Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Music and Love,—two names of sweet accord,
The two white wings of super-mortal joy!
Music, that tells of Heaven without a word,
And flows through sense unstained with its alloy;
Love, that at last a worshipper doth win us
To the divinity we feel within us.

II

Love, that is charged with far a higher task;
Through wicket of a single soul to show
An upward path, until the pilgrim bask
In that broad beam, diffused through all below,
Where the transmitted prismal rays unite
In pure, unbounded, universal light.

III

Music and Love! Would I had power to blend
These two to beautify a simple tale,
So charm a gentle audience to attend,
About a village in an Irish dale,
Where once I lived, in those uncareful years,
Upon whose sunshine we look back through tears.

IV

Ireland, the Cinderella of the three
Called Sister Kingdoms, darkened with the stains
Of long and sore maltreatment though she be,
Amidst her ashes a sweet voice retains:
And our old village was as deep imbued
With music as a mavis-peopled wood.

V

When evening fell upon the long-drawn street,
And brother-fields, reposing hand in hand,
Unlike where feverish cities scorn to greet
Atoning dusk that quiets all the land,
'T was my amusement to go strolling by
Houses and cottages, a friendly spy.

VI

In one place would a fiddle deftly glide
Through jovial mazes of a jig or reel;
Or ever deepen down with plaintive slide,
Like passion forced to tremble, bend and kneel;
Or rise like bitter sorrow half subdued,
And gently buoyant to a higher mood.

VII

Blent with the roar of bellows and of flame,
Perchance the reed-voice of a clarionet
From forge's open, ruddy shutter came;
Or round some hearth a silent ring was set,
Where the low flute with plaintive quivering ran on
Through “Colleen Dhas,” or “Hawk of Ballyshannon.”

VIII

And not the least delightful glimpse, o' nights,
Would be, a group of girls at needlework,
Placed round a candle throwing soft half-lights
On the contrasted faces, and the dark
And fair-haired heads, a bunch of human flowers,—
Whilst some old ditty helped to wile the hours.

IX

Pianoforte's sound from curtained pane
Would join the lofty to the lowly roof,
In the sweet links of one harmonious chain;
And often down the street some Glee's old woof,
“Hope of my heart”—“Ye shepherds”—“Lightly tread,”
Would stay my steps, or lull me in my bed.

X

Claude was our village music-master's name.
His little foreign mother, pale and sad,
Only to make him ours by birth-right came,
And call him Claude,—an alien grave she had,
Beneath the ivy's everlasting pall,
That hangs upon the ruined abbey-wall.

XI

Nature for once a father's hope outwent
In gifts that favoured his peculiar prayer:
And all the widower's fond desires were bent
In Claude his own successor to prepare;
Commencing from that moment he could win
A baby-crow with tinkling triangle's din.

XII

And to the boy it did not come amiss,
To live and labour in the new Art-world.
Easy and native he became in this;
And gladly every green thought-tendril curled
Around the trelliage, shaped itself thereby,
And on that ladder mounted to the sky.

XIII

To time and tune his young sensations swayed.
He heard a minor in the wind at night
To what it all day long had boldly played;
The thunder roared like bands before the might
Of marching armies; in a summer calm
The chanting waters fell into a psalm.

XIV

The chapel organ-loft, his father's seat,
Was to the child an earthly paradise;
And that celestial one, that used to greet
His infant dreams, could take no other guise
Than green enchanting curtains and gold pipes,
And angels of whom quire-girls were the types.

XV

For chosen shrewdly from the congregation,
His father's training had sufficed to bring
Some sweet wild voices to subordination
To simple rules of chant; and these would sing
So sweetly with the little instrument,
That heavenward scarce more sister music went.

XVI

Poor girls in chief; here, one who had her nest
Like mountain throstle, 'mong the gay gold furze,
As honey-voiced; there, one compelled to rest
Like finch in cage, whose tones not equalled hers,
When what she hummed at work all through the week
Rose up in Sabbath chorus, proud and meek.

XVII

Month after month, young Claude was used to sit
Beside his father; till there came at length
The long-expected day, that found him fit
To have committed to his boyish strength
Those magic keys, which open wide the gates
Of a new world, soft-swayed by fairy fates.

XVIII

Free by these portals to adventure forth
Through Music-land, where half dissolves the veil
That blinds an unknown region from our earth,
To lustrous sheen or silver vapours pale:
Unchecked through wide and wëird realms to travel,
And many a haunted pathway to unravel.

XIX

Oft, when the river winding through the plain,
And distant fields were shaded, fold on fold,
With the slow dusk, and on the purpling pane
Soft twilight barred with crimson and with gold
Lent to the simple little house of prayer
A richly solemn, a cathedral air;

XX

His symphonies, to suit the dying close,
Suffused the calm with tones too tender-sweet
For tear-refusal; least of all by those
Who in the dew were lingering to complete
Their pious “Paters,” kneeling by a grave;
To whom a heavenly comforting it gave.

