink from me.
Time has but hidden the girl's heart; it is here,
Ready to answer yours. A little way,
A few slow steps beyond you on life's path,
Still troubled, still in hope, still warm with love,
With just a touch of wisdom won from pain,
And eyes so bathed in recent memory,
That they are quickened for another's care,
Forestalling it with pity. Therefore trust me.

ROSA.
Oh, you are kind, I know it, but you dream
Of cares I never felt.

LADY GRACE.
I can secure
That you shall never feel them. Rosa, trust me.
If it be joy, none feel another's joy
Like those who have for ever lost their own.
If grief, I am professor in that school
To make its lessons easy. And if hope,

173

Why, even there, I am a match for you;
Hope, obstinate and faithful, clings to me,
Spurned every hour.

ROSA,
aside.
Heavens, what an interlude
For croquet and flirtation!

LADY GRACE.
I am afraid
You think me cold.

ROSA.
No, no!

LADY GRACE.
In truth I am not.
Try me. I have no coldness for a fault
(If such there be), knowing myself; I find
No fault a folly of a gentle heart
Out of my limits.

ROSA.
You bewilder me.
You have believed some tale to my dispraise.

174

LADY GRACE.
I have a letter for you.

(Gives a letter.)
ROSA.
You have read it!

LADY GRACE.
If my life stood i' the words I could not read them,
Being for you. O child, you know me not.

ROSA.
I did not mean to anger you. You listened
To our unconscious talk.

LADY GRACE.
You shame my soul
By the remembrance. It is true, I did,
And am unpardoned for it here.

ROSA.
I know
You did it not in malice. You might read
To save me from some danger that I love,
Or lead me to some good I covet not.
But I am glad you did not. Be at ease;

175

Here is this mighty secret. You may read
Over my shoulder.
(She slips the letter into her pocket while she speaks and exchanges it for another, which she opens and reads, and then holds out to Lady Grace.)
Nay, I'll force you to it.

(She puts her arm round Lady Grace's waist, and holds the letter before her eyes.)
LADY GRACE.
Not if your heart says no.

ROSA.
My heart says nothing.
A dumb heart balances a talking tongue,
And I've the last. I'll read it. (Reads aloud.)

“The last roses you sent are perfection. Do make two or three dozen more like them if you can spare the time.
“Ever yours affectionately,
“Emma Vane.”

Mock flowers to decorate a room. I learnt
The trick in France,—land of unreal graces.
'Twas Sir George Sandys gave you this?

176

LADY GRACE.
It was.
You know they say my figure is like yours.
He came behind me in the game and thrust
This in my hand, nor knew that he had blundered,
Nor I till afterwards.

ROSA.
And then you wove
A fine romance, with me for heroine.
Fie, Aunt, you are fanciful. This Emma Vane,
My friend, Sir George's cousin, gives a dance,
And sends this precious billet to bespeak
My help and presence. Do not tell Sir George
That he mistook.

LADY GRACE.
Why not?

ROSA.
Because he sits
At his own feet in worship, and I like
To toss a little healthy scorn at him.
Leave me my triumph.

177

LADY GRACE.
As you will; but, Rosa,
How much are you familiar with this man?

ROSA.
Familiar? Not at all. I dance with him,
Bow in the street, talk, isten, and forget
Before I sleep. He takes it all for homage.
Men ever count their birds before they are shot,
And stare when some light skyward waft of wings
Shows them unscathed.

LADY GRACE.
I like him not; he talks
As vaguely as a schoolgirl.

ROSA.
Is that all?
You spoke with such a shudder in your eyes
I thought you had some crime to charge him with.

LADY GRACE.
Is it no crime
To drop your days like nutshells, having swallowed
All that was good in them? They should be seeds

178

Which only fall to grow. Is it no crime
Merely to be a man that you may show
The slightness and the poverty of life?
When life, in a man's hand, is such a sword
To cleave the dark assailants of our souls;
Such a slow weaving of collected flowers
Into a deathless garland; such a clasp
Between this world and that which lies beyond,
Making both one.

ROSA.
Oh, never talk to me
Of other worlds! I know I should not like them
So well as this. I love to wear the flowers
Which others pluck for me; and as for swords,
I love the uniform, but not the sword;
It gets in your way in dancing.

LADY GRACE,
aside.
I do harm
With such untimely earnest. This it is
To have so little power upon myself.
This was my fault, not hers. I scare her from me.

179

(Aloud, with great tenderness.)
Dear, I'll not keep you from your pleasure. Go;
I'll follow.
(Rosa kisses and waves her hand and runs off to the players.)
O, how glad she was to go!
No parting—an escape. Now has my fault
Marred in a word the policy of weeks!
I meant to woo her gently, to make sure
I stood within the border of her love
(I fear I do not), ere I strained her love
By plea for any touch of graver thought;
Now, like a sear leaf in the flush of June,
I thrust sure terror of the death to come
Against the face of joy, and am disdained.
(Enter Cranston.)
Alas! you come in time—I have failed again!

SCENE V.

Lady Grace, Cranston.
CRANSTON.
Such failures are the planks that reach success.
Look not so sad. How came it?

180

LADY GRACE.
From myself.
I went by your advice, held down my heart
And spake not with my tongue, and they were tamer.
I might have spread my hand with nobler food
And caught them in the meshes of a hope;
But I sprang out too soon and startled them,
And they are fled!

CRANSTON.
Ay, but they will return.
There is no power like patience.

LADY GRACE.
If you wait
While a root grows; but if the earth be blank,
What profit that you water it with tears?
You may die watching it!

CRANSTON.
I pray you, pardon!
You are, I know not how, of southern mould;
You look for souls that can express their dreams,
For soil that blossoms, for a wind that warms;

181

We are not so, God has not made us so,
Our earth is full of iron, not of wine,
Stern summers and grey noons. But you shall find
Heroes who are ashamed of noble words;
Ay, boys who cannot spell the name of hero,
But are what the name covers.

LADY GRACE.
In my heart
I cannot think so. When our land was great
Her sons had great desires; they were not content
With food and clothing; from no stumbling chance
Sprang their achievements, but by natural growth
Out of the habit of their daily hope,
Ay, and their daily scorn! We women now
Have all the aspiration and disdain;
We are told we cannot read our masters' souls,
And must not know their lives; we must turn away
Our decent looks, and leave them to their will,
And to their masks and shifts and meannesses;
When the need comes, these crawlers shall arise
And do the work of heroes. Why, do you think
The men who made our England what she is
Told lies to their mothers?

182

CRANSTON,
taking her hand.
Hear me!

LADY GRACE.
You are a man
You should know best. I have heard too much of patience,—
Too much of dreary patience. Give me hope!

CRANSTON.
I have none.

LADY GRACE.
Seek it!

(They look at each other in silence; then she draws away her hand and covers her face. He moves away a little, and then returns.)
CRANSTON.
Was it not your niece
Who struck this passion from you? yet you speak
Only of men. I pray you, tell me all.

LADY GRACE,
controlling herself.
The girl is true—true, slight, and frivolous,

183

But on that true foundation we may build
A better structure. 'Tis the boy, her cousin,
Brings me to this despair. Not for an hour
Did I forget myself to be myself,
Lest I should gall him. I was gay by force,
Placid by violence to my burning thoughts;
I strewed my sympathy about his feet,
Thankful if he but stooped. He met me well;
No sudden homage, not too soft a speech,
But with considerate, manly smiles, that seemed
Half tolerance, half respect,—with daily words
Such as, “I seem not better than I am;”
“I hate professions;” “I am not a saint;”
“Take what you find, and trust it.” And I did,
While with his peaceful eyes upon my face
He cheated me,—masking the life I loathe
By a calm flow of falsehood!

CRANSTON.
Do not weep!
Rest in yourself,—forget these common hearts.

LADY GRACE.
But these are all I live for.

184

CRANSTON.
Say it not.
A crown is in your reach.

LADY GRACE.
You speak in clouds.

CRANSTON.
Your life lies out before you like a field
Wherein you have but paced a little way;
What matter if you stumbled? Stand upright,
Pass by the grave where you have wept enough,
Pass it, and leave your tender thoughts upon it,
Your faithful memories, your gracious flowers;
But not your hopes, but not your living self!
Go on to better joys.

LADY GRACE.
I see them not.

CRANSTON.
You are what all men dream of. You are young.
Are you afraid to love?

185

LADY GRACE.
No, not to love,
Only to speak.

CRANSTON.
Choose nobly—choose at once!
Your equal, lest men scorn you in your choice;
Your master, lest you scorn yourself in him;
Your slave—but that is sure. And, having chosen,
Make love the centre of your days, and leave
All else upon the verge. You have loved once—

LADY GRACE,
looking down.
Once only. I was wed, a child, and gave
Only my reverence.

CRANSTON.
Give now your heart.
Think on my words.

LADY GRACE.
You are going?

CRANSTON.
I am gone.

186

I have presumed too far to counsel you,
Yet take it for the service of a friend,
Who from his unmoved distance watches you
And sees your life in large.

LADY GRACE,
controlling herself.
I take it so.

CRANSTON,
aside.
If I bear this, I can bear all. (Aloud.)
Farewell!

LADY GRACE.
Stay—I would thank you. This was prudent counsel
And, if I follow—

CRANSTON.
Not in haste!

LADY GRACE.
Enough.
The theme is tender, and I am not used
To bare my inmost petals to the sky.
I suffer in such talk; let it now cease.

(Exit Cranston, bowing gravely.)

187

SCENE VI.

LADY GRACE,
alone.
Where shall I hide myself! I have shown my heart,
If not to him, I have shown it to myself,
And am for ever shamed. His “unmoved distance!”
Was that a warning? O, for my base fault
There's no forgiveness! Were I a child, a girl,
With blind and wondering fingers forcing out
Th' unconscious music never heard before,
There were some grace about my rashness. I!
Who kept my womanhood in state, and held
The threshold of my throne too high a place
For a man's hand!—I, to have cast myself
Under the heel of pity! Hide this vileness
From him, the world, myself! Hide it! I'll prove
It was an insolent blunder—his, not mine,—
Not I to work this bold impossible shame
Which honest tongues glide over. Let me die
With my name noble!

(Enter Lord Lynton.)
LORD LYNTON.
Lady Grace!

188

LADY GRACE.
My lord,
I am not well.

LORD LYNTON.
You are too generous
To play with me; thrice have you thrust me back
With studied pretexts such as women use
To spare our pride the homely, hateful “No.”
But I am obstinate; I learn no task
Save by compulsion; you must tell me broadly
You will not have me, or I stay by you
Till to the closeness of a siege you yield,
Subdued not conquered,—an you will, starved out!
If you disdain my speaking—

LADY GRACE.
Heaven forbid!
It is your part to speak.

LORD LYNTON.
Oh, say you so?
Then I will tell you twenty times I love you;
And, if you weary of the tale, I'll say
You are so fair, so wise, so just, so modest,

189

I cannot choose but love you, as mere sight
Makes men desire a rose, a jewel, a crown,
Because Heaven made them so desirable.
If you reject me—

(While he speaks, re-enters Cranston; he stops short.—Lady Grace perceives him.)
LADY GRACE.
I have done with love.

