THE MOON.My soul was like the sea,Before the moon was made,Moaning in vague immensity,Of its own strength afraid,Unrestful and unstaid.Through every rift it foamed in vain,About its earthly prison,Seeking some unknown thing in pain,And sinking restless back again,For yet no moon had risen:Its only voice a vast dumb moan,Of utterless anguish speaking,It lay unhopefully alone,And lived but in an aimless seeking.So was my soul; but when'twas fullOf unrest to o'erloading,A voice of something beautifulWhispered a dim foreboding,And yet so soft, so sweet, so low,It had not more of joy than woe;And, as the sea doth oft lie still,Making its waters meet,As if by an unconscious will,For the moon's silver feet,So lay my soul within mine eyesWhen thou, its guardian moon, didst rise.And now, howe'er its waves aboveMay toss and seem uneaseful,One strong, eternal law of Love,With guidance sure and peaceful,As calm and natural as breath,Moves its great deeps through life and death.
REMEMBERED MUSIC.A FRAGMENT.Thick-rushing, like an ocean vastOf bisons the far prairie shaking,The notes crowd heavily and fastAs surfs, one plunging while the lastDraws seaward from its foamy breaking.Or in low murmurs they began,Rising and rising momently,As o'er a harp ÆolianA fitful breeze, until they ranUp to a sudden ecstasy.And then, like minute drops of rainRinging in water silvery,They lingering dropped and dropped again,Till it was almost like a painTo listen when the next would be.1840.
SONG.TO M. L.A lily thou wast when I saw thee first,A lily-bud not opened quite,That hourly grew more pure and white,By morning, and noontide, and evening nursed:In all of nature thou hadst thy share;Thou wast waited onBy the wind and sun;The rain and the dew for thee took care;It seemed thou never couldst be more fair.A lily thou wast when I saw thee first,A lily-bud; but O, how strange,How full of wonder was the change,When, ripe with all sweetness, thy full bloom burst!How did the tears to my glad eyes start,When the woman-flowerReached its blossoming hour,And I saw the warm deeps of thy golden heart!Glad death may pluck thee, but never beforeThe gold dust of thy bloom divineHath dropped from thy heart into mine,To quicken its faint germs of heavenly lore;For no breeze comes nigh thee but carries awaySome impulses brightOf fragrance and light,Which fall upon souls that are lone and astray,To plant fruitful hopes of the flower of day.
ALLEGRA.I would more natures were like thine,That never casts a glance before,—Thou Hebe, who thy heart's bright wineSo lavishly to all dost pour,That we who drink forget to pine,And can but dream of bliss in store.Thou canst not see a shade in life;With sunward instinct thou dost rise,And, leaving clouds below at strife,Gazest undazzled at the skies,With all their blazing splendors rife,A songful lark with eagle's eyes.Thou wast some foundling whom the HoursNursed, laughing, with the milk of Mirth;Some influence more gay than oursHath ruled thy nature from its birth,As if thy natal stars were flowersThat shook their seeds round thee on earth.And thou, to lull thine infant rest,Wast cradled like an Indian child;All pleasant winds from south and westWith lullabies thine ears beguiled,Rocking thee in thine oriole's nest,Till Nature looked at thee and smiled.Thine every fancy seems to borrowA sunlight from thy childish years,Making a golden cloud of sorrow,A hope-lit rainbow out of tears,—Thy heart is certain of to-morrow,Though 'yond to-day it never peers.I would more natures were like thine,So innocently wild and free,Whose sad thoughts, even, leap and shine,Like sunny wavelets in the sea,Making us mindless of the brine,In gazing on the brilliancy.
THE FOUNTAIN.Into the sunshine,Full of the light,Leaping and flashingFrom morn till night!Into the moonlight,Whiter than snow,Waving so flower-likeWhen the winds blow!Into the starlight,Rushing in spray,Happy at midnight,Happy by day!Ever in motion,Blithesome and cheery.Still climbing heavenward,Never aweary;—Glad of all weathers,Still seeming best,Upward or downward,Motion thy rest;—Full of a natureNothing can tame,Changed every moment,Ever the same;—Ceaseless aspiring,Ceaseless content,Darkness or sunshineThy element;—Glorious fountain!Let my heart beFresh, changeful, constant,Upward, like thee!