XXI

So went the years. Day after quiet day
Bathing our village, in the great time-floods
Set like an islet with a hawthorn grey,
Where circling seasons bring a share of buds,
Nests, blossoms, scarlet fruit; and, in their turn,
Of falling leaves and broken twigs forlorn.

XXII

So went the years, that never may abide.
How boy to manhood, manly prime to age,
With ceaseless, unsuspected motion slide!
His father, wearying in his pilgrimage,
Has long resign'd to Claude the master's place,
A youthful master, and boy-smooth in face.

XXIII

But Claude still saves his hour of evening leisure:
And now, the Spring upon the emerald hills
Dancing with flying clouds, how keen his pleasure,
Plunged in deep glens, or tracking upland rills,
Till night's first star recall him from his roaming,
To breathe his gathered secrets to the gloaming.

XXIV

Spring was around him, and within him too.
Delightful time! when life without a spur
Bounds gaily forward, and the heart is new
As the green wand fresh budded on a fir;
And Nature, into jocund chorus waking,
Tempts each young voice to join her merry-making.

XXV

Many a clear echo gave he to the Spring,
When from his fingers streamed electric power,
In spirit-troops of evanescent wing,
And sunshine glimpsing through the April shower,
And clouds, and delicate glories, and the bound
Of yellow sky came melting into sound.

XXVI

The ear receives in common with the eye,
One beauty, flowing through a different gate;
Melody is its form, and harmony
Its hue; the arts so interpenetrate,
And all reciprocally sympathise,
For all at first from one foundation rise.

XXVII

Nature is one, and Art is also one,—
The Sun of Nature, and the Moon of Art;
And he who at the centre has begun,
Shall lifefully perform his single part;
Whilst he who blindly chains himself to this
In surface-work, the part shall also miss.

XXVIII

Yet sometimes in Claude's playing came a tone,
It never caught upon the April earth,
A sighing music, scarcely deemed his own,
That rose uncalled, and sounded like the birth
Of pensive longing, and of soft despair,
Of novel promise veiled with doubt and care.

XXIX

Abode a dim anxiety, and threw
Upon his thoughts its shadow from behind;
That he was ever as in search, he knew,
But never what it was he hoped to find;
Companions pained him, and whene'er he could,
He soothed himself with friendliest solitude.

XXX

For he was in that crisis of the soul
When many men grow weak, and some grow strong;
When morning mists begin to rise and roll,
Sweet poison stings the poet into song,
Love to the lover shows the life of life,
The heart's white shield is summoned into strife.

XXXI

Duly each lengthening evening served to call
His footsteps to the frank, untroubled fields;
Ev'n though the gulphy sky with frequent fall
Lightened its mass of clouds, and all the bields
And boughs were dripping wet; and day by day
One constant path now seemed to be his way.

XXXII

Two pupils lived upon the river side,
At Ivycot,—just where a sudden gush
Of foamy tumbling water, then a wide
And lakelike mirror sundered, brimming flush,
The wooded shores; and there he also found
His golden leisure's best enchanted ground.

XXXIII

It was a humble home, compact and neat
As oriole's nest. A gentle woman, she
Who chose and beautified the green retreat,
Where she was doomed so short a time to be,
Ere summoned to a stiller place of rest;
Spending her last breath in a dear behest.

XXXIV

That was for her two daughters: she had wed
A plain, rough husband, though a kind and true;
And “Dearest Bernard,” from her dying bed
She whispered, “Promise me you'll try to do
For Ann and Milly what was at my heart,
If God had spared me to perform my part.”

XXXV

As well as his not ample means allowed,
Or as the neighbouring village could supply,
The father kept his promise, and was proud
To see the girls grow up beneath his eye,
Two ladies in their culture and their mien;
Though with a difference easy to be seen.

XXXVI

A spirit unrefined the elder had,
An envious eye, a tongue of petty scorn.
That women these may own—how true! how sad!
And these, though Ann had been a countess born,
Had stamped her meaner to the dullest sight,
As is a yellow lily than a white.

XXXVII

White lily,—Milly,—darling little girl!
I think I see as once I saw her stand;
Her light hair waving in a single curl
Behind her ear,—a kid licking her hand;
Her fair young face with health and racing warm,
And loose frock blown about her slender form.

XXXVIII

The dizzy lark, a dot on the white cloud,
That sprinkles music to the April breeze,
Was not more gay than Milly's lightsome mood;
The gentle bird that starry twilight sees
Cradled among the braird in closest bower,
Was not more quiet than her quiet hour.

XXXIX

Knowledge flowed softly to her open mind,
And made it rich with colour and perfume,
As flowers imbibe the sun; she seemed to find
Her thoughts and acts unconsciously assume
A tone like Nature's heiress, one endowed
With harebell, leaf, and star, and rosy cloud.