LORD LYNTON.
But I'm content with less. I seek yourself,
Not as I would, but as you are. Endure me,
And I'll beset you so with tenderness
That from your root of patience shall spring up
The perfect flower of love.

LADY GRACE.
Then am I yours.
(Gives him her hand; as he is about to embrace her, she checks him.)
We are not alone. I pray you, let us go.(She takes his arm, and they go out, passing Cranston.)
To Cranston.

Thanks for your counsel. I have followed it.

190

LORD LYNTON.
What counsel, Sweet?

LADY GRACE.
My lawyer,—nothing more.

(Exeunt Lady Grace and Lord Lynton.)

Scene VII.

CRANSTON,
alone.
Ah, comfortable scorn; were her heart cold,
Thou wouldst not be so bitter! In thy sting
Is healing. I am cruel to find it so,
For I myself have wrought this bitter fate;
I have uncrowned my life, and henceforth set it
Beyond the reach of hope,—not she, but I;
Not her kind hand that trembled in my hold,
Not her soft eyes which seek me now through tears,
Not her imperial heart, which might have been,
Which was mine own. I will say it to myself,—
'Tis all I have, or shall have. To know this,
That being loved, and loving, with such force
As fills the whole capacity of man,

191

I, for her sake who is so dear, undo
The clue that should have drawn me up to bliss,
And give the meagre story of my days
No close but those indifferent words “he died;”
He died, who never lived. O, she is lost!
Were it to do, it were undone for ever!
The madness of my virtue has destroyed me.
Fool, fool!—My happy weakness comes too late;
It can but dusk the honour of my grief
Through my long line of undelightful noons,
And all grey drearness of my evening times.

END OF SECOND ACT.

ACT III.

SCENE I.

—Evening. Lady Grace's Garden.
Enter Rosa with a letter.
ROSA.
Alone at last! And now what writes Sir George?
(Reads.)

“Am I never to have the opportunity of speaking

192

to you alone again? Do walk with me under the chestnuts this evening.—S.”

Under the chestnuts? Why, I'm there! I'll fly
Ere he arrives to think me so compliant,
Coming when I am called!

(Going, she encounters Sir George, who enters hastily.)
SIR GEORGE.
I'm in despair
That you should wait for me.

ROSA.
Console yourself,
I never wait. I came for privacy,
And, meeting you, I'll wander somewhere else.

SIR GEORGE.
Unkind! You had my note?

ROSA.
Not I!

SIR GEORGE.
I'll swear
I see it in your hand.

193

ROSA,
crumpling it up, and closing her hand.
I'll swear you do not!
I want to swear,—teach me some delicate oath,
Such as you use on Sundays. Let me go!
(He is trying to open her hand.)
You shall not see the paper, no, you shall not,
Though you are such a hero to a woman!

SIR GEORGE.
But tell me what it is.

ROSA.
A little bill.
Friend, you may see it is a shop-boy's writing.

(Holds it up before his eyes a moment, and then thrusts it behind her.)
SIR GEORGE.
Well, if you duly pay such little bills,
'Tis all I ask.

ROSA.
Ask anything you please—
There's no defence from asking—alms or news.

194

SIR GEORGE.
I would you had a boon to ask of me.

ROSA.
I cannot brook to ask and be refused.

SIR GEORGE.
What man refuses when a woman pleads?

ROSA.
What can man give that's worth a woman's pleading?

SIR GEORGE.
His life.

ROSA.
Not half the value of a novel!

SIR GEORGE.
His heart.

ROSA.
A bargain—but it will not wear.

SIR GEORGE.
Himself.

195

ROSA.
O, mercy! anything but that!
What could she do with it?

SIR GEORGE.
Why, you should know,
Who count your slaves by dozens.

ROSA.
I declare
I cannot make you angry.

SIR GEORGE.
Did you try?
Nay, that's a boon I could not grant a woman
Though she knelt for it.

ROSA.
Yet, I'd wring it from you
If I tried long enough. I'd ask your friend
To tell your foibles, and I'd taunt you with them
Before a princess.

SIR GEORGE.
laughing.
Come, a truce, a truce!
You beat me from the field.

196

ROSA.
I do remember
I asked a favour of you once.

SIR GEORGE.
What was it?

ROSA.
I asked you for a little amber clasp,
A trifle, brought from Rome, not worth refusing,
And yet you gave it not. I wanted it
Because I have lost one in a set, and yours
Matched it exactly.

SIR GEORGE.
Nay, but I am sure
You did not ask it.

ROSA.
Well, 'twas in a waltz;
I think I went a little fast for you,
And you were so attentive to your steps,
Perhaps you did not hear me.

SIR GEORGE.
You are dreaming!

197

Too fast for me! There was a wager once
How many of the lightest limbs in Paris
My waltzing pace would tire. I took a dozen,
And danced them all to faintness.

ROSA.
What a shame!
That was when you were young?

SIR GEORGE,
startled, but recovers himself.
You cannot vex me.

ROSA,
clapping her hands.
You were angry for a moment! Come, you'll give me
That little clasp.

SIR GEORGE.
There is a tale about it.

ROSA.
Tell me—I love to listen to romance.,

SIR GEORGE.
I had it from a sweet Hungarian girl,

198

Who—but I'm silent there; you must not ask me.
Enough to know that she was beautiful
And kind, and when she took it from her hair
(A sweep of gold, like yours,) and gave it me,
She took a promise from me.

ROSA.
I was sure
That you would say so. Not to part with it!
I wish I had not asked you.

SIR GEORGE.
Softly! softly!
You're so impetuous. What I promised her
Was this, that if I parted with her gift
To some more happy woman,—so she said,
With a sweet, helpless accent of reproach,
Like one who knew she could not rein the steed
That paused by her a moment,—I should give it
On two conditions.

ROSA.
Tell them.

SIR GEORGE.
They are these.

199

The woman who would win that clasp from me
Must come, alone, to fetch it from my rooms,
And give me in exchange a tress of hair
Which mine own hand must sever.

ROSA.
I'm content,
If you cut evenly and make no gap
To spoil me for the ball.

SIR GEORGE.
Upon these terms
The clasp is yours.

ROSA.
To-night?

SIR GEORGE.
Ay, if you come
Now to my rooms.

ROSA.
There is no better time;
I'm safe for all the evening. She is gone
To some dull meeting,—charity or science,
I know not which.

200

SIR GEORGE.
But you must wear a veil;
Some passer in the street might see your face
And spread the news to-morrow. I were loth
To bring her wrath upon you.

ROSA.
Wait for me,
I'll join you in a moment. Such a frolic
I never risked before. I'm charmed with it!

(Exit Rosa.)
SIR GEORGE.
There were more flattery in a little fear,
But that might baffle me. I could not urge
A girl with scruples. She is scruple-proof.
Now, when I house her, fetch my witnesses,
And fix my triumph, if she blush at all
(I know not that she can), 'twill pass in laughter.
In half an hour she'll boast of this exploit
As boys of duels; we shall keep her secret
As faithfully as though she were ashamed,
So there's no harm.

(Re-enter Rosa in a hat, veil, and shawl.)

201

ROSA.
See, I have cloaked myself
In my aunt's wrappings. She is just my height
And I may pass for her.

SIR GEORGE.
A brilliant thought!
We must be quick.

ROSA.
I have wished a hundred times
To know how you men live in those strange caverns
You call your homes. Now I shall see it all!
I'm on the threshold of a fairy tale!

SIR GEORGE.
I'll show you wonders.

(Exeunt Sir George and Rosa.)

SCENE II.

Enter Lady Grace, musing.

Time quenches all,—I am athirst for time;
Could I but press a year into an hour,
And scan mine anguish with the tranquil eyes
Of one who says “it was.” Across the stream
Is calm, but I am crying from the depths.
Now must I count my bitter thoughts, and say,—

202

After so many pangs, so many prayers,
So many faint appeals to fairer hope,
So many swift relapses unto pain,—
There shall be conquest. Over what? A heart
Slain but not healed, never to bleed again
Because it cannot. If I had done a sin
I were content to suffer; all I did
Was to be ignorant of what I did.
I knew not, saw not, felt not, that the rein
Was sliding from my fingers (that is sin
In women) till I lost it, on the brink,
And fell through flowers that mask a precipice.
I am down now. O, that I stood again
Upon the pleasant levels!—that I walked
With passionless decision, like a nun,
Watching my steps. I cling among the thorns;
I'll fall no lower,—let them pierce me here
As I strive upwards.

(Enter a maid with a packet.)
MAID.
Madam, from Lord Lynton.

(Gives it.)
LADY GRACE.
From whom? From him? I had forgotten him.

203

MAID.
Will you be pleased to read? The servant waits.

LADY GRACE.
I must be pleased. A message from the master
Whom for myself I chose. What have I done?
Let me not wrong him,—'twere to strike the hand
Stretched out to save me. (Opens the packet, takes out a bracelet, and reads.)

“Do not scorn my first gift, but wear it, if only in remembrance of my joy.
“Lynton.”

I should be glad to make another glad
Who only lives to serve me, but I am not.
This joy but comes to whet the after-grief
That it should cut the deeper. I have done
Two wrongs, in loving where I should not love,
And making love my duty where I cannot.
I am like one who, being sick to death,
Takes poison to be rid of his disease,
And dies the sooner. O, that it were night!
And O! that it were morning after night,
And I were past the waves and wrecks of youth,
Softly at anchor in some tideless sea,
Till the slow sunset reach me! Where's my niece?

204

MAID.
Madam, I know not.

LADY GRACE.
You look strangely at me.
No pain is like the preface to a pain.
Tell me at once,—she is dead!

MAID.
Now Heaven forbid!
She passed me with a festal countenance
When she went out just now.

LADY GRACE.
I am afraid
If but an eyelash quiver. She went out,—
Was she alone?

MAID.
No, Madam.

LADY GRACE.
With her cousin?

MAID.
No, Madam.

205

LADY GRACE.
Prithee speak; thou stiflest me
With these “No, Madams.”

MAID.
Well, then, if she kills me
I'll tell the truth. She wore a walking-dress,
And went with Sir George Sandys.

LADY GRACE.
At this hour!
A girl! alone! 'tis more than foolishness.
Where went they?

MAID.
As I gathered from their talk,
Across the park.

LADY GRACE.
But where?

MAID.
If I must say,
They went together to Sir George's rooms.
I heard her say that she had wished to see
How men live in their single palaces,
And he said he would show her.

206

LADY GRACE.
after standing speechless for a moment.
Get my cloak.

MAID.
Madam, I hope if she is wroth with me,
You will excuse me; I have never been
A talebearer.

LADY GRACE.
Go, child; you have done no wrong.
'Tis my mistake; I should have gone with them,
And I must follow. Fetch my mantle, quick.
I would not make them wait. (Exit maid.)

This is some jest,
In her a frolic, but in him a crime.
She throws her name to him without a fear;
He, having caught it, stains it. Oh, 'tis vile,
Out of the lightness of an hour to draw
That unrelieved repentance of a life
Which finds no help. I must be swift to hide
And bold to speak.
(Re-enter maid with a hat and cloak.)
That's well. You must not say

207

You saw your lady with Sir George alone.
We must be careful, girl; there is no cure
For this tongue-venom, if you have a place
Where it can sting; you must be all in mail.
Be sure you tell it not.

