THE BROKEN HOUSEHOLD.

For quiet to hot bosoms is a hell!

and his, surely, was of the hottest. He began as of old to long for excitement; and even the pleasures of the chase, to which he was still devoted, began to prove insufficient to gratify his wild and eager spirit. Day after day, Theresa saw less of him, and ere long knew not how or where many of his days were spent. Confidence, in the true sense of the word, there never had been between them; respect or esteem, founded upon her real virtues and rare excellences, he hadnever felt—therefore, when the heat and fierceness of passion died out, as it were, by the consumption of its own fuel, when her personal charms palled on him by possession, when her intellectual endowments wearied him, because they were in truth far beyond the range of his comprehension, and therefore out of the pale of his sympathies, he had nothing left whereon to build affection—thus passion once dead in his heart, all was gone at once which had bound him to Theresa.

He neglected her, he left her alone—alone, without a companion, a friend, in the wide world. Still she complained not, wept not, above all, upbraided not. She sought to occupy herself, to amuse her solitude with her books, her music, her wild flights into the world of fancy. And when he did come home from his fierce, frantic gallops across the country with the worst and wildest of the young yeomanry, from his disgraceful orgies with the half gentry of the nearest market-town, she received him ever with kindness, gentleness and love.

She never let him know that she wept in silence; never allowed him to see that she noticed his altered manner; but smiled on him, andsang to him, and fondled him, as if he had been to her—and was he not so?—all that she had on earth. And he, such is the spirit of the selfish and the reckless of our sex, almost began to hate her, for the very meekness and affection with which she submitted to his unkindness.

He felt that her unchanged, unreproaching love was the keenest reproach to his altered manner, to his neglectful coldness. He felt that he could better have endured the bitterest blame, the most agonized remonstrance, the tears of the veriest Niobe, than meet the ever welcoming smile of those rosy lips, the ever loving glance of those soft blue eyes.

Perhaps had she possessed more of what such men as he call spirit, had the vein of her genius led to outbursts of vehement, unfeminine, Italian passion, the flashing eye, the curling lip, the face pallid with rage, the tongue fluent with the torrent eloquence of indignation, he might have found in them something to rouse his dormant passions from the lethargy which had overcome them, something to stimulate and excite him into renewed desire.

But as well might you expect from the lily of the valley the blushes and the thorns of the rose, from the turtle-dove the fury and the flight of the jer-falcon, as aught from Theresa St. Aubyn, but the patience, the purity, the quiet, and the love of a white-minded, virtuous woman.

But she was wretched—most wretched—because hopeless. She had prayed for a child, with all the yearning eagerness of disappointed craving womanhood—a child that should smile in her face, and love her for herself, being of herself, and her own—a child that should perhaps win back to her the lost affections of her lord. But in vain.

And still she loved him, nay, adored him, as of old. Never did she see his stately form, sitting his horse with habitual grace, approaching listlessly and slowly the home which no longer had a single attraction to his jaded and exhausted heart, but her whole frame was shaken by a sharp nervous tremor, but a mist overspread her swimming eyes, but dull ringing filled her ears, her heart throbbed and palpitated, until she thought it would burst forth from her bosom.

She ever hoped that the cold spell might pass from him, ever believed, ever trusted, that the time would come when he would again love her as of old, again seek her society, and take pleasure in her conversation; again let her nestle in his bosom, and look up into his answering eyes, by the quiet fireside in winter evenings. Alas! she still dreamed of these things—even although her reason told her that they were hopeless—even after he had again changed his mood from sullen coldness to harsh, irritable anger, to vehement, impetuous, fiery wrath, causeless as the wolf’s against the lamb, andthereforethe more deadly and unsparing.

Politics had run high in the land of late, and every where parties were forming. Since the battle of Sedgemoor, and the merciless cruelty with which the royal judges had crushed out the life of that abortive insurrection, and drowned its ashes in floods of innocent gore, the rage of factions had waxed wilder in the country than they had done since the reign of the first Charles, the second English king of that unhappy race, the last of whom now filled the painful seat of royalty.

Yet all was hushed as yet and quiet, as the calm which precedes the bursting of a thunder-cloud. Secluded as Widecomb Manor was, and far divided from the seats of the other gentry of Devonshire by tracts of moor and forest, and little intercourse as Jasper had held hitherto with his equals in rank and birth—limited as that intercourse had been to a few visits of form, and a few annual banquets—the stir of the political world reached even the remote House in the Woods.

The mad whirl of politics was precisely the thing to captivate a mind such as Jasper’s; and the instant the subject was broached to him, by some of the more leading youths of the county, he plunged headlong into its deepest vortices, and was soon steeped to the lips in conspiracy.

Events rendered it necessary that he should visit the metropolis, and twice during the autumn he had already visited it—alone. And twice he had returned to his beautiful young wife, who hailed his coming as a heathen priestess would have greeted the advent of her god, more alienated, colder, and more causeless than before.

Since he had last returned, the coldness was converted into cruelty, active, malicious, fiendish cruelty. Hard words, incessant taunts, curses—nay, blows! Yet still, faithful to the end and fond, she still loved him. Still would have laid down the dregs of the life which had been so happy till she knew him, and which he had made so wretched, to win one of his old fond smiles, one of his once caressing tones, one of his heartfelt kisses.

Alas! alas! Theresa! Too late, it was all too late!

He had learned, for the first time, in London, the value of his rank, his wealth, his position. He had been flattered by men of lordly birth,fêtedand fondled by the fairest and noblest ladies of the land. He hadlearned to be ambitious—he had begun to thirst for social eminence, for political ascendency, for place, power, dominion. His talents had created a favorable impression in high quarters—his enthusiasm and daring rashness had made an effect—he was already a marked man among the conspirators, who were aiming to pull down the sovereignty of the Stuarts. Hints had been even thrown out to him, of the possibility of allying himself to interests the most important, through the beautiful and gorgeous daughter of one of the oldest of the peers of England. The hint had been thrown out, moreover, by a young gentleman of his own county—by one who had seen Theresa. And when he started and expressed his wonder, and alluded tremulously to hiswife, he had been answered by a smile of intelligence, coupled with an assurance that every one understood all about Theresa Allan; and that surely he would not be such a fool as to sacrifice such prospects for a little village paramour. “The story of the concealed wedding took in nobody, my lad,” the speaker added, “except those, like myself, who chose to believe any thing you chose to assert. Think of it,mon cher; and, believe me, thatliaisonwill be no hindrance.”