XL

Not seldom Claude without intention used
His customary time to overstay
With her, whose music was a power educed
From inner treasures, opening day by day;
Not seldom, whilst with finest skill he taught,
It seemed he took away more than he brought.

XLI

And never did her fair face look more fair
Than when the sacred glow of harmonies
Lighted it up, as though her spirit were
A mild blue heav'n out-beaming at her eyes,
As with Claude's voice her round contralto rose
In those sweet psalm-tunes which they often chose.

XLII

She was a child in years when he began
His visits; but her mind was further grown.
Woman more childhood ever keeps than man,
In her soft voice and cheek—nor these alone;
And up the sky with no intense revealing
May the great dawn of womanhood come stealing.

XLIII

The faded moon of childhood, trembling white,
Now lingers low in her soul's flushing heaven,
As wooed in a farewell; the mounting light
Transfuses all the air with subtle leaven;
And shadowy mountain-peaks begin to show
Their unsuspected paths amid the glow.

XLIV

Her silky locks have ripened into brown,
Her soft blue eyes grown deeper and more shy;
And lightly on her lifted head the crown
Of queenly maidenhood sits meek and high;
And in the rich reluctance of her voice
A seraph seems too thoughtful to rejoice.

XLV

Few her companions are, and few her books;
And in a ruined convent's circling shade,
The very loveliest of river-nooks,
Where trailing birch, fit bower for gentle maid,
And feathered fir-tree half shut out the stream,
She often sits alone to read or dream.

XLVI

Thence once or twice she thinks that she espies
Claude's fleeting figure on the other shore;
But ever past the charmèd ground he hies,
And where the rapids round an angle roar
Through verdured crags, shelters his beating heart;
Child-like intent to seek yet stay apart.

XLVII

Milly resumes her favourite reverie
About “a friend,” “a real friend, to love;”
But finds her broken thought is apt to flee
To what seem other subjects: slowly move
The days, and counted days move ever slowest:
Milly!—how long ere thine own heart thou knowest?

XLVIII

Sooner than Claude knows his. His path-side birds
Are scarcely more unconscious or more shrinking.
Yet would he tell his love in simple words,
Did love stand clearly in his simple thinking;
Too high that grand discovery for one
Who thinks that life with him is scarce begun.

XLIX

All but himself seem wise and busy men;
He feels as though despised, and justly too,
Or only borne with;—could he venture then
To deem this rich inheritance his due?
Slowly the fine and tender soul discerns
Its rareness, and its noble station learns.

L

And so upon a royal eventide,
When the ripe month sets glowing earth and air,
And lovely Summer by a current side
Twines amber honeysuckles in her hair,
Our Claude and Milly meet by trembling chance,
And side by side are moving, as in trance.

LI

It is a path branch-curtained and moss-grown,
From which at intervals the loiterer sees,
Through headland green and ivied rock borne down,
The white flood flashing swift behind the trees.
How oft they stop, how long, they nothing know,
Nor how the pulses of the evening go.

LII

A level pond, adorned with softest shadows
Of groves and fissured cliffs and evening sky,
And rural domes of hay, where sunny meadows
Slope to embrace its margin peacefully,
The slumb'ring river to the rapid draws;
And here, upon a grassy jut, they pause.

LIII

How shy a strength is Love's, that so much fears
Its darling secret to itself to own!
Their rapt, illimitable mood appears
To each of them to be enjoyed alone;
Exalted high above all range of hope
By the pure soul's eternity of scope.

LIV

Yet in each heart a prophecy there breathes,
Of how in future hours this evening's phantom,
Arrayed in fairer hues than sunlight weaves
For Nature's richest robe, may rise to haunt them.
The landscape wavers from the sight of each;
And full their bosoms swell, too full for speech.

LV

Is it a dream? The countless happy stars
Stand silently into the deepening blue;
In slow procession all the molten bars
Of cloud move down; the air is dim with dew;
Eve scatters roses on the shroud of Day,
And the old world seems far withdrawn away.

LVI

With good-night kiss the zephyr, warm with sleep,
Gains its soft cradle in a bed of trees,
Where river-chimes aye tolling sweet and deep
Make lullaby; and all field-scents that please
The Summer, float into its veil of gloom
Dream-interwoven in a viewless loom.

LVII

Clothed with an earnest paleness, not a blush,
And with the angel gravity of love,
Each lover's face amid the twilight hush
Is like a saint's whose thoughts are all above
In voiceless gratitude for heavenly boon;
And o'er them for a halo comes the moon.

LVIII

Thus through the leaves and through the gloaming croft
They linger homeward. Flowers around their feet
Bless them, and in the firmament aloft
Night's silent ardours. And an hour too fleet,
Though like whole years of bliss without a blot,
Has drawn them to the porch of Ivycot.—

LIX

Unfolding love full many a change hath lent
To lovers' bearing, flushed and wanned by turns;
In hearts so simple and so innocent
The sacred flame with steady whiteness burns.
They do not shrink, hereafter, but the more
Seek converse; sweeter, graver than before.