ODE.I.In the old days of awe and keen-eyed wonder,The Poet's song with blood-warm truth was rife;He saw the mysteries which circle underThe outward shell and skin of daily life.Nothing to him were fleeting time and fashion,His soul was led by the eternal law;There was in him no hope of fame, no passion,But, with calm, god-like eyes, he only saw.He did not sigh o'er heroes dead and buried,Chief-mourner at the Golden Age's hearse,Nor deem that souls whom Charon grim had ferriedAlone were fitting themes of epic verse:He could believe the promise of to-morrow,And feel the wondrous meaning of to-day;He had a deeper faith in holy sorrowThan the world's seeming loss could take away.To know the heart of all things was his duty,All things did sing to him to make him wise,And, with a sorrowful and conquering beauty,The soul of all looked grandly from his eyes.He gazed on all within him and without him,He watched the flowing of Time's steady tide,And shapes of glory floated all about himAnd whispered to him, and he prophesied.Than all men he more fearless was and freer,And all his brethren cried with one accord,—"Behold the holy man! Behold the Seer!Him who hath spoken with the unseen Lord!"He to his heart with large embrace had takenThe universal sorrow of mankind,And, from that root, a shelter never shaken,The tree of wisdom grew with sturdy rind.He could interpret well the wondrous voicesWhich to the calm and silent spirit come;He knew that the One Soul no more rejoicesIn the star's anthem than the insect's hum.He in his heart was ever meek and humble,And yet with kingly pomp his numbers ran,As he foresaw how all things false should crumbleBefore the free, uplifted soul of man:And, when he was made full to overflowingWith all the loveliness of heaven and earth,Out rushed his song, like molten iron glowing,To show God sitting by the humblest hearth.With calmest courage he was ever readyTo teach that action was the truth of thought,And, with strong arm and purpose firm and steady,An anchor for the drifting world he wrought.So did he make the meanest man partakerOf all his brother-gods unto him gave;All souls did reverence him and name him Maker,And when he died heaped temples on his grave.And still his deathless words of light are swimmingSerene throughout the great, deep infiniteOf human soul, unwaning and undimming,To cheer and guide the mariner at night.II.But now the Poet is an empty rhymerWho lies with idle elbow on the grass,And fits his singing, like a cunning timer,To all men's prides and fancies as they pass.Not his the song, which, in its metre holy,Chimes with the music of the eternal stars,Humbling the tyrant, lifting up the lowly,And sending sun through the soul's prison-bars.Maker no more,—O, no! unmaker rather,For he unmakes who doth not all put forthThe power given by our loving FatherTo show the body's dross, the spirit's worth.Awake! great spirit of the ages olden!Shiver the mists that hide thy starry lyre,And let man's soul be yet again beholdenTo thee for wings to soar to her desire.O, prophesy no more to-morrow's splendor,Be no more shame-faced to speak out for Truth,Lay on her altar all the gushings tender,The hope, the fire, the loving faith of youth!O, prophesy no more the Maker's coming,Say not his onward footsteps thou canst hearIn the dim void, like to the awful hummingOf the great wings of some new-lighted sphere.O, prophesy no more, but be the Poet!This longing was but granted unto theeThat, when all beauty thou couldst feel and know it,That beauty in its highest thou couldst be.O, thou who moanest tost with sea-like longings,Who dimly hearest voices call on thee,Whose soul is overfilled with mighty throngingsOf love, and fear, and glorious agony,Thou of the toil-strung hands and iron sinewsAnd soul by Mother-Earth with freedom fed,In whom the hero-spirit yet continues,The old free nature is not chained or dead,Arouse! let thy soul break in music-thunder,Let loose the ocean that is in thee pent,Pour forth thy hope, thy