And Jasper had thought of it. The thought had never been, for one moment, absent from his mind, sleeping or waking, since it first found admission to the busy chambers of his brain. From that unfortunate day, his life had been but one series of plots and schemes, all base, atrocious, horrible—some even murderous.

Since that day his cruelty had not been casual; it had a meaning, and a method, both worthy of the arch fiend’s devising.

He sought first deliberately to break her heart, to kill her without violence, by the action of her own outraged affections—and then, when that failed, or rather when he saw that the process must needs be too slow to meet his accursed views, he aimed at driving her to commit suicide—thus slaying, should he succeed in his hellish scheme, body and soul together of the woman whom he had sworn before God’s holy altar, with the most solemn adjuration, to love, comfort, honor, and keep in sickness and in health—the woman whose whole heart and soul were his absolute possession; who had never formed a wish, or entertained a thought, but to love him and to make him happy. And this—this was her reward. Could she, indeed, have fully conceived the extent of the feelings which he now entertained toward her, could she have believed that he really was desirous of her death, was actually plotting how he might bring it about, without dipping his hand in her blood, or calling down the guilt of downright murder on his soul, I believe he would have been spared all further wickedness.

To have known that he felt toward her not merely casual irritation, that his conduct was not the effect of a bad disposition, or of an evil temper only, but that determined hatred had supplanted the last spark of love in his soul, and that he was possessed by a resolution to rid himself of the restraint which his marriage had brought upon him, by one means or another—to have known this, I say, would have so frozen her young blood, would have so stricken her to the heart, that, if it had not slain her outright, it would have left her surely—perhaps happier even to be such—a maniac for the poor remnant of her life.

That morning, at an early hour, he had ridden forth, with two or three dogs at his heel, and the game-keeper, James Alderly, better known in that neighborhood as Black Jem, who had of late been his constant companion, following him.

Dinner-time had passed—supper-time—yet he came not; and the deserted creature was yet watching wistfully, hopefully for his return.

Suddenly, far off among the stems of the distant trees, she caught a glimpse of a moving object; it approached; it grew more distinct—it was he, returning at a gallop, as he seldom now returned to his distasteful home, with his dogs careering merrily along by his side, and the grim-visaged keeper spurring in vain to keep up with the furious speed at which he rode, far in the rear of his master.

She pressed her hand upon her heart, and drew a long, deep breath. “Once more,” she murmured to herself, “he hath come back to me once more!”

And then the hope flashed upon her mind that the changed pace at which he rode, and something which even at that distance she could descry in his air and mien, might indicate an alteration in his feelings. “Yes, yes! Great God! can it be? He sees me, he waves his hand to me. He loves—he loves me once again!”

And with a mighty effort she choked down the paroxysm of joy, which had almost burst out in a flood of tears, and hurried from the room, and out upon the terrace, to meet him, to receive once more a smile of greeting. His dogs came bounding up to her, as she stood at the top of the stone steps, and fawned upon her, for they loved her—every thing loved her, save he only who had most cause to do so.

Yet now, it was true, he did smile upon her, as he dismounted from his horse, and called her once more “Dear Theresa.” And he passed his arm about her slender waist, and led her back into the house, chiding her good-humoredly for exposing herself to the chilly night-wind.

“I feel it not,” she said, joyously, with her own sunny smile lighting up her face, “I feel it not—nor should feel it, were it charged with all the snow storms of the north; my heart is so warm, so full. Oh! Jasper, that dear name, in your own voice, has made me but too happy.”

“Silly child!” he replied, “silly child,” patting her affectionately on the shoulder, as he had used to do in times long past—at least it seemed long, very long to her, though they were in truth but a few months distant. “And do you love me, Theresa?”

“Love you?” she said, gazing up into his eyes with more of wonder that he should ask such a question, than of any other feeling. “Love you, oh, God! can you doubt it, Jasper?”

“No,” he said, hesitating slightly, “no, dearest. And yet I have given you but little cause of late to love me.”

“Do you knowthat—do you feelthat, Jasper?” shecried, eagerly, joyously, “then I am, indeed, happy; then you really do love me?”

“And can you forgive me, Theresa?”

“Forgive you—for what?”

“For the pain I have caused you of late.”

“It is all gone—it is all forgotten! You have been vexed, grieved about something that has wrung you in secret. But you should have told me of it, dearest Jasper, and I would have consoled you. But it is all, all over now; nay, but I am now glad of it, since this great joy is all the sweeter for the past sorrow.”

“And do you love me well enough, Theresa, to make a sacrifice, a great sacrifice for me?”

“To sacrifice my heart’s blood—ay, my life, if to do so would make you happy.”

“Your life, silly wench! how should your little life profit me? But that is the way ever with you women. If one ask you the smallest trifle, you ever proffer your lives, as if they could be of any use, or as if one would not be hanged for taking them. I have known girls refuse one kiss, and then make a tender of their lives.”

He spoke with something of his late habitual bitterness, it is true; but there was a smile on his face, as he uttered the words, and she laughed merrily, as she answered,

“Oh! I will not refuse you fifty of those; I will be only too glad if you think them worth the taking. But I did speak foolishly, dearest; and you must not blame me for it, for my heart is so overflowing with joy, that, of a truths I scarcely know what I say. I only wished to express that there is nothing in the wide world which you can ask of me, that I will not do, willingly, gladly. Will that satisfy you, Jasper?”

“Why, ay! if you hold to it, Theresa,” he answered, eagerly; “but, mind you, it is really a sacrifice which I ask—a great sacrifice.”