LX

One theme at last preferred to every other,
They joy to talk of that mysterious land
Where each enshrines the image of a mother,
Intentest watcher in the guardian band;
And scope to high and tender thought is given,
All unembarrassed, in the air of Heaven.

LXI

Thus sometimes when a hymn has died away
With Palestrina's music of full chords,
And at the trellised window loiter they,
Deferring their good-night with golden words,
Almost they see, without a throb of fear,
Spirits in the blue twilight standing near.

LXII

But day by day, and week by week pass by,
And still the floating Cupid spreads his plume,
Poised on the verge of blissful certainty,
While ev'n a look may call him to assume
The purple ease of his expectant throne,
And claim two loyal subjects for his own.

LXIII

Wondrous, that first full, mutual look of love,
Coming ere either looker is aware;
Unbounded trust, a tenderness above
All tenderness, a blessing in a prayer,
Music, and dreams, and life, and joy, and might,
Soft-swimming in a single beam of light!

LXIV

Oh, when shall fly this talismanic glance,
Which melts like lightning every bolt of steel,
Displays the weighty riddle all at once
That sun and moon were powerless to reveal?
Hath Time the moment treasured when these two
Shall blend their souls in one, like drops of dew?

LXV

Claude came one evening earlier than his hour,
Distrustful of the oft-consulted clock;
And now he waits alone until his flower,
Who keeps true time as one of Flora's flock
Shepherded by the even-star, shall fold
Her loveliness for soft home-leaves to hold.

LXVI

Nor does he think it long. Familiar-dear,—
A sanctity pervades the silent room.
It is the Autumn season of the year;
And mystic softness and love-weighty gloom
Gather with twilight. In a dream he lays
His hand on the piano—dreaming plays.

LXVII

And low and broken sounds at first are stealing
Into the shaded stillness; trembling low
And broken tearfully; opprest with feeling
That knoweth not, and is afraid to know,
The mystery of its life;—but soon do words
Begin to measure with more passionate chords.

LXVIII

And all that has been shadowing through his brain,
A dim existence waiting to be born,—
Amid the inspiration of a strain
Half full of ecstasy and half forlorn,
Flows into eager rapture of expression,
And love at last has gained its free confession.

LXIX

Angel of Music! when our finest speech
Is all too coarse to give the heart relief,
The inmost fountains lie within thy reach,
Soother of every joy and every grief;
And to the creeping words thou lendest wings
On which aloft the 'franchised spirit springs!

LXX

Claude leaves the earth below him; fade and lapse
All worldly circumstance of place and time;
A mist-like music, never his, enwraps
And bears him toward some destiny sublime.
The notes are smothered in his tingling ears,
His head swims, and his cheeks are wet with tears.

LXXI

He cannot overhear (O might it be!)
This stifled sobbing at the open door,
Where Milly stands arrested tremblingly
By that which in an instant tells her more
Than all the dumb months mused of: tells it plain
To joy that cannot comprehend its gain.

LXXII

One moment, and they shall be face to face;
Free in the gift of this great confidence,—
Wrapt in the throbbing calm of its embrace;
No more to disunite their spirits thence.
The myrtle crown half stoops to either brow,—
But ah! what alien voice disturbs them now?

LXXIII

Her sister comes. And Milly turns away;
Hurriedly bearing to some quiet spot
Her tears and her full heart, longing to lay
On a dim pillow cheeks so moist and hot:—
The midnight stars between her curtains gleam,
And Milly sleeps, and dreams a happy dream.

LXXIV

Oh, dream, poor child, beneath the midnight stars!
Lie slumbering far into the yellow dawn!
The shadow creeps apace; the storm that mars
The lily even now is stealing on.
All has been long fulfilled: yet could I weep
At thought of thee so quietly asleep!

LXXV

Most cruel Nature, so untouched, so hard,
The while thy children shake with joy or pain;
Thou wilt not forward Love, nor Death retard
One finger-push for mortals' dearest gain!
Claude, through the summer night, serenely spread,
Strays calmly home, and finds his father—dead.

LXXVI

Thereafter follow many heavy days,
Like wet clouds moving through a sullen sky.
A great, unlooked-for change the mind dismays,
And smites its world with instability;
Its rocks seem quaking, towers and treasures vain,
Peace foolish, Joy disgusting, Hope insane.

LXXVII

And Ivycot itself, that image dear,
Returns to Claude's mind like its own pale ghost,
In melancholy garments, drenched and sere,
Its light, its colour, and its music lost.
Wanting one token sure to lean upon,
(How nearly gained!) his dream of joy is gone.

LXXVIII

His uncle, from beyond th'Atlantic wave
By hap a visitor at this sad season,
Finding him now of such a mood the slave,
Afresh impels him, and with weighty reason,
To his new-chosen country in the West.
And Claude at length gives way to his request.