(She puts on the hat and cloak.)
MAID.
I will not breathe it
Against my pillow.

LADY GRACE,
gives her money.
There is for your promise.
You shall have double if 'tis kept a year.

MAID.
I'll keep it twenty years at a such a price.

(Exeunt separate ways.)

SCENE III.

—Sir George Sandys' Sitting-room.
A vestibule seen beyond, lighted.—A servant waiting in the vestibule. —Rosa sits in an easy-chair, looking at a photographic album. —Sir George kneels beside her, turning the pages.
ROSA,
looking at a portrait.
You said your sister?

208

SIR GEORGE.
When I show a woman
Another woman's portrait in this book
I always say my sister.

ROSA.
laughing.
Do you find
They wonder hugely at your family?
Why here are twenty faces.

(She turns the pages to and fro.)
SIR GEORGE.
All my sisters;
All the fair creatures who have granted me
A brother's gentle freedom. You are one.

ROSA.
You shall not have my portrait in your book.

SIR GEORGE.
I think there is a place that waits for it,
Here, by my sweet Hungarian. You are sisters.
Have not I found you so?

ROSA.
You shall not have it.

209

SIR GEORGE.
Be not disturbed. It is my private book;
I only show you to each other.

ROSA.
Mine
You shall not show.

SIR GEORGE.
Well, be content; I will not.
I'll keep it for myself.

ROSA.
You shall not have it;
Not on conditions, not upon your knees.
I to be strung in such a rosary!

(Tosses the book away and rises.)
SIR GEORGE,
aside.
I must appease her, or I lose my game.
(Aloud.)
Undo that folded frown. I did but jest;
I would not set your face among those faces
If you besought me to it.

210

ROSA.
See you do not.
I hardly trust you.

SIR GEORGE.
You shall find me then
Above your trust and level with your wish.
Say, shall I fetch the clasp?

ROSA.
Is it not here?

SIR GEORGE.
I have it in my chamber. Please yourself
A moment with these poor appliances
That grace a home severely womanless.
Here hangs a picture, Guido's Esperanza.
'Tis so I dream my wife; so softly prompt,
A hope that only waits to be fulfilled.
This marble is from Florence. You perceive
With what a fire the sculptor worked, who made
A stone that moves and blushes while you gaze.
And here—

211

ROSA,
pausing before a picture.
Was this the horse you rode at Silcot,
When Godfrey Vere was thrown?

SIR GEORGE,
embarrassed.
No, not that horse.

ROSA.
O, pardon, I remember; you were thrown,
And Godfrey Vere at Silcot won the day.
You would not prize the portrait of that horse.

SIR GEORGE.
It is the only race I ever lost.

ROSA.
The first, you mean. I pray you fetch my clasp;
The hour grows late.

SIR GEORGE.
I will return with it.
(To the servant in the vestibule as he goes out.)
Keep watch while I am gone. Be very gentle,
But do not let the lady leave the room.

212

SERVANT.
I will not, Sir.

(Exit Sir George.)
ROSA.
I do not like his ways;
I feel new freedom in his eye and voice,
Painting my rashness strongly. I'll be gone
Ere he returns.

(She goes hastily to the entrance of the vestibule.)
SERVANT.
Madam, you cannot pass.

ROSA.
Are you a gaoler?

SERVANT.
Madam, no, but ordered
To bar your passage.

ROSA.
Is it so? I'll test it.
I think you will not touch me.

(She tries to pass; the servant prevents her.)

213

SERVANT.
Madam, pardon.
Wait but a moment till Sir George returns.

ROSA.
You have insulted me. Your place is lost.
It is not possible that you were told
To lay a finger on me.

SERVANT.
I had orders.
My place is lost if I obey them not.

(Enter Lady Grace in the vestibule, behind the servant.)
ROSA,
perceiving her.
O aunt, aunt, aunt, come to me!

LADY GRACE,
advancing.
You are frightened. I am here to give you safety. (To the servant.)
Let me pass.

SERVANT.
I had no orders to keep ladies out,
Only to shut them in.

(Lady Grace and Rosa come to the front.)

214

LADY GRACE.
Why are you here?
You know not what you have done.

ROSA.
I have done no harm.

LADY GRACE.
You will be slighted in the common talk,
Named with a glance, the tale put by, but growing
Through all the silences, thus, “In her youth,
She did,—I will not tell you what she did.”
Or, “There was something; just a shade. 'Twere well
She should not know your daughters.” You will live
Shrinking and hardening in the doubtful eyes
That scan you—angry with your bitter shame,
Earned, not deserved. You did not think of this,
But there's yet time.

ROSA.
You know we cannot pass.
How can you bear to say such words to me?
If I am so esteemed, it were as well

215

To scorn myself and live in wickedness,
Like women that one reads of.

(Weeps.)
LADY GRACE.
Do not weep.

ROSA,
wringing her hands.
What can I do but weep? It is too late.

LADY GRACE.
Too late is in the will, not in the fact.
Here, change with me. Your keeper knows us not;
Pass by him fearless, fly, be swift, be mute;
Let not the air discern you as you pass,
Till it close after you.

(She puts her own hat and mantle on Rosa.)
ROSA,
hesitating.
But you are left.
What can you do?

LADY GRACE.
Oh! never think of me.

216

ROSA.
But if it is so monstrous to be here,
Your name may suffer too.

LADY GRACE.
A kindly thought,
For which I thank you, though I need it not.
My name is strong. Oh! be content. I tell you
There is no man on earth would slander me.

ROSA,
aside.
I think some women might.

LADY GRACE.
What, anxious still?
Surmise is deadly to a girl unproved,
But I am tried and known; my presence here
No danger, a rebuke.

ROSA.
I must obey you.

(Exit Rosa, with her veil down.)

217

LADY GRACE,
alone.
She might have marred her life! If I could pause,
From any fear or scruple for myself,
I think I were the basest woman breathing.
Would I were hence! I never stood before
Within the reach of an audacious thought.
(Voices without.)
Hark!—he is coming. I have but to face
A moment's wonder—nothing more. I laugh
To think that I should shake for such a cause.
'Tis newness scares us all. We are afraid
To do the thing we have not done, which loses
All terror in the doing,—like a child
Who fears a dragon in the unknown fields,
But in the garden sets its careless foot
Upon an adder's neck. I'll stand aside.
He must not know me till I speak.

SCENE IV.

Lady Grace, Sir George Sandys.
SIR GEORGE,
speaking to persons behind him as he enters the vestibule.
Wait! wait!

218

Some decent prelude's needed.(To the servant.)
You can go. (Exit Servant.)
(Approaching Lady Grace, who stands with averted face.)

I know you love a jest. My friends are here;
I said I had a treasure in this room,
And they're on fire to see. I'll let them in.
They think you are a picture—or a gem—
Or haply some new pipe from Germany—
The quaintest notion. Rosa—
(She turns and looks at him.)
Lady Grace!

LADY GRACE.
Now Heaven be praised, she's gone!

SIR GEORGE.
Gone!

LADY GRACE.
Sir, you thought
To have your pastime with a flawless name,
Not heeding though you broke it. She's a child
Courting a touch in play,—struck even to death
On her bare innocent heart before she knows it.

219

SIR GEORGE.
Upon my honour—

LADY GRACE.
Let your honour pass,
I think it is a little out of place.

SIR GEORGE.
Nay, you are angry.

LADY GRACE.
O Sir, did you think
What you were doing?—you who know the world—
Tempting a dancer to a precipice,
And, while her gay foot passes, standing close
To hear the laughter shaken into cries
Too late for help.

SIR GEORGE.
You take me for a villain—

LADY GRACE.
Is that a blunder?

SIR GEORGE.
Hear me when I swear

220

This was a jest, a mirth, a merry mischief,
She side by side with me in planning it;
Not a harm purposed, not a risk incurred
More than she welcomes twenty times a day.
Oh, pardon me, the lady knows the world
As well as I,—much better than yourself.

LADY GRACE.
She knows her dreams where not a rose she plucks
Has thorns to pierce her. Will you tell your man
To let me pass? he barred the way before,
According to your honourable orders.

SIR GEORGE,
pointing to the vestibule door, and speaking with an air of confusion.
The room is full of men.

LADY GRACE.
You can dismiss them.

SIR GEORGE.
But how? They know there is a lady here;
Though you disdain me, I would do you pleasure
If it were possible. This was a wager.
They know too much to go, not knowing more.

221

LADY GRACE.
Know they the lady's name?

SIR GEORGE.
Not certainly.

LADY GRACE.
Swear to me that you will not breathe her name!
Let me pass for her; none will aim at me,—
I am wide of all the targets. Ah, be kind!
I will believe you never purposed harm,—
Nay, I'll think nobly of you.

SIR GEORGE.
I were loath
To lose my chance of such a thought, and if—

LADY GRACE,
with her hands on his arm.
Oh, no, no, no! Set not a traitor “If”
Between your soul and any gracious act!
You shall not stir till you have promised me!

SIR GEORGE,
turning to her, and taking her hand.
Nay,—there's my promise!

(Enter Fitzerse, Raymond, Capel, and Lord Lynton.)

222

SCENE V.

ALL,
speaking as they enter.
Treason, Sandys, treason!
Where is this lady? Is the wager lost,
Or do you mock us?

SIR GEORGE,
to them.
Were you not entreated
To wait my summons? Do not be amazed,
She came upon a charitable errand.
(To Lady Grace.)
And so, dear lady, having heard your tale
And helped your client, you will suffer me
To be your honoured escort.

LADY GRACE.
You are thanked
With all the words I have.

CAPEL.
It is Lady Grace!

223

RAYMOND.
I am struck dumb.

FITZERSE.
If I had met a ghost
I should be less disturbed.

LORD LYNTON,
gravely advancing with Lady Grace's hat and cloak.
Pray you, permit me;
Your charitable errand being fulfilled,
You may resume your cloak.
(He puts it on for her; she stands in manifest embarrassment.)
The hour is late;
My carriage can convey you home, unless
Some exigence of charitable duty
Demand a journey with this gentleman.

LADY GRACE.
I claim your gentle judgment, having never
Deserved a doubt.

LORD LYNTON,
conducting her to the door.
I do not judge a woman;
I trust her—when I can.

224

(Raymond, Capel, and Fitzerse all draw back to let Lady Grace pass.—Raymond opens the door for her.)
LADY GRACE.
Thank you. Good-night.
I shall meet you at the ball on Thursday?

RAYMOND.
Yes;
I book you for a valse.

LADY GRACE.
I do not dance.

RAYMOND.
You did not—all things change—I live in hope.

LADY GRACE,
aside.
Means he to twit me with my past? I like not
That phrase of ‘change’ and ‘hope.’
(She turns as she is leaving the room, and speaks with great dignity.)
My presence here
Is a dark sentence; pray decipher it
By the unflinching lustre of my life,
And you shall find the words are—innocent.

(They stand silent.—Exit Lady Grace.)

225

RAYMOND,
returning to the others.
A little strange, my friends, a little awkward,
But carried like a queen.