“No sacrifice is great,” she replied, pressing his arm, on which she was hanging with both her white hands linked together over it, “no sacrifice which I can make, so long asyoulove me.”

“Idolove you, dearly, girl,” he answered; “and if you do this that I would have you do, I will love you ten times better than I do, ten times better than I ever did.”

“That were a bribe indeed,” she replied, laughing with her own silvery, girlish laugh. “But I don’t believe you could love me ten times better than you once did, Jasper. But if you will promise me to love me ever as you did then, you may ask me any thing under heaven.”

“Well, I will promise—I will promise, wench. See that you be as ready to perform.”

And, as he spoke, he stooped down, for the keeper had now retired with the horses, and they were entirely alone, and embraced her closely, and kissed her as he had not done for many a month before.

“I will—I will, indeed, dear, dearest Jasper. Tell me, what is it I must do?”

“Go to your room, dearest, and I will join you there and tell you. I must get me a crust of bread and a goblet of wine, and give some directions to the men, and then I will join you.”

“Do not be very long, dearest. I am dying to know what I can do to please you.” And she stood upon tiptoes, and kissed his brow playfully, and then ran up stairs with a lighter step than had borne her for many a day.

Her husband gazed after her with a grim smile, and nodded his head in self-approbation. “This is the better way, after all. But will she, will she stand to it? I should not be surprised. ’S death! one can never learn these women! What d—d fools they are, when all is told! Flattery, flattery and falsehood, lay it on thick enough, will win the best of them from heaven to—Hades!”

Oh, man, man! and all that was but acting.

[Conclusion in our next.

THE BROKEN HOUSEHOLD.

———

BY MISS ALICE CAREY.

———

Vainly, vainly, memory seeksRound our father’s knee,Laughing eyes and rosy cheeksWhere they used to be:Of the circle once so wide,Three are wanderers, three have died.Golden-haired and dewy-eyed,Prattling all the day,Was the baby, first that died;O ’twas hard to layDimpled hand and cheek of snowIn the grave so dark and low!Smiling back on all who smiled,Ne’er by sorrow thralled,Half a woman, half a child,Was the next God called:Then a grave more deep and wideMade they by the baby’s side.When or where the other diedOnly heaven can tell;Treading manhood’s path of prideWas he when he fell:Haply thistles, blue and red,Bloom about his lonesome bed.I am for the living threeOnly left to pray;Two are on the stormy sea.Farther still than they,Wanders one, his young heart dim,Oftenest, most, I pray for him.Whatsoe’er they do or dare,Wheresoe’er they roam,Have them, Father, in thy care,Guide them safely home;Home, O Father, in the sky,Where none wander and none die.

Vainly, vainly, memory seeksRound our father’s knee,Laughing eyes and rosy cheeksWhere they used to be:Of the circle once so wide,Three are wanderers, three have died.

Vainly, vainly, memory seeks

Round our father’s knee,

Laughing eyes and rosy cheeks

Where they used to be:

Of the circle once so wide,

Three are wanderers, three have died.

Golden-haired and dewy-eyed,Prattling all the day,Was the baby, first that died;O ’twas hard to layDimpled hand and cheek of snowIn the grave so dark and low!

Golden-haired and dewy-eyed,

Prattling all the day,

Was the baby, first that died;

O ’twas hard to lay

Dimpled hand and cheek of snow

In the grave so dark and low!

Smiling back on all who smiled,Ne’er by sorrow thralled,Half a woman, half a child,Was the next God called:Then a grave more deep and wideMade they by the baby’s side.

Smiling back on all who smiled,

Ne’er by sorrow thralled,

Half a woman, half a child,

Was the next God called:

Then a grave more deep and wide

Made they by the baby’s side.

When or where the other diedOnly heaven can tell;Treading manhood’s path of prideWas he when he fell:Haply thistles, blue and red,Bloom about his lonesome bed.

When or where the other died

Only heaven can tell;

Treading manhood’s path of pride

Was he when he fell:

Haply thistles, blue and red,

Bloom about his lonesome bed.

I am for the living threeOnly left to pray;Two are on the stormy sea.Farther still than they,Wanders one, his young heart dim,Oftenest, most, I pray for him.

I am for the living three

Only left to pray;

Two are on the stormy sea.

Farther still than they,

Wanders one, his young heart dim,

Oftenest, most, I pray for him.

Whatsoe’er they do or dare,Wheresoe’er they roam,Have them, Father, in thy care,Guide them safely home;Home, O Father, in the sky,Where none wander and none die.

Whatsoe’er they do or dare,

Wheresoe’er they roam,

Have them, Father, in thy care,

Guide them safely home;

Home, O Father, in the sky,

Where none wander and none die.

FRAGMENTS OF AN UNFINISHED STORY.

———

BY FRANCES S. OSGOOD.