LXXIX

Brief is the parting scene, and frosty dumb.
The unlike sisters stand alike unmoved;
For Milly's soul is wildered, weak, and numb;
That dead and lost which seemed so dearly proved.
While thought and speech she struggles to recover,
Her hand is prest—and he is gone for ever.

LXXX

Time speeds: on an October afternoon,
Across the well-known view he looks his last:
The valley clothed with peace and fruitful boon,
The chapel where such happy hours were passed,
With rainbow foliage massing round its eaves,
And windows all a-glitter through the leaves.

LXXXI

The cottage-smokes, the river;—gaze no more,
Sad heart!—although thou canst not, wouldst not shun
The visions future years will oft restore;
Whereon the light of many a summer sun,
The stars of many a winter night, shall be
Mingled in one strange, sighing memory.

END OF PART I.

PART II.

I

The shadow Death o'er Time's broad dial creeps
With never-halting pace from mark to mark,
Blotting the sun; and as it coldly sweeps,
Each living symbol melts into the dark,
And changes to the name of what it was;
And earth's progression's indexed by its loss.

II

The Spring unfolding into Summer cheer,
The Summer dreaming into Autumn glow,
The Autumn yellowing with the wasted year
To Winter, and the Winter stealing slow
To Spring again, in smoothest order bound,
Have five times trod their planet circle round.

III

See once again our village; with its street
Lazied in dusty sunshine. All around
Is silence, save a tone for slumber meet,
The spinning-wheel's unbroken whirring sound
From cottage door, where basking on his side
The dog lolls motionless and drowsy-eyed.

IV

Each hollyhock within its little wall
Sleeps in the richness of its crusted blooms;
Up the hot glass the sluggish blue flies crawl;
The heavy bee is humming into rooms
Through open window, like a sturdy rover,
Bringing with him warm scents of thyme and clover.

V

From little cottage-gardens you almost
Smell the fruit ripening on the sultry air;
Opprest to silence, every bird is lost
In eave and hedgerow; save that here and there
With twitter swift, the sole unquiet thing,
Shoots the dark lightning of a swallow's wing.

VI

Yet in this hour of sunny peacefulness,
One is there whom its influence little calms;
One who now leans in agony to press
His throbbing forehead with his throbbing palms,
Now paces quickly up and down within
The narrow parlour of the village inn.

VII

He thought he could have tranquilly beheld
The scene again. He thought his steadfast grief,
Spread level in his soul, could not have swelled
To find once more a passionate relief.
Three years, they now seem hours, have sighed their breath
Since when he heard the tidings of her death.

VIII

Last evening in the latest dusk he came,
A holy pilgrim from a distant land;
And many an object of familiar name,
As at the wave of a miraculous wand,
Rose round his steps; his bed-room window showed
His small white birth-place just across the road.

IX

And yet that room afforded poor repose;
For crowding images perplexed his mind.
Often he sighed, and turned, and sometimes rose
To bathe his forehead in the cool night wind,
And vaguely watch the gradual curtain grey
Uplifting from the glowing stage of day.

X

The long bright morning hours have shifted slow,
When by the hedge he rounds the old green turn,
Wasted by summer of its sweet may-snow,
And through the chapel-gate. His heart forlorn
Draws strength and comfort from the pitying shrine,
Whereat he bows with reverential sign.

XI

Behind the chapel, on a sloping hill,
Circling the ancient abbey's ivied walls,
The graveyard sleeps. A little gurgling rill
Poured through a corner of the ruin, falls
Into a dusky-watered pond, that lags
With lazy eddies 'mid its yellow flags.

XII

Across this pool, the hollow banks enfold
An orchard overrun with rankest grass,
And gnarled and mossy apple-trees, as old
As th'oldest graves almost; and thither pass
The smooth-worn stepping-stones that give their aid
To many a labourer and milking-maid.

XIII

And not unfrequently to rustic bound
On a more solemn errand:—who can see
A kneeler in that melancholy ground,
With aught but gentleness and sympathy,
And feeling of that life in every prayer,
In which the world of matter has no share?

XIV

But resting in the sunshine very lone
Is now each hammock green and wooden cross;
And save the rillet in its cup of stone
That poppling falls, and whispers through the moss
Down to the quiet pool, no sound is near
To break the stillness to Claude's mournful ear.

XV

The writhen elder spreads its creamy bloom;
The thicket-tangling, tenderest briar-rose,
Kisses to air its exquisite perfume
In shy luxuriance; leaning fox-glove glows
With elvish purple;—nor all vainly meet
The eye which unobserved they seem to greet.

XVI

Under the abbey-wall he winds his way,
And passes through a doorway arching deep,
To where no roof excludes the common day;
Though some few tombs in corner shadow sleep
Beneath the matted roof the ivy weaves
With its grey fibres and its varnished leaves.