CAPEL.
Who would have dreamed
Of this! Now, Sandys, read the riddle for us.

FITZERSE.
One point is clear, the wager is not won.
Confess that you have failed.

SIR GEORGE.
If it be failure
To win one woman while you seek another.

ALL,
except Lord Lynton.
Come, come, explain.

SIR GEORGE.
I will not speak one word.
I leave you to your guesses. Let us talk
Of this at supper.

(He ushers them to the door.—Exeunt Raymond, Capel, and Fitzerse.—Lord Lynton stops and turns to Sir George.)

226

LORD LYNTON.
Twenty years ago
There had been blood for this. But we, to-day,
Leave every question to defend itself;
And if a woman needs defence, I think
She scarce deserves it. Will you tell me plainly
What this thing means?

SIR GEORGE.
Have you a right to ask?

LORD LYNTON.
I had.

SIR GEORGE.
You give it up? Well, you are wise,
If your right hangs on any word of mine;
For I say nought but this:
I hold the lady virtuous.

LORD LYNTON.
You are bound
To say so much.

SIR GEORGE.
I am bound to say no more.
If this content you, well.

227

LORD LYNTON.
And if it do not?

SIR GEORGE,
shrugging his shoulders.
Why then, well, too! I am either way content.

(Exeunt.)

END OF ACT III.

ACT IV.

SCENE I.

—A Boudoir.
Lady Grace alone.

'Twas but a moment—yet it burns! I thought
I could have tossed the doubt as lightly from me
As Autumn casts away her worthless leaves;
But never shrank the guilty with more fear
Than I, most innocent. I could slay myself!
If I were tried for life my face would wrong me
To sure conviction. I'll not think of it.
I am assured no cloud can touch my name;
This fear is fever,—remedies, not reasons,

228

The weapons for its conquest. I'll forget it.
I'll read,—for, O, the calmness of a book!
Come, you slow magic, breathe upon me, soothe me,
Fix, win, entrance,—you know the way of old;
These pictured storms have power upon the wind,
If it blows on, we heed not. Weep, Elaine,—
Counting your tears I shall not feel my own. (She reads.)
After a pause.

The poet errs to make her tell her love;
A woman dies first,—she died afterwards.
O, how she must have wished her secret back
In her dead heart and honourable grave!

Enter Rosa disconsolately.
ROSA.
Aunt, I'm unhappy.

LADY GRACE,
looking up with reluctance.
Have you lost your bird?

ROSA.
You laugh, but I am weary of my life;
I want to dive into some country depth
And never see a man.

229

LADY GRACE.
What have men done?

ROSA.
Nothing and everything,—it is myself.

LADY GRACE.
Why then you should depart from solitude.
Some green seclusion with yourself at peace
Is rapture; for a soul at war within,
'Tis but slow torment.

ROSA.
I have heard you talk
About a house in Devon, lawned and bowered,
Set like a flower beside a river-flow,
Stilled by soft woods, and dignified with hills
Which take a mountain blueness where they range.
You said the water whitened to the moon,
With sprays of purple leafage spread against it,
As on a page of glory; and I want
To go there, and to take into my heart
The beauty and the darkness and the peace;
For since you said it I have thought of it,
And in the night I think of it, and see

230

The shining water and the sombre leaves,
Till something rises in me like a sob,
And I stretch forth my hands and am distressed,
And long to get some rapid cloaks about me
And go there in a moment. Let me go.

LADY GRACE,
taking her hand and looking eainestly at her.
So, such a change! What hand has touched your eyes
To see the spirit and the power of earth?
You love.

ROSA,
hesitating.
I think one loves me.

LADY GRACE.
One? Nay, twenty.
You are sure of twenty. Tell me of that one
Of whom you think. What, dumb? How quick we learn
This modesty of passion! Here are lips
Which chattered yesterday like leaves in wind
And have not now the courage for a name.
I'll speak it for you.

231

ROSA.
But you know it not.

LADY GRACE.
Fitzerse.

ROSA.
Who told you?

LADY GRACE.
If I say himself
I am not too bold.

ROSA.
O! tell me what he said.
Spoke he at length and gravely? Did he seek
Your favour for his suit? Was it a suit
Or the vague pleasantness of praise? What praised he?
My eyes, lips, hair? I know he thinks me lovely,
For a sure witness says she heard him say so.
But slow ambition of some finer sort
Was born in me to-day, I know not how,
And I would rather have him praise my mind.
Why speak you not?

232

LADY GRACE.
I am out of breath with listening;
But where you leave a cleft I'll thrust a word.
Only his eyes have told me of his love.
You sigh and let your answering brightness drop
And spread a slighted calm about your looks.
I am learned in this face-logic; fallacies
Beguile not me. Let me but watch two glances,
And from those quick and tender premises
I will conclude the truth. Hear it. He loves you
With a fresh heart, which your most delicate hand
May touch and take unstained.

ROSA.
But what am I
For him? He sees me nobler than I am.
Let me go hence and think about my life
Till it begins to mend.

LADY GRACE.
I bar you not.
I would all penitents had sins as small,
Films from a flawless crystal brushed away.

233

ROSA,
taking her hands.
Sweet Aunt, I should not tell you, but I must.
He spoke to me about that grievous night;
You know my meaning; he was sorrowful,
And wished me parted from you, and was pained
At what you seemed to do. You love him not,
And so this cannot wound you; yet forgive me
For telling you. If he should guess the truth
I lose him on the instant.

LADY GRACE.
And for this
You wish to leave me.

ROSA.
Nay, I wish it not.
Be not so hard with me.

LADY GRACE.
Am I so hard?

ROSA.
You are the gentlest, dearest aunt that lives.
You'll let me go?

234

LADY GRACE.
But will you tell him truth?
Lie not to him. I think there is no sin,
But somewhere on the road to 't stands a lie,
And they who will not cross it shall be safe.
Tell him no lies.

ROSA.
You have such dreadful names
For harmless things. Will you accuse me to him?
You have the right if you would clear yourself.
But tell me first, for if I know he knows it
I'll never look upon his face again.
Have you the heart?

LADY GRACE.
O child! you call me hard;
But I am weaker than the wandering drifts
Flung from the brows of onward-pressing waves.
Do as you list.

ROSA,
kisses her.
Why, that's my gentle aunt!
Now must I say farewell. Love me a little

235

And miss me if you can. I'll think of you
As babes of fairies, owing all my bliss
To your mere silence. I'll remember you,
And never do a foolish thing again.
I'll write to you. Farewell.

(Exit Rosa.)
LADY GRACE.
Ay, and you'll love me
If you may leave me. Why, this hope of absence
Spurs your regards to such a sudden growth
They tower above my reach.

(Re-enter Rosa.)
ROSA.
Aunt, ere I go,
Say you forgive me. 'Twas my need that wronged you,
Never my heart.

LADY GRACE.
In love there are no wrongs,
And out of it no rights; so, if you love me,
Sue not for pardon—we are heart to heart,
And should you wound me, 'tis an accident,
Which to resent were most ungenerous;

236

But if you love me not you cannot wound me,
For I am covered with that greater wrong
And do not feel the blow.

ROSA.
O! you would reason
The heart out of a butterfly. Farewell.

(Exit Rosa.)
LADY GRACE.
Not worthy to be with her! 'Tis a jest,
Some blind bewilderment of love. The world
Sees facts in their own shapes, and untransformed
By lustrous hazes of the heart. The world
I need not fear; and yet it irks my soul
That any man should think of me as men
Should never think of women. There is now
One face i' the world I am ashamed to see.
I have not sinned; I think I have not blundered.
The little innocent trouble that I bear
Stays a whole life from ruin. Shall I set
This blush against a fate?

237

SCENE II.

—A Room in Mrs. Vane's House.
Five o'clock tea.—Mrs. Vane, Emma Vane, Lady Melville, Captain de Courcy.—Emma Vane is making tea, with Captain de Courcy in attendance.
EMMA.
This for mamma.

(Gives him a teacup.)
DE COURCY.
There now, it is too full.
That was your fault.

(Spills it.)
EMMA.
How can you be so awkward?
You should have held it with a steady hand.
I will not have you for my aide-de-camp.

DE COURCY.
You are so hard. You'll have me for a partner
If not an aide-de-camp?

EMMA.
Give me my tablets.
(He gives the tablets.)
This is not right; you are set down five times.

238

DE COURCY.
Please let me look. I have not finished yet.

EMMA.
Mamma would never hear of it.

DE COURCY.
She need not.

EMMA.
For shame! Besides, I could not keep it from her.

MRS. VANE.
Emma!

EMMA.
Now we must join them.

(They cross to the sofa, on which Mrs. Vane and Lady Melville are sitting.)
MRS. VANE.
You were speaking
About our ball to-night?

EMMA,
kneels before her mother and gives the tablets.
Just look, Mamma,
What he has done.

239

DE COURCY.
O! such an awful crime.

MRS. VANE.
We'll judge it at our leisure. But, meantime,
Captain de Courcy, you are one of us,
No skimmer of the surface, but a friend
Deep in the heart of home, and I may trust you
(May I not?), count on you, and look to you
As to a son?

DE COURCY,
aside.
She frightens me to death.
(Aloud.)
Dear Mrs. Vane, well, in a certain sense,
You are so kind, and, in a certain sense,
I am so grateful; but I think you know me.

MRS. VANE.
I know that you are better than your words.
Just now I want a trifling service done,—
The merest trifle.

240

DE COURCY,
aside.
I was sure of it.
(Aloud.)
Too happy! Anything in reason. Not
To valse with one of those determined matrons
Who think we cannot see how old they are,
Because they never tell us?

MRS. VANE.
O! the wretch
(To Lady Melville.)
Hear him, Amelia.

LADY MELVILLE.
I'll remember it
When next he is on duty at a ball,
Taking his troubles with an easy face
As if he liked them.

MRS. VANE,
to Captain de Courcy.
What I ask you now,
Though a mere trifle, is so delicate
It needs an airy touch,—the touch of a man
Who knows the world. Your aunt—

241

DE COURCY.
O ay! my aunt!
I heard there was some talk about my aunt.
What is it? Tell me freely. I'm not bound
To stand up for my aunt.

MRS. VANE.
I was convinced
You would be candid. There's a little scandal.

DE COURCY.
'Twill grow.

MRS. VANE.
I fear it; and, you see, this child,
(Pointing to Emma.)
No breath must touch her. Were it but myself,
As I am sure 'tis but a passing cloud,
I'd lead her through it bravely. But I must not,
Being a mother. Therefore speak to her,
And tell her gently, till this story dies,
Just for a little while, 'tis her best wisdom
To stay at home lest she should meet cold looks.

DE COURCY.
Humph! could you write a note?

242

MRS. VANE.
Nay, ask yourself
If that be possible. Besides, the tongue
Is worth a sheaf of pens.

LADY MELVILLE.
She must not come
To the ball to-night. Tell her to sprain her ankle,
Catch cold or fever, lose a relative,
And stay at home to weep.

DE COURCY.
What shall I do?
I am afraid to speak the truth to her.
Devise me something that may pass for truth,
And so prevail.

LADY MELVILLE.
I say she must not come.
Some will be here who would not hesitate
To cut her. And the sadness of the thing!
The pain for Emma! Fall you sick yourself,
And make her nurse you.