fear, thy love, thy wonderAnd tell the age what all its signs have meant,Where'er thy wildered crowd of brethren jostles,Where'er there lingers but a shade of wrong,There still is need of martyrs and apostles,There still are texts for never-dying song:From age to age man's still aspiring spiritFinds wider scope and sees with clearer eyes,And thou in larger measure dost inheritWhat made thy great forerunners free and wise.Sit thou enthroned where the Poet's mountainAbove the thunder lifts its silent peak,And roll thy songs down like a gathering fountain,That all may drink and find the rest they seek.Sing! there shall silence grow in earth and heaven,A silence of deep awe and wondering;For, listening gladly, bend the angels, even,To hear a mortal like an angel sing.III.Among the toil-worn poor my soul is seekingFor one to bring the Maker's name to light,To be the voice of that almighty speakingWhich every age demands to do it right.Proprieties our silken bards environ;He who would be the tongue of this wide landMust string his harp with chords of sturdy ironAnd strike it with a toil-embrownèd hand;One who hath dwelt with Nature well-attended,Who hath learnt wisdom from her mystic books,Whose soul with all her countless lives hath blended,So that all beauty awes us in his looks;Who not with body's waste his soul hath pampered,Who as the clear northwestern wind is free,Who walks with Form's observances unhampered,And follows the One Will obediently;Whose eyes, like windows on a breezy summit,Control a lovely prospect every way;Who doth not sound God's sea with earthly plummet,And find a bottom still of worthless clay;Who heeds not how the lower gusts are working,Knowing that one sure wind blows on above,And sees, beneath the foulest faces lurking,One God-built shrine of reverence and love;Who sees all stars that wheel their shining marchesAround the centre fixed of Destiny,Where the encircling soul serene o'erarchesThe moving globe of being like a sky;Who feels that God and Heaven's great deeps are nearerHim to whose heart his fellow-man is nigh,Who doth not hold his soul's own freedom dearerThan that of all his brethren, low or high;Who to the Right can feel himself the truerFor being gently patient with the wrong,Who sees a brother in the evil-doer,And finds in Love the heart's-blood of his song;—This, this is he for whom the world is waitingTo sing the beatings of its mighty heart,Too long hath it been patient with the gratingOf scrannel-pipes, and heard it misnamed Art.To him the smiling soul of man shall listen,Laying awhile its crown of thorns aside,And once again in every eye shall glistenThe glory of a nature satisfied.His verse shall have a great, commanding motion,Heaving and swelling with a melodyLearnt of the sky, the river, and the ocean,And all the pure, majestic things that be.Awake, then, thou! we pine for thy great presenceTo make us feel the soul once more sublime,We are of far too infinite an essenceTo rest contented with the lies of Time.Speak out! and, lo! a hush of deepest wonderShall sink o'er all this many-voicèd scene,As when a sudden burst of rattling thunderShatters the blueness of a sky serene.1841.
THE FATHERLAND.Where is the true man's fatherland?Is it where he by chance is born?Doth not the yearning spirit scornIn such scant borders to be spanned?O, yes! his fatherland must beAs the blue heaven wide and free!Is it alone where freedom is,Where God is God and man is man?Doth he not claim a broader spanFor the soul's love of home than this?O, yes! his fatherland must beAs the blue heaven wide and free!Where'er a human heart doth wearJoy's myrtle-wreath or sorrow's gyves,Where'er a human spirit strivesAfter a life more true and fair,There is the true man's birthplace grand,His is a world-wide fatherland!Where'er a single slave doth pine,Where'er one man may help another,—Thank God for such a birthright, brother,—That spot of earth is thine and mine!There is the true man's birthplace grand,His is a world-wide fatherland!