XVII

First hither comes, in piety of heart,
Over his mother's,—father's grave to bend,
The gentle exile. Stand we far apart,
Whilst his sincere and humble prayers ascend,
As all that are sincere and humble must,
To that Great Soul which lives within our dust.

XVIII

And much more shall we tremble to intrude,
When, rising slow, he seeks another spot,
Where lies enwrapped in grassy solitude,
The grave of “Mary D., of Ivycot;”
And on the stone these added words are seen,
“Also, her daughter Milly, aged eighteen.”

XIX

Profound the moanless aching of the breast,
When weary life is like a grey dull eve
All wrung of colour, withering, and waste
Around the prostrate soul, too weak to grieve.
Less awful far the outcry passionate,
With which an anguished strength accuses fate.

XX

Nor hope, nor wish these mysteries to disperse,
By words that may by human tongue be spoken;
It were a shallow toy, this Universe,
If so its inmost casket could be broken.
Sorrow and pain, as well as hope and love,
Stretch out of sight into the heavens above.

XXI

Yet oh! the cruel coldness of the grave,
The memory of the too, too happy past,
The thought which is the tyrant and the slave,
The sudden sense that drives the soul aghast,
The drowning horror, and the speechless strife,
That cannot sink to death nor rise to life!

XXII

Who, if he could, would paint a grief like this—
The gloomy torturing caverns open lay,
Whence after more than Death's worst bitterness
The toiling spirit struggles back to day,
And fainting lies beneath a careless sun,
Whose succour is not to be begged, but won?—

XXIII

Now slowly lifting up his pallid face,
Claude grew aware that he was not alone.
Amid the silence of the sacred place
Another form was stooping o'er the stone;
A grey-haired woman's. When she met his eyes
She shrieked aloud in her extreme surprise.

XXIV

“The Holy Mother keep us day and night!
Is it himself then? Is it Master Claude?
I little thought I'd ever see this sight!
Warm from the heart I offer up to God
My praises for the answer he has sent
To all my prayers; for now I'll die content!”

XXV

Then, as if talking to herself, she said,
“I nursed her when she was a little child.
I smoothed the pillow of her dying bed.
And just the smile that long ago she smiled
When in her cradle fast asleep she lay,
Was on her features when she passed away.

XXVI

“'Twas in the days of March,” she said again.
“And so it is the sweetest blossom dies,
The wrinkled leaf hangs on, though falling fain.
I thought your hand would close my poor old eyes;
And not that I'd be sitting in the sun
Beside your grave,—the Lord's good will be done!”

XXVII

Thus incoherently the woman spoke,
With many interjections full of woe;
And wrapping herself up within her cloak
Began to rock her body to and fro;
And moaning softly, seemed to lose all sense
Of outward life in memories so intense.

XXVIII

Then Claude burst through his silence, and exclaimed
With the most poignant earnestness of tone,
“O nurse, I loved her!—though I never named
The name of love to her, or any one.
'Tis to her grave here—” He could say no more
But these few words a load of meaning bore.

XXIX

Beside the tombstone mute they both remained.
At last the woman rose, and coming near,
Said with a voice that seemed to have regained
A tremulous calm, “Then you must surely hear
The whole from first to last, cushla-ma-chree;
For God has brought together you and me.”

XXX

And there she told him all the moving tale,
Broken with many tears and sobs and sighs;
How gentle Milly's health began to fail;
How a sad sweetness grew within her eyes
And trembled on her little mouth so meek,
And flushed across her pale and patient cheek.

XXXI

And how about this time her sister Ann
“Entered Religion,” and her father's sight
Was very slow the stealing change to scan
In Milly's face, form, voice, and movement light;
Until the sad conviction flew at last,
And with a barb into his bosom passed.

XXXII

Then, with most anxious haste, her dear old nurse
Was sent for to become her nurse again;
But still the pretty one grew worse and worse.
For with a gradual lapse, though free of pain,
And changes slow, that fond eyes would not see,
Crept on the hopeful, hopeless malady.

XXXIII

Spring came, and brought no gift of life to her,
Of all it lavished in the fields and woods.
Yet she was cheered when birds began to stir
About the shrubbery, and the pale gold buds
Burst on the sallows, and with hearty toil
The ploughing teams upturned the sluggish soil.

XXXIV

“'Twas on a cold March evening, well I mind,”
The nurse went on, “we sat and watched together
The long grey sky; and then the sun behind
The clouds shone down, though not like summer weather,
On the hills far away. I can't tell why,
But of a sudden I began to cry.

XXXV

“I dried my tears before I turned to her,
But then I saw that her eyes too were wet,
And pale her face, and calm without a stir;
Whilst on the lighted hills her look was set,
Where strange beyond the cold dark fields they lay,
As if her thoughts, too, journeyed far away.

XXXVI

“After a while she asked me to unlock
A drawer, and bring a little parcel out.
I knew it was of it she wished to talk,
But long she held it in her hand in doubt;
And whilst she strove, there came a blush and spread
Her face and neck with a too passing red.