MRS. VANE.
You are vehement.

243

LADY MELVILLE.
I think of you and Emma.

DE COURCY.
Not of me.
None of you think of me.

MRS. VANE.
Nay, nay, dear friend,
It is because we think of you so much,
Trust you so fully, claim you so entirely,
That in this strait we come to you for help.
Now, if you fail, I'll never trust a man.

DE COURCY.
How will you guerdon me if I succeed?
With my five dances?

MRS. VANE.
You must plead for them
To your fair partner. She commands herself.
My Emma, you look pale. Go to your room,—
Keep all your strength for this tremendous man,
Who means to tax it.

(Exit Emma.)

244

LADY MELVILLE.
We have spoken in kindness
To Lady Grace; to a proud woman slighted
The world looks black for ever.

DE COURCY.
She deserves it.
This is your pattern woman, so afloat
In ether, that the veriest slime of earth
Grounds her before she knows. I'll not excuse her!
To do such stupid, strenuous-minded things,
And bring us all to trouble!

MRS. VANE.
'Tis most true.

DE COURCY.
Well, talking will not mend it. Fare you well,
And what I can, I will,—and where I cannot,
You must forgive.

MRS. VANE.
You must not need forgiveness.
Farewell till evening. 'Tis so comforting
To feel that one can reckon on a man.

(Shaking hands with him.)

245

DE COURCY.
Well, you may trust me,—in a certain sense.

(Exit.)
LADY MELVILLE.
There goes the sweetest simpleton alive.

MRS. VANE.
Nay, nay, he knows the world: he has wit enough
For social needs and self-establishment,—
And then he has such a heart!

LADY MELVILLE.
You mean, he had.
I think your daughter keeps it now.

MRS. VANE.
Well, well.
She has a store of such small articles;
Girls cannot do without them,—only trinkets,
Nothing for use. I'll let you know a secret:
Were my Lord Lynton quit of Lady Grace,
He would be Emma's suitor.

LADY MELVILLE.
Are you sure?

246

MRS. VANE.
As of my life! I never urge the child;
I let her play with these safe, simple men,
Who pass the time but never touch the thoughts,
And, when the time is passed and the play over,
I think she'll use her reason. A good girl;
Easily guided.

LADY MELVILLE.
So unworldly, too!

MRS. VANE.
The charm of youth, my friend, the charm of youth;
We lose it as we fade. But I look back
To mine own springtime while I manage hers,
Brushing the dew with a reluctant hand
That leaves the flower unruffled.

LADY MELVILLE.
Sweetly said.

(Exeunt.)

Scene III.

—A Vestibule at Mrs. Vane's, lighted and decorated.
Music heard within.—Servants passing and repassing, and names announced as carriages drive up to the door outside.—Two or three

247

groups of guests thus announced pass across the stage.—Enter from the ball-room Captain de Courcy.
DE COURCY.
Is Lady Grace Aumerle arrived?

SERVANT.
No, Sir.
I set a man to watch, as you desired.

DE COURCY.
Be sure you let me know when she is here.

SERVANT.
I will, Sir.

DE COURCY.
Twice I called, and twice I failed
To find her. Here I wait my only chance
To bar her from the dancing-room. 'Tis vexing!
I have not dared to speak to Mrs. Vane.
If I fail now, I'll fly; for, having failed,
I cannot face her.
(Carriage outside.—Servant announces Lord Lynton.)
Now, the devil himself
Brings him here at this moment.

248

LORD LYNTON,
entering.
What—De Courcy!
(They shake hands.)
Why stay you here when that delicious challenge
Assails your ears?

DE COURCY,
sullenly.
I'm waiting for my aunt.

LORD LYNTON.
So she's expected?

DE COURCY.
I'm afraid she is.

LORD LYNTON.
Afraid?

DE COURCY.
You should be able to persuade her
Better than I; wait for her—speak to her—
Make her go home! The people there have heard
Untoward things, and till the story dies
'Tis better that she venture not among them.
You understand me?

249

LORD LYNTON.
Do they mean to slight her?

DE COURCY.
Well, in a certain sense, I fear they do.
Being her nephew, this is bad for me,
But worse, perchance, for you.

LORD LYNTON.
For me to-night
It may be worse; to-morrow it is nothing.

DE COURCY.
You are her plighted husband—

LORD LYNTON.
Gently, friend,
Say that to no man. If a woman scathes
Her name, she has no rights. In what I can
I will befriend her,—but my promises
Were pledged to one above the reach of slights.

(Enter Sir George Sandys.)
DE COURCY.
That's a wise judgment, in a certain sense,
But I suppose it is not chivalrous.

250

SIR GEORGE.
Now, you romantic creatures, Londoners,
And not ashamed to talk of chivalry!
Say, will you charge the streets fulldress and make
A Waterloo among our brigands? Pluck
Is all you want. Our laws defeat themselves,—
They spare the criminal and cramp the hero;
Martyrs we need, to smite the sins they know,
And bear the consequence.

DE COURCY.
Man, how you talk!

(Carriage outside; servant announces Lady Grace Aumerle.— They all appear confused.)
SIR GEORGE.
I cannot bear to make a lady blush;
I'll go.

(Exit.)
LORD LYNTON.
I cannot meet her now—and here.

(He is going; Captain de Courcy stops him.)
DE COURCY.
Consider me! 'Tis hard. I'm all adrift.
What shall I say?

251

LORD LYNTON.
Say what you list,—I'm gone.

(Exit.—Enter Lady Grace; she gives her opera-cloak to a maid; coffee is offered her, but she declines it.)
LADY GRACE,
perceiving Captain de Courcy, who stands looking helplessly at her.
Ah, nephew, you are graciously in time
To squire me to the ball-room.

DE COURCY.
Pardon me;
I tried to see you twice to-day.

LADY GRACE.
I know it.
Your face is full of omens,—what hath chanced?

DE COURCY.
Nothing to make you pale. A passing blunder,
Just a mischance,—a week will make it smooth;
But I, who know the world, beseech you wisely
To—faith, I cannot phrase it!

LADY GRACE.
Tax not now

252

Your eloquence so far, wait till to-morrow;
The hour is late, and there are listening ears.

DE COURCY.
Late now, too late to-morrow. Prithee hear me;
Will you go home?

LADY GRACE.
Ay, when the dance is done.

DE COURCY.
Nay, now—this hour—'twere better you should go;
I am sent to tell you.

LADY GRACE,
drawing back.
I am much afraid
You know not what you say—so—let me pass.

DE COURCY,
eagerly.
I mean it kindly,—you shall find cold welcome.

LADY GRACE.
Oh, hush, you shame us both.

253

DE COURCY.
You would not go
Where they desire you not.

LADY GRACE,
to a servant.
Pray keep him back;
Send for some friend,—let him not follow me;
He should be in his chamber.

(Exit hastily.)
DE COURCY.
Why, she's gone!
A woman hath more will than a man wit;
'Tis her own choice, and she must answer it.

(Exit.)

SCENE IV.

Stage opens and discovers a ball-room brilliantly lighted and decorated; the front represents the part of the room near the door, where Mrs. Vane is standing with a group of guests.—Music and a valse, the dancers passing across; other persons from time to time join the group in front.—Mrs. Vane, Lady Melville, Capel, with a lady; others.—Music ceases, and the dancers promenade in couples.
LADY MELVILLE.
Emma looks lovely!

(Emma passes with Lord Lynton.)

254

MRS. VANE.
'Tis a pretty whim,
That wreath of butterflies. It suits her style.

LADY MELVILLE.
So thinks her partner.

MRS. VANE.
Something in her face
(I know she is not a beauty) wins and holds
The most accustomed critics. Look at her;
His words are wine, they make her blushes speak.

LADY MELVILLE.
Ah, you must press her hard to-night. Be sure
She will have news to tell.

(Servant announces `Lady Grace Aumerle.'—They start, and change countenance.)
MRS. VANE,
aside.
What's to be done?
That simpleton has played us false!

LADY MELVILLE.
Or failed.

255

MRS. VANE.
She would never be so mad. Keep Emma from us.

(Enter Lady Grace; she advances to Mrs. Vane, who receives her in the most chilling manner,—curtseying, but not extending her hand.)
LADY GRACE.
I must have pardon for my niece. She went
Only this morning.

LADIES,
to each other.
Oh! the niece is gone.

(Mrs. Vane makes a second silent curtsey.)
LADY GRACE,
approaching Lady Melville, who has a superb bouquet in her hand.
I have not seen such lilies.

LADY MELVILLE.
apparently not observing her, but addressing Mrs. Vane.
If I find him,
I'll send him to you.

(Goes to the back of the stage; Lady Grace stands bewildered.)
MRS. VANE,
to Capel.
Will you lend your arm?

256

I have a word to whisper to my daughter—
I see her there. (To Lady Grace.)
Excuse us.

(She takes Capel's arm, and they go out. As they pass, Lady Grace sees Capel, and starts; he bows with an air of confusion. —Exeunt all save Lady Grace.)
LADY GRACE.
Was there scorn
On all their faces? I have often heard
Of a touch withering a woman's name,—
Heard it as kings may hear of beggary,
Shaking a little pity from my heights,
Not reaching down my hand. O! my poor hand,
Will no one clasp it? I that was ashamed
Of a pure thought unsued for,—am I fallen?
Must I henceforth be hidden, or descend
To doubtful ways, where charitable souls
Who will not think the worst may speak of me
As of marred sunshine, saying it was fair
Till the clouds blotted it! I'll get me home;
I find I have no courage for this war.

(Valse, music.—Curtain falls.)

END OF ACT IV.

257

ACT V.

SCENE I.

—A Room in Cranston's House.
Enter Cranston with a letter.
CRANSTON,
reads.

“I request that you will immediately take the necessary measures for making over the bulk of my property to my niece and nephew in equal divisions with a charge of an annuity to myself of four hundred pounds, being all that I now need.
Grace Aumerle.”

All that she needs? All now? Why now to need
Only so little? She must learn the truth,
Which yet she guesses not. This lord she marries,
I never thought him lavish. He might say
The gem he holds, being precious in itself,
Needs but the richer setting. There he is right.
He were right too, saying the opposite,
Letting the diamond sparkle in his hand,
Bare as a dew-drop. O! he loves her not.
It cannot be that any woman on earth
Having so drained the life-blood of one heart

258

Should take another. 'Tis not possible.
Why, the white freighted clouds, when overcharged
With pure unceasing tributes from the ground,
Break into tears and perish. I am thrust
(And by a word) from the clear top of effort
Down to the misty foot. Even here she wrote
Her name, and here my hurrying heart throws down
Its bitter habit of control, and drops
Into mere grief and worship.

(Enter a servant.)
SERVANT.
Sir, do you see
Strangers to-day?

CRANSTON.
Who asks?

SERVANT.
A gentleman.
(I lost the name.) I think I have seen him once
With Lady Grace Aumerle.

CRANSTON.
Let him come in.
(Exit servant.)

259

Again this nephew! Would she dropped her bounty
In worthier hands! (Enter Fitzerse.)
(Aside.)

O! this; I crave his pardon;
This is a decent person.