THE FORLORN.The night is dark, the stinging sleet,Swept by the bitter gusts of air,Drives whistling down the lonely street,And stiffens on the pavement bare.The street-lamps flare and struggle dimThrough the white sleet-clouds as they pass,Or, governed by a boisterous whim,Drop down and rattle on the glass.One poor, heart-broken, outcast girlFaces the east-wind's searching flaws,And, as about her heart they whirl,Her tattered cloak more tightly draws.The flat brick walls look cold and bleak,Her bare feet to the sidewalk freeze;Yet dares she not a shelter seek,Though faint with hunger and disease.The sharp storm cuts her forehead bare,And, piercing through her garments thin,Beats on her shrunken breast, and thereMakes colder the cold heart within.She lingers where a ruddy glowStreams outward through an open shutter,Adding more bitterness to woe,More loneness to desertion utter.One half the cold she had not felt,Until she saw this gush of lightSpread warmly forth, and seem to meltIts slow way through the deadening night.She hears a woman's voice within,Singing sweet words her childhood knew,And years of misery and sinFurl off, and leave her heaven blue.Her freezing heart, like one who sinksOutwearied in the drifting snow,Drowses to deadly sleep and thinksNo longer of its hopeless woe:Old fields, and clear blue summer days,Old meadows, green with grass and treesThat shimmer through the trembling hazeAnd whiten in the western breeze,—Old faces,—all the friendly pastRises within her heart again,And sunshine from her childhood castMakes summer of the icy rain.Enhaloed by a mild, warm glow,From all humanity apart,She hears old footsteps wandering slowThrough the lone chambers of her heart.Outside the porch before the door,Her cheek upon the cold, hard stone,She lies, no longer foul and poor,No longer dreary and alone.Next morning something heavilyAgainst the opening door did weigh,And there, from sin and sorrow free,A woman on the threshold lay.A smile upon the wan lips toldThat she had found a calm release,And that, from out the want and cold,The song had borne her soul in peace.For, whom the heart of man shuts out,Sometimes the heart of God takes in,And fences them all round aboutWith silence mid the world's loud din;And one of his great charitiesIs Music, and it doth not scornTo close the lids upon the eyesOf the polluted and forlorn;Far was she from her childhood's home,Farther in guilt had wandered thence,Yet thither it had bid her comeTo die in maiden innocence.1842.
MIDNIGHT.The moon shines white and silentOn the mist, which, like a tideOf some enchanted ocean,O'er the wide marsh doth glide,Spreading its ghost-like billowsSilently far and wide.A vague and starry magicMakes all things mysteries,And lures the earth's dumb spiritUp to the longing skies,—I seem to hear dim whispers,And tremulous replies.The fireflies o'er the meadowIn pulses come and go;The elm-trees' heavy shadowWeighs on the grass below;And faintly from the distanceThe dreaming cock doth crow.All things look strange and mystic,The very bushes swellAnd take wild shapes and motions,As if beneath a spell,—They seem not the same lilacsFrom childhood known so well.The snow of deepest silenceO'er everything doth fall,So beautiful and quiet,And yet so like a pall,—As if all life were ended,And rest were come to all.O wild and wondrous midnight,There is a might in theeTo make the charmèd bodyAlmost like spirit be,And give it some faint glimpsesOf immortality!1842.
A PRAYER.God! do not let my loved one die,But rather wait until the timeThat I am grown in purityEnough to enter thy pure climeThen take me, I will gladly go,So that my love remain below!O, let her stay! She is by birthWhat I through death must learn to be,We need her more on our poor earth,Than thou canst need in heaven with thee;She hath her wings already, IMust burst this earth-shell ere I fly.Then, God, take me! We shall be near,More near than ever, each to each:Her angel ears will find more clearMy heavenly than my earthly speech;And still, as I draw nigh to thee,Her soul and mine shall closer be.1841.