XXXVII

“At last she put her other hand in mine;
‘Dear nurse,’ she said, ‘I'm sure I need not ask
Your promise to fulfil what I design
To make my last request,—'tis no great task.
You knew young Master Claude’ (and in her speech
She shook) ‘that used to come here once to teach?’

XXXVIII

“I said I knew you well; and she went on,
‘Then listen: if you ever see him more,
And he should speak of days are past and gone,
And of his pupils and his friends of yore—
Should ask you questions—knowing what you've been
To me,—Oh! could I tell you what I mean!’

XXXIX

“But, sir, I understood her meaning well,
Not from her words so much as from her eyes.
I saw it all; my heart began to swell,
I took her in my arms with many sighs
And murmurs, for I had no tongue to speak,
And then I cried as if my heart would break.

XL

“She saw I knew her mind; and bade me give
Into your hand, if things should so befall,
The parcel. Else, as long as I should live
It was to be a secret kept from all,
And then, in case you never more returned,
When my last hour drew near, was to be burned.

XLI

“I promised to observe her wishes duly;
But said I hoped in God that she would still
Live many years beyond myself. And truly
While she was speaking, like a miracle
Her countenance lost every sickly trace.
Ah, dear! 'twas setting light was in her face!

XLII

“After this she was tired and went to bed,
And I sat watching by her until dark,
And then I lit her lamp, and round her head
Let down the curtains. 'Twas my glad remark
How softly she was breathing, and my mind
Was full of hope and comfort,—we're so blind!

XLIII

“The night wore on, and I had fallen asleep,
When about three o'clock I heard a noise
And leaped up quickly. In the silence deep
There she lay praying with a calm weak voice,
Still sweet, although it did not sound the same;
And in that prayer I surely heard your name.

XLIV

“Sweet Heaven! we scarce had time to fetch the priest!
How sadly through the shutters of that room
Crept in the blessed daylight from the east
To us that sat there weeping in the gloom,
And touched the close-shut eyes and peaceful brow,
But brought no fear of her being restless now!

XLV

“The wake was quiet. Noiseless went the hours
Where she was lying stretched so still and white;
And near the bed, a glass with some Spring flowers
From her own little garden. Day and night
I watched, until they took my lamb away,
The child here by the mother's side to lay.

XLVI

“The holy angels make your bed, my dear!
But little call have we to pray for you:
Pray you for him that's left behind you here,
To have his heart consoled with heavenly dew!
And pray too for your poor old nurse, asthore;
Your own true mother scarce could love you more!”

XLVII

Slow were their steps among the crowded graves,
Over the stile and up the chapel walk,
Where stood the poplars with their silvery leaves,
Set motionless on every timid stalk.
The air in one hot calm appeared to lie,
And thunder muttered in the heavy sky.

XLVIII

Along the street was heard the laughing sound
Of boys at play, who knew no thought of death;
Slow silent-stepping cows to milking bound,
Lifting their heads, lowed with moist clover breath;
The girls stood knitting at the doors, and cast
A look upon our stranger as he passed.

XLIX

Scarce had the mourners time a roof to gain,
When with electric glare and thunder-crash,
Heavy and straight and fierce came down the rain,
Soaking the white road with its sudden plash,
Driving all folk within doors at a race,
And making every kennel gush apace.

L

The storm withdrew as quickly as it came,
And through the broken clouds a brilliant ray
Glowed o'er the dripping earth in yellow flame,
And flushed the village panes with parting day.
Sudden and full that swimming lustre shone
Into the room where Claude sat, all alone.

LI

The door is locked and on the table lies
The open parcel. Long he wanted strength
To trust its secrets to his feverish eyes;
But hurriedly he has disclosed at length
A note; a case; and folded with them there,
A silky ringlet from her wealth of hair.

LII

The case holds Milly's portrait—her reflection—
With the small mouth as though about to speak,
The forehead white, the eyes of calm affection,
Even the pretty seam in the soft cheek.
Sweet art! that fixes in eternal prime
The shadow of a moment snatched from Time.

LIII

The note ran thus, “Dear Claude, so near my death,
I feel that like a Spirit's words are these,
In which I say, that I have perfect faith
In your true love for me,—as God, who sees
The secrets of all hearts, can see in mine
That fondest truth which sends this feeble sign.

LIV

“I do not think that He will take away,
Even in Heaven, this precious earthly love;
Surely he sends its pure and happy ray
Down as a message from the world above.
Perhaps it is the full light drawing near
Which makes the doubting Past at length so clear.

LV

“We might have been so happy!—But His will
Said no, who orders all things for the best.
Oh, may his power into your soul instil
A peace like this of which I am possessed!
And may he bless you, love, for evermore,
And guide you safely to his Heavenly shore!”