———

“A friend!” Are you a friend? No, by my soul!Since you dare breathe the shadow of a doubtThat I am true as Truth: since you give notUnto my briefest look—my gayest word⁠—My faintest change of cheek—my softest touch⁠—Most sportive, careless smile, or low-breathed sigh⁠—Nay, to my voice’s lightest modulation,Though imperceptible to all but you,⁠—If you give not to these, unquestioning,A limitless faith—the faith you give to Heaven⁠—I will not call you “friend.” I would disdainA seraph’s heart, as yours I now renounce,If such the terms on which ’twere proffered me.Deny me Faith—that poor, yet priceless boon⁠—And you deny the very soul of love.As well withhold the lamp, whose light revealsThe sculptured beauty latent in its urn,As proffer Friendship’s diamondin the dark.What though a thousand seeming proofs condemn me?If my calm image smile not clear through all,Serene, and without shadow on your heart⁠—Nay, if the very vapors that would veil it,Part not, illumined by its presence pure,As round Night’s tranquil queen the clouds divide,Then rend it from that heart! I ask no place,Though ’twere a throne, without the state becomes me⁠—Without the homage due to royal Truth.And should a world betide pronounce me false,You are to choose between the world and me.IfIbe not more thanallworlds to you,I will not stoop toless! I will haveall⁠—Your proudest, purest, noblest, loftiest love⁠—Your perfect trust—your soul of soul—or nothing!Shall Inothave them? Speak! on poorer spirits⁠—Who are content with less, because, forsooth,The whole would blind or blight them, or becauseThey have but less to give—will youdivideThe glory of your own? or concentrateOn mine its radiant life?—on mine! that holdsAs yet, in calm reserve, the boundless wealthOf tenderness its Maker taught to it.Speak! shall we part, and go our separate ways,Each with a half life in a burning soul,Like two wild clouds, whose meeting would evokeThe electric flame pent up within their bosoms,That, parted, weep their fiery hearts away,Or waste afar—and darken into death?Speak! do we part? or are weoneforever?——Since I must love thee—since a weird wild fateImpels me to thy heart against my will⁠—Do thou this justice to the heart I yield:Be its ideal. Let it not blush to love.Bid it not trail its light and glorious wingsThrough the dull dust of earth, with downcast eyesAnd drooping brow, where Shame and Grief usurpCalm Honor’s throne!—be noble, truthful, brave;Love Honor more than Love, and more than me;Be all thou wert ere the world came betweenThee and thy God.Hear’st thou my spirit pleadingWith suppliant, claspéd hands to thine, dear love?Degrade her not, but let thy stronger soulSoar with her to the seraph’s realm of light.She yields to thee; do with her as thou wilt.She shuts her wings in utter weariness,For she has wandered all night long astray,And found no rest—no fountain of sweet love,Save such as mocked her with a maddening thirst.She asks of thine repose, protection, peace;Implores thee with wild tears and passionate prayersTo give her shelter through the night of Time,And lead her home at morn; for long agoShe lost her way.Ah! thou may’st give, insteadOf that sweet boon she asks, if so thou wilt,Wild suffering, madness, shame, self-scorn, despair!But thou wilt not! thine eyes—thy glorious eyes⁠—Are eloquent with generous love and faith,And through thy voice a mighty heart intonesIts rich vibrations, while thou murmurest lowAll lovely promises, and precious dreamsFor the sweet Future. So, I trust thee, love,And place my hand in thine, for good or ill.——Do not my soul that wrong! translate not thusThe spirit-words my eyes are saying to thee:I would not fetter that rich heart of thine,Save by the perfect liberty I give it,For all God’s worlds of glory. Go thou forth⁠—Be free as air! Love all the good and pure;Cherish all love that can ennoble thee;Unfold thy soul to all sweet ministries,That it may grow toward heaven, as a flowerDrinks dew and light, and pays them back in beauty.And if—ah heaven! these tears are love’s, not grief’s⁠—And if some higher ministry than mine,Or some more genial nature, bless thee more,Wrong not thyself, or me, or love, or truth,By shrinking weakly from thy destiny.I would not owe to pitying tendernessThe joy with which thy presence lights my life.Thou shalt still love all that is thine, dear friend,In my true soul—all that is right and great;And that I still love thee, so proudly, purely⁠—That shall be joy enough! Go calmly forth.——Would I were any thing that thou dost love⁠—A flower, a shell, a wavelet, or a cloud⁠—Aught that might win a moment’s soul-look from thee.To be “a joy forever” in thy heart,That were in truth divinest joy to mine:A low, sweet, haunting Tune, that will not letThy memory go, but fondly twines around it,Pleading and beautiful—for unto theeMusic is life—such life as I would be;A Statue, wrought in marble, without stain,Where one immortal truth embodied livesInstinct with grace and loveliness; a Fane,A fair Ionic temple, growing up,Light as a lily into the blue air,To the glad melody of a tuneful thoughtIn its creator’s spirit, where thy gazeMight never weary—dedicate to thee,Thy image shrined within it, lone and loved;Makeme the Flower thou lovest; let me drinkThy rays, and give them back in bloom and beauty;Mould me to grace, to glory, like the Statue;Wake for my mind the Music of thine own,And it shall grow, to that majestic tune,A temple meet to shrine mine idol in;Hold the frail shell, tinted by love’s pure blush,Unto thysoul, and thou shalt hear withinTones from its spirit-home; smile on the wave,And it shall flow, free, limpid, glad, forever;Shed on the cloud the splendor of thy being,And it shall float—a radiant wonder—by thee!To love—thylove—so docile I would be,So pliant, yet inspired, that it should makeA marvel of me, for thy sake, and showIts proudchef d’œuvrein my harmonious life.——I would be judged by that great heart of thine,Wherein a voice more genuine, more divineThan world-taught Reason, fondly speaks for me,And bids thee love and trust, through cloud and shine,The frail and fragile creature who would beNaught here—hereafter—if notallto thee!Thou call’st me changeful as the summer cloud,And wayward as a wave, and light as air.And I am all thou sayest—all, and worse;But the wild cloud can weep, as well as lighten,And the wave mirrors heaven, as my soul thee;And the light air, that frolicks without thoughtO’er yonder harp, makes music as it goes.Letmeplay on the soul-harp I love best,And teach it all its dreaming melody;That is my mission; I have nothing else,In all the world, to do. And I shall goMusicless, aimless, idle, through all life,Unless I play my part there—only there.In the full anthem which the universeIntones to heaven, my heart will have no share,Unless I have that soul-harp to myself,And wake it to what melody I please.——So wrote the Lady Imogen—the childOf Poetry and Passion—all her frameSo lightly, exquisitely shaped, we dreamed’Twas fashioned to the echo of some song⁠—The fairest, airiest creature ever made⁠—Flower-like in her fragility and grace,Childlike in sweet impetuous tenderness,Yet with a nature proud, profound, and pure,As a rapt sybil’s. O’er her soul had passedThe wild simoom of wo, but to awakeFrom that Eolian lyre the loveliest tonesOf mournful music, passionately sad.Not thus her love the haughty Ida breathed:In her ideal beauty calm and high,O’er the patrician paleness of her cheek,Came, seldom, and how softly! the faint blushOf irrepressible tenderness.