THE HERITAGE.The rich man's son inherits lands,And piles of brick, and stone, and gold,And he inherits soft white hands,And tender flesh that fears the cold,Nor dares to wear a garment old;A heritage, it seems to me,One scarce would wish to hold in fee.The rich man's son inherits cares;The bank may break, the factory burn,A breath may burst his bubble shares,And soft white hands could hardly earnA living that would serve his turn;A heritage, it seems to me,One scarce would wish to hold in fee.The rich man's son inherits wants,His stomach craves for dainty fare;With sated heart, he hears the pantsOf toiling hinds with brown arms bare,And wearies in his easy chair;A heritage, it seems to me,One scarce would wish to hold in fee.What doth the poor man's son inherit?Stout muscles and a sinewy heart,A hardy frame, a hardier spirit;King of two hands, he does his partIn every useful toil and art;A heritage, it seems to me,A king might wish to hold in fee.What doth the poor man's son inherit?Wishes o'erjoyed with humble things,A rank adjudged by toil-won merit,Content that from employment springs,A heart that in his labor sings;A heritage, it seems to me,A king might wish to hold in fee.What doth the poor man's son inherit?A patience learned of being poor,Courage, if sorrow come, to bear it,A fellow-feeling that is sureTo make the outcast bless his door;A heritage, it seems to me,A king might wish to hold in fee.O, rich man's son! there is a toil,That with all others level stands;Large charity doth never soil,But only whiten, soft white hands,—This is the best crop from thy lands;A heritage, it seems to be,Worth being rich to hold in fee.O, poor man's son! scorn not thy state;There is worse weariness than thine,In merely being rich and great;Toil only gives the soul to shine,And makes rest fragrant and benign,A heritage, it seems to me,Worth being poor to hold in fee.Both, heirs to some six feet of sod,Are equal in the earth at last;Both, children of the same dear God,Prove title to your heirship vastBy record of a well-filled past;A heritage, it seems to me,Well worth a life to hold in fee.
THE ROSE: A BALLAD.I.In his tower sat the poetGazing on the roaring sea,"Take this rose," he sighed, "and throw itWhere there's none that loveth me.On the rock the billow burstethAnd sinks back into the seas,But in vain my spirit thirstethSo to burst and be at ease.Take, O, sea! the tender blossomThat hath lain against my breast;On thy black and angry bosomIt will find a surer rest.Life is vain, and love is hollow,Ugly death stands there behind,Hate and scorn and hunger followHim that toileth for his kind."Forth into the night he hurled it,And with bitter smile did markHow the surly tempest whirled itSwift into the hungry dark.Foam and spray drive back to leeward,And the gale, with dreary moan,Drifts the helpless blossom seaward,Through the breakers all alone.II.Stands a maiden, on the morrow,Musing by the wave-beat strand,Half in hope and half in sorrow,Tracing words upon the sand:"Shall I ever then behold himWho hath been my life so long,—Ever to this sick heart fold him,—Be the spirit of his song?Touch not, sea, the blessed lettersI have traced upon thy shore,Spare his name whose spirit fettersMine with love forevermore!"Swells the tide and overflows it,But, with omen pure and meet,Brings a little rose, and throws itHumbly at the maiden's feet.Full of bliss she takes the token,And, upon her snowy breast,Soothes the ruffled petals brokenWith the ocean's fierce unrest."Love is thine, O heart! and surelyPeace shall also be thine own,For the heart that trusteth purelyNever long can pine alone."III.In his tower sits the poet,Blisses new and strange to himFill his heart and overflow itWith a wonder sweet and dim.Up the beach the ocean slidethWith a whisper of delight,And the noon in silence glidethThrough the peaceful blue of night.Rippling o'er the poet's shoulderFlows a maiden's golden hair,Maiden-lips, with love grown bolder,Kiss his moon-lit forehead bare."Life is joy, and love is power,Death all fetters doth unbind,Strength and wisdom only flowerWhen we toil for all our kind.Hope is truth,—the future givethMore than present takes away,And the soul forever livethNearer God from day to day."Not a word the maiden uttered,Fullest hearts are slow to speak,But a withered rose-leaf flutteredDown upon the poet's cheek.1842.