FITZERSE,
very much embarrassed.
I am come,—
Excuse me, Mr. Cranston.—I am come—

(Pauses.)
CRANSTON.
What can I do for you?

FITZERSE.
I am all unused
To these law matters.

CRANSTON.
Tell me but your fact,
And I'll supply your law.

FITZERSE.
I shall do so.
Briefly, I want a deed of settlement.

260

CRANSTON.
So.

FITZERSE,
giving a paper.
In these terms. Be pleased to look a moment
Upon this paper; 'tis set clearly down.

CRANSTON,
reads low to himself.
So, so, 'twere difficult to blunder here.
Simply, you give the lady all you have.

FITZERSE.
I pray you set a clasp on every phrase;
For law, they say, hath this disease, to grow
In cunning hands elastic, and let through
What it was knit to hold.

CRANSTON,
writing.
They so malign us,
Calling our scruples cavils. But I think
The sharpest lawyer strains not language more
For work, than other men for pleasure; yet

261

Their honour shall be held too high for doubts,
While ours is down to proverbs.

FITZERSE.
That may be;
I cannot tell; I think I am true myself.

CRANSTON,
writing.
So thinking you have touched the crown of thought.
What is the lady's name?

FITZERSE.
Familiar to you
When it was Wilmot.

CRANSTON.
Was! Your wife already?

FITZERSE.
Even so, since yesterday.

CRANSTON.
I think the lady
Is under age; her aunt should be her guardian:
I must conclude her privy to this deed?

262

FITZERSE.
O Sir, be satisfied. The Lady Grace,
Having dropped (I grieve to say it) her fair name
Into some tangle of unworthy talk,
Has come to think severely of the world;
And so—'tis said the case is common—leaves it.

CRANSTON.
Having done what?

FITZERSE.
You did not hear the tale?

CRANSTON.
I pray you tell it.

FITZERSE.
She is known for one
Who slights the general voice, and strives to look
Into the heart of all things, not concerned
With aspects and observances. She went—
He said 'twas on some charitable quest,
And doubtless 'twas so—but alone, at even,
Found by a troop champagned and clareted
(I'm sorry I was one), and nothing said

263

To bar a strange conclusion; 'tis no marvel
If they concluded strangely.

CRANSTON.
What?

FITZERSE.
Nay, pardon!
The meaning tells itself.

CRANSTON.
You have told me nothing.
Where went she?

FITZERSE.
To the lodgings of George Sandys.

CRANSTON.
She? by herself?

FITZERSE.
Even so. But you are moved.

CRANSTON.
I am the lady's lawyer, nothing more;
Bound merely in the course of business
To plead her cause; and, by the light of heaven,

264

I'll prove the man who doubts her by a look
A—blunderer!

(Controlling himself.)
FITZERSE.
'Twere well to prove it soon,
If proof be possible. The harm is done;
Hot words have bred cold looks, and I myself,
With most unwilling and compassionate hands,
Must shut the door, lest any thought assail
The lady whom I honour as my wife.

CRANSTON.
You?

FITZERSE.
I, you see, have no alternative,
For I beheld the scandal. I was sure,
By the slow curve of Lynton's angry lip,
When he so coldly drew her from the room,
While we stood blank, that he would break with her.
He could do nothing less.

CRANSTON.
Then he deserts her?

265

FITZERSE.
What could he do?

CRANSTON.
Unanswerable question!
Limit your risks by their foreseen results,
And so be safe. But never walk by faith
Into the danger of the vast unknown.
A man who did so once found a new world,
And was, not safe, but famous for all time.
'Twas hardly worth the pains.

FITZERSE.
I think it was not,
If I conceive you rightly.

CRANSTON.
What would you risk
For one you loved?

FITZERSE.
My life.

CRANSTON.
How, nothing more?

266

FITZERSE.
I do not know a greater thing than life.

CRANSTON.
Life is a means to compass noble ends;
Call it capacity for noble death
You have told all its value, which being lost,
You may spurn the empty winecup from your foot
And never stoop to lift it.

FITZERSE.
What you say
I understand not.

CRANSTON.
I am sure of that.
Well, Sir, I have your notes; I'll draw your deed
Before to-morrow.

FITZERSE.
I'm beholden to you.

(Exit.)
CRANSTON.
Am I the dust of the ground to bear this fire,

267

And neither blaze nor melt? How placidly
He painted that blind vengeance of the world
Against its purest! Things too mean for her foot
Passing their shameful sentences upon her!
She, wistful, white, astonished, facing them,
Taking the stings into her delicate breast,
Hiding them with proud hands, and dying of them,
As virgin-martyrs die of contumely!
How was it, O my love, that thou shouldst weep
And I not know it? Was there any check
In that continuous current of my thoughts
Which sets to thee? I am reproached for it,
And scorn myself, who grieve not that thy grief
Hath bowed thee to the level of my hope.
Rise now, strong heart, and sweep me to her feet,
Pour there the secret which I thought to keep
A silence, and a burden of despair
Across the desert uncomplaining grave.

(Exit.)

SCENE II.—Lady Grace's Library.

Lady Grace. A woman in the dress of a Sister of Mercy.
LADY GRACE.
You have no vows?

268

SISTER.
We have no need of vows;
We work but for the love of what we do
And Him for whom we do it.

LADY GRACE.
And if a weak heart comes to work with you,
Not only for the love of what you do,
But for the fear and pain of what it leaves,
You will not spurn such service?

SISTER.
Rather prize it.
We wish to be such havens from the world
That all the troubled hearts may flock to us.

LADY GRACE.
Well, then, to-morrow.

SISTER.
You have said “to-morrow”
Since first we spoke of this. I would not urge you,
Yet, trust me, prefaces to books or deeds
Are still the hardest reading.

269

LADY GRACE.
Give me time
To grieve that I have nothing left to grieve for,
To make my gentle parting, not with hopes,
With disappointments that once looked like hopes,
So sober in their dawn one might have thought
Even time would pity them. I had put by
The burning dream of bliss; I did but ask
To walk in patient honour to my grave,
Doing some good, helping some richer lives,
Wearing a little love about my heart,
Winning all trust, crowned with a stainless name.
Meek wishes, but not one is granted me!
Not one! not one!

SISTER.
You shall find all with us.
These pure ambitions grow not in the world,
Or only bud to perish; but our shade
Fosters the tenderest germ.

LADY GRACE.
I'll try to think so.
(Exit Sister.)

270

O! how much better had I cast myself
Under the footstool of the hope I scorned
And wrung a moment's blessing! I am a fool
To think it could have been! When I was born,
“Not to be loved” was written on my brow.
I know there are such dooms, to stray through life
With outstretched hands that miss, but do not lose,
Because they never found. Therefore I yield,
Having no cause to fight for; like a child
Who plucks a hollow fruit and flings it by,—
Not satiate, not considerate, not resigned,
But merely baffled.

(Enter Cranston.)
LADY GRACE,
aside.
O! this yet was wanting.
Be proud, my heart, be proud.

CRANSTON.
Shall I have pardon
For this intrusion?

LADY GRACE.
I commend your zeal,
Although I asked it not. You have the deed?

271

CRANSTON.
Here, Madam.
(Gives a paper. She takes it to a table and is about to sign without reading it.)
Yet consider what you do.
That little stroke that signs away your wealth
You may repent too late. Gold can do much;
'Tis the condition of a thousand joys,
An arm, a wing, a weapon; spurn it not,
Till you consider.

LADY GRACE.
I have well considered.

(Signs.)
CRANSTON.
You have done it.

LADY GRACE,
turning to him.
There's a rapture in your voice
Tunes not with warning words. Why are you glad?

CRANSTON.
O! I am glad too soon. The captive shouts

272

When his chain breaks; but, finding a void home,
Sighs for the senseless walls which hid despair,
And so kept hope alive.

LADY GRACE.
Speak calmly to me;
I am not strong to-day.

CRANSTON.
Be weak. I need
The courage of your weakness. You must hear
A tale. I'll tell it coldly, as a steward
Gives up his reckoning. When your husband died
He thus provided, if you wed again
(You shrink, but you may do it), half your wealth
Goes to your niece and nephew; all the rest
To him you wed, who strips your power away
After you have enriched him with your heart.
Ungracious happiness! to force an alms
From one who gives a life. This strange decree,
Not told till now (you wonder with your eyes),
Was trusted to the keeping of a man
Who—listen to me, look at me—who loved you
With a slave's agony, seared into silence,

273

Burnt on the lips and weighted on the soul.
He had no right to lift his love to you,
Save in the very strength whereby it soared
Out of its deeps to your unfooted height,
There waiting till a glance shall hurl it down.
A desperate dumb love, which was to die
Before it spoke, which may now slay itself
With its first word (it is free, it is at your feet)—
Speak, though you doom it!

LADY GRACE.
O! have pity on me,
And let me go.

CRANSTON.
Speak first!

LADY GRACE.
I am not unworthy
(I cannot let you think so). What I have done
I would do again, and never need to kneel
For pardon at the judgment-seat within.
Think of me with such honour as you can;
Think only you have gifted with your love

274

The most unhappy woman in the world,
Who, knowing that a stain is on her name,
Has lost the right to take it.

CRANSTON.
Is that all?
If any lip but yours profaned your name,
I'd say it was a lie.

LADY GRACE.
But this is true.

CRANSTON.
If, by pure condescension of your virtue,
You have done something rash against yourself,
Or dangerously noble to another,
What is it to the world? To me it is only
One reason more for loving you.

LADY GRACE.
You know not—

CRANSTON.
Peace! I know all.

275

LADY GRACE.
And love me still?

CRANSTON.
You ask it!

LADY GRACE,
giving him her hands.
Do with me as you will, for I am yours;
Forgive me all my faults; deceive me not.
I think I never won a heart till now,
And am afraid to touch it. I must weep,
Because there is no virtue in myself
Whereby to hold you. Are you sure you love me?
O! say it not, unless you are so sure
That what you love not, being found in me,
Shall draw you closer.

CRANSTON.
Teach me by what oath
I may convince you.

LADY GRACE.
I am credulous
As a new convert, who expects his creed
To save him by itself. O! if a cloud,

276

The least faint, phantom mist of possible change,
Lurk on the far horizon, leave me now,
Before I make surrender of my life,
For I am on the brink of such a deep
That if I pass it there is no return.
I am no child, to roam through coming time
Plucking new blossoms; on my woman's heart
I hold but one, the first, and if it fades,
Hope dies for ever.

CRANSTON.
All the doubts you breathe
Are musical with undertones of love,
To certify my soul that I am blest;
And yet I must be trusted,—there's no bond
Between us till you trust me.

LADY GRACE.
Look not grave,
I have no doubts left.

CRANSTON.
Then must I teach you next
(Being so apt) that glory in yourself
Which you perceive not. I'll not teach it you!

277

For if in any picture of my words
You find faint reflex of your light, and learn
To what a depth you stoop, you might resume
Your solitude, and I should pass from you
Like one born blind who, having seen a moment,
Goes back into his vision-haunted darkness,
Knowing what he has lost.

LADY GRACE.
You shall not speak
Of stooping.

CRANSTON.
But I must.