——Your course has been a conqueror’s through life;You have been followed, flattered and caressed;Soul after soul has laid upon your shrineIts first, fresh, dewy bloom of love for incense:The minstrel-girl has tuned for you her lute,And set her life to music for your sake;The opera-belle, with blush unwonted, startsAt your name’s casual mention, and forgets,For one strange moment, fashion’s cold repose;The village maiden’s conscious heart beats timeTo your entrancing melody of verse,And, from that hour, of your belovéd imageMakes a life-idol. And you know it all,And smile, half-pleased, and half in scorn, to know.But you have never known, nor shall you now,Who, ’mid the throng you sometimes meet, receivesYour careless recognition with a thrill,At her adoring heart, worth all that homage!You see not, ’neath her half-disdainful smile,The passionate tears it is put on to hide;You dream not what a wild sigh dies awayIn her laugh’s joyous trill; you cannot guess⁠—You, who see only with your outer sense,⁠—A warped, chilled sense, that wrongs you every hour⁠—You cannot guess, when her cold hand you take,Thata soultrembles in that light, calm clasp!You speak to her, with your world tone; ah, notWith the home cadence of confiding love!And she replies: a few, low, formal wordsAre all she dares, nay deigns, return; and soYou part, for months, again. Yet in that brief,Oasis hour of her desert life,She has quaffed eagerly the enchanted spring,The sun-lit wave of thought in your rich mind;And passes on her weary pilgrimageRefreshed, and with a renovated strength.And this has been for years. She was a child⁠—A school-girl—when the echo of your lyreFirst came to her, with music on its wings,And her soul drank from it the life of life.Then, in a festive scene, you claimed her handFor the gay dance, and, in its intervals,Spoke soothingly and gently, for you sawHer timid blush, but did not dream its cause.Even then her young heart worshiped you, and shrunk,With a vague sense of fear and shame, away.She who, with others, was, and is, even now,Light, fearless, joyous, buoyant as a bird,That lets the air-swung spray beneath it bend,Nor cares, so it may carol, what shall chance,Withyou, forgets her song, foregoes her mirth,And hushes all her music in her heart.It is because your soul, that should know hersWith an intuitive tenderness, is blind!But once again you met; then, years went by,And in a thronged, luxurious saloon,You drew her fluttering hand within your arm;A few blest moments next your heart it lay;And still the lady mutely veiled, from yours,Eyes where her glorious secret wildly shone;And you, a-weary of her seeming dullness,Grew colder day by day. Butonceyou pausedBeside her seat, and murmured words of praise.Praise fromyourlips! My God! the ecstasyOf that dear moment! Each bright word, embalmedIn Memory’s tears of amber, gleams there yet⁠—The costliest beads in her rich rosary.But you were blind! And after that a cloud,Colder and darker, hung between her heartAnd yours. There were malicious, lovely lips,That knew too well the poison of a hint,And it worked deep and sure. And years, again,Stole by, and now once more we meet.We meet?ah, no;We ne’er have met! Hand may touch hand, perchance,And eye glance back to eye its idle smile;But oursoulsmeet not: for, from boyhood, youHave been a mad idolater of beauty.AndI! ah, Heaven! had you returned my love,Ihad been beautiful in your dear eyes;For love and joy and hope within the spiritMake luminous the face. But let that pass:I murmur not. Inmysoul Pride is crownedAnd throned—a queen; and at her feet lies Love,Herslave—in chains—that you shall ne’er unclasp.Yet, oh! if aspirations, ever rising,With an intense idolatry of love,Toward all of grace and parity and truthThat we may dream, can shape the soul to beauty,(As I believe,) then, in that better world,You will not ask if I were fair on earth.You have loved often—passionately, perchance⁠—Neverwith that wild, rapturous, poet-loveWhichImight win—andwill. Not here on earth:I would not have the ignoble, trivial caresOf common life come o’er our glorious union,To mar its spirit-beauty. In His homeWe shall meet calmly, gracefully, withoutAlloy of petty ills. . . . . .Meantime, I read you, as no other reads;I read your soul—its burning, baffled hopes;Its proud, pure aims, whose wings are melted offIn the warm sunshine of the world’s applause;Its yearning for anangel’stenderness:I read it all, and grieve, and sometimes blush,That you can desecrate so grand a shrineBy the false gods you place there!you, who knowThe lore of love so perfectly, who traceThe delicate labyrinth of a woman’s heart,With a sure clew, so true, so fine, so rare,Some angel Ariadne gave it you!If I knew how to stoop, I’d tell you more:I’d win your love, even now, by a slight word;But that I’ll say in heaven. Till we meet there,Unto God’s love I leave you. . . . .You will glance round among the crowd hereafter,And dream my woman’s heart must sure betray me.Not so: I have not schooled, for weary years,Eye, lip, and cheek, and voice, to be shamed nowBy your bold gaze. Ah! were InotsecureIn my pride’s sanctuary, this revelationWere an act, Heaven, nor you, could ever pardon;And still lessI. Nor would I now forego,Even for your love, the deep, divine delightOf this most pure and unsuspected passion,That none have guessed, or will, while I have life.You smile, perchance. Beware! I shall shameyou,If with suspicion’s plummet you dare soundThe unfathomed deeps of feeling in this heart.It shall bring up, ’stead of that love it seeks,A scorn you look not for. Ay, I would dieA martyr’s death, sir, rather than betrayTo you by faintest flatter of a pulse⁠—By lightest change of cheek or eyelid’s fall⁠—ThatIam she who loves, adores, and flies you!. . . . . . . . .Ask why the holy starlight, or the blushOf summer blossoms, or the balm that floatsFrom yonder lily like an angel’s breath,Is lavished on such men! God gives them allFor some high end; and thus, the seeming wasteOf her rich soul—its starlight purity,Its every feeling delicate as a flower,Its tender trust, its generous confidence,Its wondering disdain of littleness⁠—These, by the coarser sense of those around herUncomprehended, may not all be vain,But win them—they unwitting of the spell⁠—By ties unfelt, to nobler, loftier life.And they dare blame her! they whose every thought,Look, utterance, act, has more of evil in ’t,Than e’er she dreamed of, or could understand!And she must blush before them, with a heartWhose lightest throb is worth their all of life!⁠—They boast their charity: oh, idle boast!They give the poor, forsooth, food, fuel, shelter!Faint, chilled and worn, her soul implored a pittance⁠—Hersoul asked almsof theirs—and was denied!It was not much it came a-begging for:A simple boon, only a gentle thought,A kindly judgment of such deeds of hersAs passed their understanding, but to herSeemed natural as the blooming of a flower:For God taught her—but they had learned of menThe meagre doling of their measured love,A selfish, sensual love, most unlike hers.God taught the tendril where to cling, and sheLearned the same lovely lesson, with the sameUnquestioning and pliant trust in Him.And yet that He should let a lyre of heavenBe played on by such hands, with touch so rude,Might wake a doubt in less than perfect faith,Perfect as mine, in his beneficence.