LVI

That night Claude's pillow bore a restless head;
Aching with memories. His mind retraced
The jewels and the pearls, like flower-leaves shed,
That strewed the by-gone hours with priceless waste;
Whose images beneath a plumbless tide
The searching beam disclosed and magnified.

LVII

Thus clearly into his remembrance strayed,
How once he found (O time that once hath been!)
Amongst his wild flowers on the table laid,
A lovely dark carnation he had seen
In Milly's belt; and how he little guessed
What meaning on its crimson leaves might rest.

LVIII

Once more, the centre of the summer eve,
She lingered by the stream. Once more she sung,
With face all melody; he could believe
Th'appealing tones in distant echoes rung.
He saw her stretched in a most silent place,
With the calm light of prayer upon her face.

LXIX

And all night long the water-drops he heard
Vary their talk of chiming syllables,
Dripping into the butt; and in the yard
The ducks gabbling at daylight: and the spells
Of misty sense recalled a childish illness
When the same noises broke the watching stillness.

LX

Almost he hoped that he had sadly dreamed,
And all the interval was but a shade.
But now the slow dawn through his window gleamed,
And whilst in real slumber he was laid,
There stole a rosier vision 'mong the shrouds
Of folded thought, than Morning through her clouds.

LXI

Wandering in deep green meadows, sunshine-gay,
The mountains wooed him, waving purple dim,
And thither through the soft air glided they,
Himself and Milly. And there rose a hymn
Like silver mist along the climbing glades,
And white forms wafted through the plumy shades.

LXII

Seated together on a bank of flowers,
She took his hand and she began to sing
In Heav'n how softly flow the eternal hours,
And with them all no hour of parting bring:
Then joined a floating chorus overhead,
“Parting and Pain and Doubt, for ever fled!”

LXIII

What comfort and what strength in dreams descend,
Which do not wholly vanish in the light!
—When this our little story hath an end,
That trembles, dreamlike, on the woof of night,
Might so a slender memory be enwrought
To glance among the threads of waking thought!

LXIV

Claude came and went. Till he was far away,
Few in the village guessed that it was Claude.
And years had left behind that sunny day,
Before it chanced a straggler from abroad
Gave news of him; and bade us set him down
As growing rich in a great Southern town.

LXV

After another silent interval,
Arrived a letter from a friend of mine
Who, in obedience to that ceaseless call
Which summons westward, had made bold to join
A band that quitted our domestic fields
For what emprise untamed Columbia yields.

LXVI

“'Midst dateless forests (thus he wrote) we came
One sundown to a clearing. Western light
Burnt through the pine-tops with a fading flame,
Over untrodden regions; and the night
Out of those solemn woods appeared to rise;
Ushered with sound of ghostly harmonies.

LXVII

“Such must have been the atmosphere, we thought,
The visionary light of ancient years,
When Red Man east or west encountered nought
Save bear and squirrel, with their wild compeers.
But other life was here; and soon we found
The little citadel of this new ground.

LXVIII

“The cot beneath a shadowy wall of pines
Looked calmly on a stump-rough sweep of grass:
Its timber roof was eaved with running vines;
And out of Nature's rule it seemed to pass
By shape alone. Long ere we reached the door
We questioned of the mystic sounds no more.

LXIX

“They blended with the twilight and the trees
So softly, floating far and far away,
It was not strange to deem them but the breeze
Hymning its vespers in the forest grey.
But now we heard not airy strains alone,
But human feeling swaying every tone.

LXX

“There swelled an agony of tearful strife;
Which lapsed in swoon;—but from that dark profound
Arose a music deep as love or life,
Spreading into a placid lake of sound,
That took the infinite into its breast,
With Earth and Heaven in one embrace at rest.

LXXI

“The flute-notes failed. At last approaching slow,
Whom found we seated in the threshold shade?
'Twas Claude, our Music-Master long ago
In poor old Ireland!—long inquiries made
Along our track for him were all in vain;
And here at once we grasped his hand again!

LXXII

“And he received us with the warmth of heart
Our brothers lose not under any sky.
But what was strange, he did not stare or start
Like one astonished, when so suddenly
Long-missed, familiar faces from the wood
Emerged like ghosts, and at his elbow stood.

LXXIII

“He seemed like one, I fancied, who was greeting
Long-absent, but not unexpected friends.
Yet he knew nothing of our chance of meeting—
I asked him that. But soon he made amends
For any trace of oddness, by the zeal
With which he cooked us no unwelcome meal.

LXXIV

“We gave him all our news, and in return
He told us how he lived,—a lonely life!
Miles from a neighbour sowed and reaped his corn,
And hardy grew. One spoke about a wife
To cheer him in that solitary wild;
At which he only shook his head and smiled.

LXXV

“Next dawn, when each one of our little band
Had on a mighty Walnut carved his name,
Henceforth a sacred tree, he said, to stand
'Mid his enlarging bounds,—the moment came
For farewell words. But long, behind our backs,
We heard the echoes of his swinging axe.”

Took conventual vows.