LADY GRACE.
Is it because
You work? Alas, it is not work that makes
The misery and meanness of the world;
'Tis sloth, or self, or scorn, or cowardice,
Growths on all levels. I have lived with such,
And turn from them to you as if I went
From a sick-room into a mountain wind
Full of fresh heather. Let me be your clerk,
And learn your mysteries. I can write fairly,
For hours, unwearied.

278

CRANSTON.
You would find my work
Not unconcerned with misery and meanness.

LADY GRACE.
Why, so much greater is your glory, love,
To do it nobly.

CRANSTON.
If a man die honest,
He does much, having lived. But we'll not talk
Of anything but love. I'll prove to you
How far you lag behind me.

LADY GRACE.
If you can,
You work a miracle. I am afraid
To say how soon I loved you.

CRANSTON.
Did you love me
Twelve years ago?

LADY GRACE.
I did not know you then.

279

CRANSTON.
Forgetful heart! In those prophetic days,
When first the tender colour breaks the sheath
Before we know what shape the flower shall bear,
I was beside you. Think upon the boy
Who lured you from the schoolroom to the woods,
Bore you through streams and throned you upon banks,
Fenced unfamiliar fears away from you,
Rifled all heights and waters of their jewels
To make your lap their treasury,—

LADY GRACE.
I am confused
With sweet remembrances. Were you that boy?

CRANSTON.
Ay, and I loved you then.

LADY GRACE.
You give me back
Some of the secret honour that I lost
When my heart sprang to meet you.

(Enter Sir George Sandys with his arm in a sling.)

280

CRANSTON.
How! You dare
To blot this presence!

SIR GEORGE.
Pardon me,—I come
To make our blunders good. I was away,
And heard but yesterday how all has chanced;
(To Lady Grace.)
I left the ball before I saw your face,
Ashamed (I own it) of your needless shame;
But I have smoothed it now. I have told the truth,
And all are satisfied.

LADY GRACE.
You broke your word!
I had your promise—

SIR GEORGE.
Nay, most eager lady,
Will nothing chill you? Rosa's fame is safe,
For she spoke first; her husband wrung it from her
In some encounter of affection. Then
'Tis said we fought,—but I forget these trifles—

281

Stay, I was hit,—that proves it. To be brief,
I pledged my word to spread the truth abroad,
And told it wisely,—it has slipped aside
Out of the grasp and gossip of the time
As a girl's frolic pardoned. Good Fitzerse,
In his first simpleness of love, forgives
Whatever Rosa does,—he was only wroth
Till he was sure she did it; now, he says
(O! you should hear him!), all have done as much,
But only Rosa has the nobleness
To own her young adventures. It is pretty
To see them, but she might have spoken sooner,
And spared us all this coil.

LADY GRACE.
Us! Pray you, keep
Our names asunder.

SIR GEORGE,
shrugging his shoulders.
I am blamed for all.
Well, I'm a contrite sinner!

(Enter Lord Lynton, Mrs. Vane, Emma Vane, Fitzerse, and Rosa.—Sir George draws back.)

282

ROSA,
running up to Lady Grace.
Aunt, I'm happy!
I know you will forgive me. If you do not,
I am so happy I'll wait patiently
Until you do.

(Kisses her.)
FITZERSE.
We must be both your debtors,
Both grieving for your wrong.

ROSA.
And, Aunt, indeed
You must be happy, too. This gentleman
(showing Lord Lynton)
Knows all.
(Aside to Lord Lynton.)
Why are you dumb? (Aloud.)
I've told him all;
And, being married, I may bring him to you,
And call myself your chaperon for the nonce.

LORD LYNTON,
embarrassed.
I am ashamed that I have doubted you.

283

LADY GRACE.
I think I am ashamed to face you all;
You have my thanks, and I forget all wrongs,
For I too have been busy for myself
With happiness.

(Gives her hand to Cranston; they all stand amazed.)
SIR GEORGE,
advancing.
Her lawyer,—nothing more!

Curtain falls.

END OF ACT V.

285

TWO EARLY POEMS.

REVISED and REPRINTED.

[_]

NOTE.—The two Legends on which the following Poems are founded are suggested as poetical subjects in the notebook of Mrs. Hemans.

287

THE MOTHER'S LESSON.

All night she wept the hours away,
With burning cheek and throbbing head,
Crying, “Alas!” and “Well-a-day!”
“Woe is me, for my sons are dead!”

She could not rest, she could not sleep,
She tossed in fever on her bed;
She could not pray: she could but weep,
“Woe is me, for my sons are dead!”

As the weary hours went by,
As the chimes rang heavily,
That lonely one did shrink and start
From the slow stern tread of misery
Printing its footstep on her heart.

288

Sometimes their names did in her brain
Sound, and sound, and sound again,
In a strange and ceaseless round,
As though a whirling wheel were there,
And every ruthless turn did tear
A fresh and bleeding wound,

Sometimes a trivial phrase or glance,
With her deep grief at variance,
Would in her memory rise;
And there, it mocked her desolation
By meaningless reiteration
Of peevish fantasies,
Like shape or pattern deftly wrought,
Vexing a sick man's feverish thought.

But never did she dare to see
The faces of the newly dead
Rise up before her memory
By life and love retenanted;
As shrinks the victim from the blade,
Her spirit, helpless and afraid,
Did from that vision shrink.
No passing pain her sorrows were,
No ancient and familiar care,

289

But the bitterness of new despair,
Which is afraid to think.

And so she wept the hours away,
And tossed in fever on her bed;
She could not sleep, she could not pray,
She could but wring her hands and say,
“Woe is me, for my sons are dead!”

Soft, and clear, and calm, and slow,
Steals a sound upon her woe.
It is the matin-bell!
Dropping, like the gradual rain
On some parched and lifeless plain,
Sounds which in their fulness are
Measured, deep, and regular;
Strangely with her grief it blent,
And a stranger softness lent
To each tear that fell.

She leaves her couch, she seeks her door,
And far athwart the filmy night
The coming day shines pale and grey,
Like shadowy moonshine's colder light;

290

The sleeping flowers forget to raise
Their downcast heads to greet its gaze;
All voiceless are the sheltering trees,
Where birds should pour their melodies;
The sheeted dew gleams white and wan,
As if beneath the stars it shone;
But still these chiming bells repeat
Their matin warning, grave, and sweet.

Slow to the church the mourner hied,
Scarce conscious of the well-known way;
The sacred doors are opened wide,
She enters, and she kneels to pray;
No torches flung their blaze aloof
Upon the tall and arching roof;
No taper shed its holier light
On sculptured shrine and column white,
But all along the ancient aisles,
And by the tombs where slept the dead,
O'er cavern niche and tracery rich,
There seemed a solemn twilight spread,
Clinging to cross and image pale,
Like the clear folding of a veil.

291

By that mysterious light she sees
A multitude upon their knees,
Shapes half familiar and half strange,
Like friends that have endured a change;
Antique in garb, they seemed a crowd
Of worshippers from other lands,
And every hidden face was bowed
Upon the clasped and lifted hands,
And not a sound of psalm or prayer
Arose upon the vacant air.
They moved no limb, they spake no word,
Save inarticulate murmurs heard,
Like leaves that in the wind are stirred,
Or like the slumberous roll of seas
When not a breath awakes the breeze.

At once their faces all upraise!
What sight hath chilled her with amaze?
Lo, every face right well she knows,
And some were friends and some were foes,
And some were young and some were old,
And some were kind and some were cold,
And some were fair and some were brave,
But ALL had long been in the grave.

292

From early childhood's gladsome years,
Down to this time of lonely tears,
All she had known, loved, feared, and lost,
Were round her in a solemn host,
Wearing on every brow of gloom
The paleness of its place—the tomb!
Now on her feet the mother stood,
With giddy brain and curdling blood,
And now in frantic hope she scanned
The younger faces of the band;
But she sees not there the shining hair,
And the cloudless eyes so clear and fair.
She wrings her hands in fresh despair;
She cries aloud, “In vain! In vain!
O, could I see my sons again!”

A mighty sound the silence broke,
The echoes of the aisles awoke,
It was as if the organ spoke
With voice articulate;
“Look to the East!” it said, and ceased;
Then through the vaulted space once more
Went the dead silence as before,
And all was desolate.

293

The mourner turned, the mourner saw—
O sight of horror and of awe!
There stood a block on the altar floor,
And a fearful wheel by the sacred door,
Whereon two hapless ones did lie,
Wrestling with life's last agony!
Each in prison-garb and guise,
Each a youth just grown a man.
Jesu! In their filmèd eyes,
In their lips so cold and wan,
Lo, the lineaments she traces
Of her sons' remembered faces,
Even as they perchance might grow
After years of crime and woe!

With staring eyes and clenching hands,
Without a cry, a word, a groan,
Motionless the mother stands,
Like a sudden shape of stone,
While again the silence breaks,
And the mighty voice awakes:

“Murmurer at the will of Heaven!
Doubter of the love of God!

294

See the life thou wouldst have given,
See the path they must have trod!
Now they sleep as infants sleep,
Taken from the woes to come.
Hence, poor wanderer, pray and weep!
But thou, too, shalt find thy home!”

Ceased the Voice, and over all
Did a rapid darkness fall,
Save for scattered rays that stream,
With a dim and earthly gleam,
From the lamp that mourner bore;
While upon the marble floor,
Fall, through windows arched and old,
Streams of silver moonlight cold.

Patiently she wept awhile,
Patiently she prayed for grace,
Till the comfort of a smile
Settled on her placid face.
Kneeling thus, she prayed she wept,
Till it seemed as though she slept,
For, by angel-fingers shed,
Death's kind balm upon her head

295

Dropped so gently. Tears, a few
Of repentance, calm and meek,
Glistened, as baptismal dew
Glistens on an infant's cheek,
Washing from the heart within
Shades of grief and stains of sin.

296

ODIN'S SACRIFICE.