“A friend!” Are you a friend? No, by my soul!

Since you dare breathe the shadow of a doubt

That I am true as Truth: since you give not

Unto my briefest look—my gayest word⁠—

My faintest change of cheek—my softest touch⁠—

Most sportive, careless smile, or low-breathed sigh⁠—

Nay, to my voice’s lightest modulation,

Though imperceptible to all but you,⁠—

If you give not to these, unquestioning,

A limitless faith—the faith you give to Heaven⁠—

I will not call you “friend.” I would disdain

A seraph’s heart, as yours I now renounce,

If such the terms on which ’twere proffered me.

Deny me Faith—that poor, yet priceless boon⁠—

And you deny the very soul of love.

As well withhold the lamp, whose light reveals

The sculptured beauty latent in its urn,

As proffer Friendship’s diamondin the dark.

What though a thousand seeming proofs condemn me?

If my calm image smile not clear through all,

Serene, and without shadow on your heart⁠—

Nay, if the very vapors that would veil it,

Part not, illumined by its presence pure,

As round Night’s tranquil queen the clouds divide,

Then rend it from that heart! I ask no place,

Though ’twere a throne, without the state becomes me⁠—

Without the homage due to royal Truth.

And should a world betide pronounce me false,

You are to choose between the world and me.

IfIbe not more thanallworlds to you,

I will not stoop toless! I will haveall⁠—

Your proudest, purest, noblest, loftiest love⁠—

Your perfect trust—your soul of soul—or nothing!

Shall Inothave them? Speak! on poorer spirits⁠—

Who are content with less, because, forsooth,

The whole would blind or blight them, or because

They have but less to give—will youdivide

The glory of your own? or concentrate

On mine its radiant life?—on mine! that holds

As yet, in calm reserve, the boundless wealth

Of tenderness its Maker taught to it.

Speak! shall we part, and go our separate ways,

Each with a half life in a burning soul,

Like two wild clouds, whose meeting would evoke

The electric flame pent up within their bosoms,

That, parted, weep their fiery hearts away,

Or waste afar—and darken into death?

Speak! do we part? or are weoneforever?

——

Since I must love thee—since a weird wild fate

Impels me to thy heart against my will⁠—

Do thou this justice to the heart I yield:

Be its ideal. Let it not blush to love.

Bid it not trail its light and glorious wings

Through the dull dust of earth, with downcast eyes

And drooping brow, where Shame and Grief usurp

Calm Honor’s throne!—be noble, truthful, brave;

Love Honor more than Love, and more than me;

Be all thou wert ere the world came between

Thee and thy God.

Hear’st thou my spirit pleading

With suppliant, claspéd hands to thine, dear love?

Degrade her not, but let thy stronger soul

Soar with her to the seraph’s realm of light.

She yields to thee; do with her as thou wilt.

She shuts her wings in utter weariness,

For she has wandered all night long astray,

And found no rest—no fountain of sweet love,

Save such as mocked her with a maddening thirst.

She asks of thine repose, protection, peace;

Implores thee with wild tears and passionate prayers

To give her shelter through the night of Time,

And lead her home at morn; for long ago

She lost her way.

Ah! thou may’st give, instead

Of that sweet boon she asks, if so thou wilt,

Wild suffering, madness, shame, self-scorn, despair!

But thou wilt not! thine eyes—thy glorious eyes⁠—

Are eloquent with generous love and faith,

And through thy voice a mighty heart intones

Its rich vibrations, while thou murmurest low

All lovely promises, and precious dreams

For the sweet Future. So, I trust thee, love,

And place my hand in thine, for good or ill.

——

Do not my soul that wrong! translate not thus

The spirit-words my eyes are saying to thee:

I would not fetter that rich heart of thine,

Save by the perfect liberty I give it,

For all God’s worlds of glory. Go thou forth⁠—

Be free as air! Love all the good and pure;

Cherish all love that can ennoble thee;

Unfold thy soul to all sweet ministries,

That it may grow toward heaven, as a flower

Drinks dew and light, and pays them back in beauty.

And if—ah heaven! these tears are love’s, not grief’s⁠—

And if some higher ministry than mine,

Or some more genial nature, bless thee more,

Wrong not thyself, or me, or love, or truth,

By shrinking weakly from thy destiny.

I would not owe to pitying tenderness

The joy with which thy presence lights my life.

Thou shalt still love all that is thine, dear friend,

In my true soul—all that is right and great;

And that I still love thee, so proudly, purely⁠—

That shall be joy enough! Go calmly forth.

——

Would I were any thing that thou dost love⁠—

A flower, a shell, a wavelet, or a cloud⁠—

Aught that might win a moment’s soul-look from thee.

To be “a joy forever” in thy heart,

That were in truth divinest joy to mine:

A low, sweet, haunting Tune, that will not let

Thy memory go, but fondly twines around it,

Pleading and beautiful—for unto thee

Music is life—such life as I would be;

A Statue, wrought in marble, without stain,

Where one immortal truth embodied lives

Instinct with grace and loveliness; a Fane,

A fair Ionic temple, growing up,

Light as a lily into the blue air,

To the glad melody of a tuneful thought

In its creator’s spirit, where thy gaze

Might never weary—dedicate to thee,

Thy image shrined within it, lone and loved;

Makeme the Flower thou lovest; let me drink

Thy rays, and give them back in bloom and beauty;

Mould me to grace, to glory, like the Statue;

Wake for my mind the Music of thine own,

And it shall grow, to that majestic tune,

A temple meet to shrine mine idol in;

Hold the frail shell, tinted by love’s pure blush,

Unto thysoul, and thou shalt hear within

Tones from its spirit-home; smile on the wave,

And it shall flow, free, limpid, glad, forever;

Shed on the cloud the splendor of thy being,

And it shall float—a radiant wonder—by thee!

To love—thylove—so docile I would be,

So pliant, yet inspired, that it should make

A marvel of me, for thy sake, and show

Its proudchef d’œuvrein my harmonious life.

——

I would be judged by that great heart of thine,

Wherein a voice more genuine, more divine

Than world-taught Reason, fondly speaks for me,

And bids thee love and trust, through cloud and shine,

The frail and fragile creature who would be

Naught here—hereafter—if notallto thee!

Thou call’st me changeful as the summer cloud,

And wayward as a wave, and light as air.

And I am all thou sayest—all, and worse;

But the wild cloud can weep, as well as lighten,

And the wave mirrors heaven, as my soul thee;

And the light air, that frolicks without thought

O’er yonder harp, makes music as it goes.

Letmeplay on the soul-harp I love best,

And teach it all its dreaming melody;

That is my mission; I have nothing else,

In all the world, to do. And I shall go

Musicless, aimless, idle, through all life,

Unless I play my part there—only there.

In the full anthem which the universe

Intones to heaven, my heart will have no share,

Unless I have that soul-harp to myself,

And wake it to what melody I please.

——

So wrote the Lady Imogen—the child

Of Poetry and Passion—all her frame

So lightly, exquisitely shaped, we dreamed

’Twas fashioned to the echo of some song⁠—

The fairest, airiest creature ever made⁠—

Flower-like in her fragility and grace,

Childlike in sweet impetuous tenderness,

Yet with a nature proud, profound, and pure,

As a rapt sybil’s. O’er her soul had passed

The wild simoom of wo, but to awake

From that Eolian lyre the loveliest tones

Of mournful music, passionately sad.

Not thus her love the haughty Ida breathed:

In her ideal beauty calm and high,

O’er the patrician paleness of her cheek,

Came, seldom, and how softly! the faint blush

Of irrepressible tenderness.

——

Your course has been a conqueror’s through life;

You have been followed, flattered and caressed;

Soul after soul has laid upon your shrine

Its first, fresh, dewy bloom of love for incense:

The minstrel-girl has tuned for you her lute,

And set her life to music for your sake;

The opera-belle, with blush unwonted, starts

At your name’s casual mention, and forgets,

For one strange moment, fashion’s cold repose;

The village maiden’s conscious heart beats time

To your entrancing melody of verse,

And, from that hour, of your belovéd image

Makes a life-idol. And you know it all,

And smile, half-pleased, and half in scorn, to know.

But you have never known, nor shall you now,

Who, ’mid the throng you sometimes meet, receives

Your careless recognition with a thrill,

At her adoring heart, worth all that homage!

You see not, ’neath her half-disdainful smile,

The passionate tears it is put on to hide;

You dream not what a wild sigh dies away

In her laugh’s joyous trill; you cannot guess⁠—

You, who see only with your outer sense,⁠—

A warped, chilled sense, that wrongs you every hour⁠—

You cannot guess, when her cold hand you take,

Thata soultrembles in that light, calm clasp!

You speak to her, with your world tone; ah, not

With the home cadence of confiding love!

And she replies: a few, low, formal words

Are all she dares, nay deigns, return; and so

You part, for months, again. Yet in that brief,

Oasis hour of her desert life,

She has quaffed eagerly the enchanted spring,

The sun-lit wave of thought in your rich mind;

And passes on her weary pilgrimage

Refreshed, and with a renovated strength.

And this has been for years. She was a child⁠—

A school-girl—when the echo of your lyre

First came to her, with music on its wings,

And her soul drank from it the life of life.

Then, in a festive scene, you claimed her hand

For the gay dance, and, in its intervals,

Spoke soothingly and gently, for you saw

Her timid blush, but did not dream its cause.

Even then her young heart worshiped you, and shrunk,

With a vague sense of fear and shame, away.

She who, with others, was, and is, even now,

Light, fearless, joyous, buoyant as a bird,

That lets the air-swung spray beneath it bend,

Nor cares, so it may carol, what shall chance,

Withyou, forgets her song, foregoes her mirth,

And hushes all her music in her heart.

It is because your soul, that should know hers

With an intuitive tenderness, is blind!

But once again you met; then, years went by,

And in a thronged, luxurious saloon,

You drew her fluttering hand within your arm;

A few blest moments next your heart it lay;

And still the lady mutely veiled, from yours,

Eyes where her glorious secret wildly shone;

And you, a-weary of her seeming dullness,

Grew colder day by day. Butonceyou paused

Beside her seat, and murmured words of praise.

Praise fromyourlips! My God! the ecstasy

Of that dear moment! Each bright word, embalmed

In Memory’s tears of amber, gleams there yet⁠—

The costliest beads in her rich rosary.

But you were blind! And after that a cloud,

Colder and darker, hung between her heart

And yours. There were malicious, lovely lips,

That knew too well the poison of a hint,

And it worked deep and sure. And years, again,

Stole by, and now once more we meet.We meet?ah, no;

We ne’er have met! Hand may touch hand, perchance,

And eye glance back to eye its idle smile;

But oursoulsmeet not: for, from boyhood, you

Have been a mad idolater of beauty.

AndI! ah, Heaven! had you returned my love,

Ihad been beautiful in your dear eyes;

For love and joy and hope within the spirit

Make luminous the face. But let that pass:

I murmur not. Inmysoul Pride is crowned

And throned—a queen; and at her feet lies Love,

Herslave—in chains—that you shall ne’er unclasp.