Thirty days have trickled by
Since the grisly Plague drew nigh,
Since he breathed into the woods,
And the mountain solitudes,
Soft recesses, spreading lights,
Steadfast waters, purple heights,
Such a spirit of despair
You might see that Death was there.
Thirty days from sun to sun,
And so well the work is done
Living men are not enow
Even their dead to bury now;
Yet unslaked is still his thirst,
Arm unwearied as at first;

297

All that toil of death so grim
Seems but as a sport to him;
Still he springs from prey to prey,
Smiting thousands every day.
Up and down the fields and streets
Each man that his neighbour meets
Hurries darkly from the place,
Looking in that other face
With a wild and shrinking eye,
For he fears to see him die;
But the women patient sit,
Waiting death, not dreading it,
For each one of them would fain
Join some well-beloved again;
Take this comfort, tearful throng,
You have not to linger long!
Not a sound is in the air
Save before the Temple, where
Some have gathered them for prayer
Round about the walls they stand,
With wan lip and shaking hand,
For the priest is yet within;

298

Ere those awful rites begin,
He is kneeling by the throne
Of the angry god alone,—
Kneeling, till he wring reply
From that dumb divinity.
Six long days and nights, I ween,
In the Temple hath he been
Watching there 'twixt Life and Death,
Gaunt with hunger, fierce with faith,—
Watching with unquivering eyes
From soft eve to keen sunrise,
From clear dawn till day is spent,
Till that ruthless god relent;
Till he show by voice or hand
Wherefore he afflicts the land,
Till the lives to Odin due,
Be they many, be they few,
Can be counted down and paid
That the pestilence be stayed.
All the people wait without,
In a mute and ghastly doubt,
Till the priest's dread lips proclaim
(Each expects) some fatal name;

299

Each expects his own and fears
As if death were in his ears,
As if this poor life and cold
Seems, when he must loose his hold,
Like a sceptre and a crown
Which a monarch must fling down.
Lo! the dark gates stir and crack!
All the waiting host shrinks back,—
Back in senseless, speechless fear
Of the thing which they must hear;
Two or three break through and fly,
Shrieking up against the sky
With a wild and hollow shriek
That makes white each hearer's cheek,
If the cheeks death-pale before
Can put on one whiteness more.
But the king, who sate alone
On a grey and mossy stone
Nearest to the temple-gate,
Shrank not from the word of fate;
See, he lifts heroic eyes,
Fearing nothing if he dies!
Only one of that pale troop

300

Had a soul that could not stoop,
Only one a heart whose power
Was sufficient for the hour;
Hearts are frail when hope is gone,—
Be we thankful there was one.
“Speak,” that kingly voice exclaimed,
“Speak, but ere thou speakest, hear!
And the vow my soul hath framed
Shall be uttered in thine ear.
Let great Odin say his will,
I that mandate will fulfil!
Ay, though he bid me cast in dust
The sword in which my people trust,
And from my brow dishonoured tear
The crown whose fitting place is there,—
I will obey him still, and stand
A throneless king in mine own land;
And with your homage you may grace
Another monarch in my place,
If for such sacrifice he deign
To grant my people health again.
Speak, and I promise to obey!
Speak, and I fling my crown away!

301

Only kinghood from my heart
Can but with my life depart.”
Dumb the people listened; each
Had a heart too full for speech.
Dark the days when such a word
Could be with such silence heard!
Then the ruthless priest advanced,
Slow his step, his eye entranced,
As though still that vacant eye
Communed with his deity;
Wild and fast his utterance streams,
Void of consciousness it seems,
As if spoken among dreams;
Other breath than his that hour
Forces out the voice of power!

The Priest's Speech.

“Odin hath spoken! The king of heaven
Answer dark to my prayer hath given;
Odin hath spoken a fearful thing,—
Hear, O people! and hear, O King!
The vow ye but this moment heard
Is in the far sky registered.

302

Woe to him whose heart afraid
Shuns the vow his lip hath made!
Dreary life shall the doomed one lead,
And his grasp, when life is fled,
Never shall take the bowl of mead
From the hand of the mighty dead;
An honourless doom shall lay him low!—
Woe, for my lips have said it, woe!”
The wild priest tossed his arms on high,
And his words went echoing through the sky,
Through its wide blue wastes resounding go
The doom of shame and the words of woe,
Till all the people cower and quake
As though Odin's voice in thunder spake.
Then ceased that awful echo-strain,
And the wild priest opened his lips again.

The Priest's Speech continued.

“Within the Temple I watched alone,
I lay before the war-god's throne;
Night and day I fasted there,
Night and day I lay in prayer,

303

But still the god, tremendous, cold,
Did stare upon me as of old;
Never a sound and never a sign
Answered all those prayers of mine,
Till, as the sixth and latest night
Gaped slowly for the sinking light,
And one by one the shadows stole
Like muttered spells across my soul,
I rose and paced the dreary stone,
Before the terrors of the throne,
And shuddered while the cell I trod,
Alone with the giant and speechless god!

“Was it a cloud from the changing sky
That cheated my bewildered eye?
Not a voice nor a breath was heard,
But it seemed to me that Odin stirred!
My heart grew cold and shrank away,
I thought he was coming to seize his prey,
Down I fell and covered my face,
Though night was darkening through the place,
For I dared not turn nor lift my eye
Lest I should see the god and die.
There as I lay in the night alone,

304

Hiding my face on the altar stone,
A great Voice fell, as thunder falls,
And clove the cloud and shook the walls,
And the war-god uttered this word of fear,—
Give ear, O people! O King, give ear!”

The Decree of Odin.

“‘I loosened the bonds which bind
The Pestilence, my slave;
I sent him forth as the wind,
I bade him stand in the midst of the land
And make it one vast grave.

“‘Well hath his work been done,
But he is working still,
Scarce is the time begun,
And the dead must sink and the living shrink
Till achieved is Odin's will.

“‘Take from the King his best,
The creature next his heart;
Then shall the land have rest,
Then will I chain the fierce Plague again.
I have said the word. Depart!’”

305

The tones of that strange voice have ceased,
Mute are the people and the priest,
But a weight of horror lies
On their wild and wistful eyes.
Silently they stood and heard,
But, as died the last dread word,
A greyness like a sudden cloud
Fell on some of that pale crowd,
As if a stormcloud left its trace
Upon each uplifted face;
Yet the sky is calm and fair,
Not a passing mist is there;
Each man on his neighbour gazed,
Questioning and sore amazed.
Past that moment's shuddering doubt,
“The plague, the hideous plague!” they shout;
And some take flight, and some stand still;
But the grasp of death is icy chill,
One touch goes freezing to their hearts,
And hurrying life recoils, departs,
Till the steps beside the temple door
Are piled with corpses o'er and o'er,
And the monarch veils his face, and cries,
“Great Odin, take thy sacrifice!”

306

There stood a child at the monarch's knee,
A fair and bright-haired boy was he;
His young blue eyes had never yet
Aught save the glance of kindness met,
Nor save with passing tears been wet;
His heart like some fresh rosebud grew,
Nourished with gentle beams and dew;
His lisping tongue had never known
Aught save a blithe and fearless tone;
Wonder and terror he now might feel,
But his father's arm was a fence of steel;
He was the child of hope and care,
The only one and the kingdom's heir,
And he thought as he stood at his father's knee,
“There is none on earth that can injure me!”
But the ruthless priest drew near
With an eye whose gaze was felt,
An eye that never shed a tear,
And a heart that could not melt;
He laid his grasp on the child's soft neck,
And the father shuddered but dared not check,
He lifted the knife,—but the princely child,
Looked lightly up in his face and smiled;
Each cheek around was white with woe,

307

But the boy's blue eye no fear confest;
It was his father who let him go,
So he held it all for a passing jest.
Whence came that shriek which rings around?
A heart is breaking in the sound!
'Tis not the child, he is smiling still
Into the face of the man of ill;
'Tis not the sire, the hero sits
With a heart that speaks not, but submits
His eyes are hard and bright as steel,
You would not dream that he can feel.
Whose is this darting form that flies,
Swift as the flash from thunder-skies,
With floating hair, with glittering eye,
Whose beauty is lost in agony?
Make way, make way for that form so wild!
It is the mother of the child!
She hath caught the boy to her breast,
One moment's quick embrace,
Wildly and closely his form she prest,
But she dared not see his face;

308

One look had taken her strength away
For the deed she had to do that day;
So she turned away when her strong clasp ceased,
And thus she spake to the ruthless priest.
“Man of blood, thou hast strangely erred,
If Odin's will aright was heard;
Not dear, but dearest was his quest,
The King must give the god his best.
Away from the innocent babe! away!
I am the victim thy sword must slay.
I am the love of his youth; we changed
Hearts which no after-chill estranged;
I am the wife of his bosom; see,
His cheek is losing its glow for me,
The light grows dim in his eagle eye,
His brow forgetteth its royalty.
I am the dearest, for I can chase
The soul of strength from the hero's face;
Look how he shrinks! how pale, how wild!
He changed not thus when you touched his child!”
The priest stood still; there seemed a trace
Of transient pity on his face,—

309

With breathless heart, with trembling knees,
That moment's pause the mother sees;
No monarch crowned with victory's wreath
E'er clung to life as she to death.
Whiter and whiter her cheek hath grown,
As she turned to the king and thus spake on.
“Dost thou not love me?” she said, and soft
Was her young low voice, and it quivered oft;
The light in her eye was troubled, yet
'Twas not with a single teardrop wet;
Those waters of the heart's pure well
Were frozen in their deepest cell.
“Dost thou not love me? Forgettest thou
When first I gave thee my girlish vow?
Hast thou forgotten that old bright time,
When two true hearts were together twining?
Hast thou forgotten Love's dewy prime
Now, when his noon is around thee shining?
Will thy cold eyes no change evince?
Have I been faithless to thee since?
Have I not still, as thine own true wife,
Smiled on thy manhood's sterner life?
And has not love in our two hearts made
A world of youth that can never fade?

310

Did ever a breath of unkindness pass
Over our peaceful lake of love?
Did it not mirror as a glass
The tranquil glories from above?
O! by the hours of joy and stillness
Which our true wedded faith hath known,
Turn not away with such icy chillness,
Turn not away,—I am still thine own!
Or has some false new love proved stronger?
Hast thou a dearer face than mine?
Speak to me, speak! Are we one no longer?
Dost thou not love me? Am I not thine?”
The voice of her passionate pleading died
As a low breeze dies by a river side,
But ere that low breeze sank to rest
It woke a storm in the monarch's breast.
Up he sprang, and men dared not see
How the great heroic soul gave way,—
How the brow grew dark with agony
And the lips with terror ashen-grey;
Faint was his voice and of faltering tone,
“Gudruna! Gudruna! come back, mine own!

311

Touch her not, priest! She is mine! Forbear!
Take ye the child, but the mother spare!”
“Heard ye? Oh, heard ye?” the mother cries,
And quick tears break from her joyful eyes;
“My prayer is granted, my truth is proved!
Take me,—for I am his best beloved!”
Eager she spake, and hurried where
The priest was lifting his knife in air!
In her own life-blood she lies,—
She lies at the monarch's feet,
And her heart looks up into his eyes
With a loving gaze and sweet;
In dumb despair he stands,
He stretches helpless hands,
Looks from her face to the iron sky,
And knows that he must see her die!
For Death is glazing fast
Those eyes of tenderest blue,
And now come gentle words—the last—
Hurried and faint and few;
One moment, one poor breath
She wrings from coming Death,

312

And a faint tinge trembles on her cheeks
As thus her dying love she speaks:
“Grieve not for me, O! dearest one,
Forget not how I fell,
The mother for her firstborn son,—
My heart's beloved, farewell!
What bliss was for your darling kept,
To live so loved and die so wept!”
Her spirit passed with the last soft word,
And a voice of weeping around was heard;
The monarch clasped his wondering boy,
And hid his face in the child's bright hair,
He would not that his people's eye
Should look upon his first despair.
Where she fell they buried her,
And the mountain rose's bloom
Clustered round to minister
Sweetness to her lonely tomb;
And the breeze at morn and eve
Ever loved to linger there
With its gentlest breath to grieve
Over one so pure and fair;

313

And for many an after year
All that sorrowing people came,
Casting garlands on her bier,
Doing honour to her name;
For the pestilence had ceased,
And grim Odin was appeased.
Never did the monarch take
Other maiden for his bride;
Lonely lived he for her sake,
Lonely at the last he died;
How could any other be
Half so fond and true as she?