Yet, oh! if aspirations, ever rising,

With an intense idolatry of love,

Toward all of grace and parity and truth

That we may dream, can shape the soul to beauty,

(As I believe,) then, in that better world,

You will not ask if I were fair on earth.

You have loved often—passionately, perchance⁠—

Neverwith that wild, rapturous, poet-love

WhichImight win—andwill. Not here on earth:

I would not have the ignoble, trivial cares

Of common life come o’er our glorious union,

To mar its spirit-beauty. In His home

We shall meet calmly, gracefully, without

Alloy of petty ills. . . . . .

Meantime, I read you, as no other reads;

I read your soul—its burning, baffled hopes;

Its proud, pure aims, whose wings are melted off

In the warm sunshine of the world’s applause;

Its yearning for anangel’stenderness:

I read it all, and grieve, and sometimes blush,

That you can desecrate so grand a shrine

By the false gods you place there!you, who know

The lore of love so perfectly, who trace

The delicate labyrinth of a woman’s heart,

With a sure clew, so true, so fine, so rare,

Some angel Ariadne gave it you!

If I knew how to stoop, I’d tell you more:

I’d win your love, even now, by a slight word;

But that I’ll say in heaven. Till we meet there,

Unto God’s love I leave you. . . . .

You will glance round among the crowd hereafter,

And dream my woman’s heart must sure betray me.

Not so: I have not schooled, for weary years,

Eye, lip, and cheek, and voice, to be shamed now

By your bold gaze. Ah! were Inotsecure

In my pride’s sanctuary, this revelation

Were an act, Heaven, nor you, could ever pardon;

And still lessI. Nor would I now forego,

Even for your love, the deep, divine delight

Of this most pure and unsuspected passion,

That none have guessed, or will, while I have life.

You smile, perchance. Beware! I shall shameyou,

If with suspicion’s plummet you dare sound

The unfathomed deeps of feeling in this heart.

It shall bring up, ’stead of that love it seeks,

A scorn you look not for. Ay, I would die

A martyr’s death, sir, rather than betray

To you by faintest flatter of a pulse⁠—

By lightest change of cheek or eyelid’s fall⁠—

ThatIam she who loves, adores, and flies you!

. . . . . . . . .

Ask why the holy starlight, or the blush

Of summer blossoms, or the balm that floats

From yonder lily like an angel’s breath,

Is lavished on such men! God gives them all

For some high end; and thus, the seeming waste

Of her rich soul—its starlight purity,

Its every feeling delicate as a flower,

Its tender trust, its generous confidence,

Its wondering disdain of littleness⁠—

These, by the coarser sense of those around her

Uncomprehended, may not all be vain,

But win them—they unwitting of the spell⁠—

By ties unfelt, to nobler, loftier life.

And they dare blame her! they whose every thought,

Look, utterance, act, has more of evil in ’t,

Than e’er she dreamed of, or could understand!

And she must blush before them, with a heart

Whose lightest throb is worth their all of life!⁠—

They boast their charity: oh, idle boast!

They give the poor, forsooth, food, fuel, shelter!

Faint, chilled and worn, her soul implored a pittance⁠—

Hersoul asked almsof theirs—and was denied!

It was not much it came a-begging for:

A simple boon, only a gentle thought,

A kindly judgment of such deeds of hers

As passed their understanding, but to her

Seemed natural as the blooming of a flower:

For God taught her—but they had learned of men

The meagre doling of their measured love,

A selfish, sensual love, most unlike hers.

God taught the tendril where to cling, and she

Learned the same lovely lesson, with the same

Unquestioning and pliant trust in Him.

And yet that He should let a lyre of heaven

Be played on by such hands, with touch so rude,

Might wake a doubt in less than perfect faith,

Perfect as mine, in his beneficence.

PARTING.

———

BY MISS PHŒBE CAREY.

———

Till the last mortal pang is o’er,Aid me, my human friend,Let thy sweet ministries of loveSupport me to the end!In such a fearful hour my soulUnaided cannot stand,Leave me not till my Saviour comesTo take my trembling hand.My heart is weak, is earthly still,And though such love be crime,I cannot yield thee till my feetHave passed the shores of time.Gently, O, gently lead me on,Soothe me with love’s fond tone—Thou hast been near through all the pastHow shall I go alone?The last my lips shall ever drinkIs life’s most bitter cup—Nearer the wave of death hath rolled,How can I give thee up?Closer, O, closer! let me feelThy heart still fondly beat,While the cold billows of the graveAre closing round my feet!

Till the last mortal pang is o’er,Aid me, my human friend,Let thy sweet ministries of loveSupport me to the end!

Till the last mortal pang is o’er,

Aid me, my human friend,

Let thy sweet ministries of love

Support me to the end!

In such a fearful hour my soulUnaided cannot stand,Leave me not till my Saviour comesTo take my trembling hand.

In such a fearful hour my soul

Unaided cannot stand,

Leave me not till my Saviour comes

To take my trembling hand.

My heart is weak, is earthly still,And though such love be crime,I cannot yield thee till my feetHave passed the shores of time.

My heart is weak, is earthly still,

And though such love be crime,

I cannot yield thee till my feet

Have passed the shores of time.

Gently, O, gently lead me on,Soothe me with love’s fond tone—Thou hast been near through all the pastHow shall I go alone?

Gently, O, gently lead me on,

Soothe me with love’s fond tone—

Thou hast been near through all the past

How shall I go alone?

The last my lips shall ever drinkIs life’s most bitter cup—Nearer the wave of death hath rolled,How can I give thee up?

The last my lips shall ever drink

Is life’s most bitter cup—

Nearer the wave of death hath rolled,

How can I give thee up?

Closer, O, closer! let me feelThy heart still fondly beat,While the cold billows of the graveAre closing round my feet!

Closer, O, closer! let me feel

Thy heart still fondly beat,

While the cold billows of the grave

Are closing round my feet!

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