A LEGEND OF BRITTANY.PART FIRST.I.Fair as a summer dream was Margaret,—Such dream as in a poet's soul might start,Musing of old loves while the moon doth set:Her hair was not more sunny than her heart,Though like a natural golden coronetIt circled her dear head with careless art,Mocking the sunshine, that would fain have lentTo its frank grace a richer ornament.II.His loved one's eyes could poet ever speak,So kind, so dewy, and so deep were hers,—But, while he strives, the choicest phrase, too weakTheir glad reflection in his spirit blurs;As one may see a dream dissolve and breakOut of his grasp when he to tell it stirs,Like that sad Dryad doomed no more to blessThe mortal who revealed her loveliness.III.She dwelt forever in a region bright,Peopled with living fancies of her own,Where naught could come but visions of delight,Far, far aloof from earth's eternal moan:A summer cloud thrilled through with rosy light,Floating beneath the blue sky all alone,Her spirit wandered by itself, and wonA golden edge from some unsetting sun.IV.The heart grows richer that its lot is poor,—God blesses want with larger sympathies,—Love enters gladliest at the humble door,And makes the cot a palace with his eyes;So Margaret's heart a softer beauty wore,And grew in gentleness and patience wise,For she was but a simple herdsman's child,A lily chance-sown in the rugged wild.V.There was no beauty of the wood or fieldBut she its fragrant bosom-secret knew,Nor any but to her would freely yieldSome grace that in her soul took root and grew:Nature to her glowed ever new-revealed,All rosy fresh with innocent morning dew,And looked into her heart with dim, sweet eyesThat left it full of sylvan memories.VI.O, what a face was hers to brighten light,And give back sunshine with an added glow,To wile each moment with a fresh delight,And part of memory's best contentment grow!O, how her voice, as with an inmate's right,Into the strangest heart would welcome go,And make it sweet, and ready to becomeOf white and gracious thoughts the chosen home!VII.None looked upon her but he straightway thoughtOf all the greenest depths of country cheer,And into each one's heart was freshly broughtWhat was to him the sweetest time of year,So was her every look and motion fraughtWith out-of-door delights and forest lere:Not the first violet on a woodland leaSeemed a more visible gift of Spring than she.VIII.Is love learned only out of poets' books?Is there not somewhat in the dropping flood,And in the nunneries of silent nooks,And in the murmured longing of the wood,That could make Margaret dream of lovelorn looks,And stir a thrilling mystery in her bloodMore trembly secret than Aurora's tearShed in the bosom of an eglatere?IX.Full many a sweet forewarning hath the mind,Full many a whispering of vague desire,Ere comes the nature destined to unbindIts virgin zone, and all its deeps inspire,—Low stirrings in the leaves, before the windWakes all the green strings of the forest lyre,Faint heatings in the calyx, ere the roseIts warm voluptuous breast doth all unclose.X.Long in its dim recesses pines the spirit,Wildered and dark, despairingly alone;Though many a shape of beauty wander near it,And many a wild and half-remembered toneTremble from the divine abyss to cheer it,Yet still it knows that there is only oneBefore whom it can kneel and tribute bring,At once a happy vassal and a king.XI.To feel a want, yet scarce know what it is,To seek one nature that is always new,Whose glance is warmer than another's kiss,Whom we can bare our inmost beauty to,Nor feel deserted afterwards,—for thisBut with our destined co-mate we can do,—Such longing instinct fills the mighty scopeOf the young soul with one mysterious hope.XII.So Margaret's heart grew brimming with the loreOf love's enticing secrets; and althoughShe had found none to cast it down before,Yet oft to Fancy's chapel she would goTo pay her vows, and count the rosary o'erOf her love's promised graces:—haply soMiranda's hope had pictured FerdinandLong ere the gaunt wave tossed him on the strand.XIII.A new-made star that swims the lonely gloom,Unwedded yet and longing for the sun,Whose beams, the bride-gifts of the lavish groomBlithely to crown the virgin planet run,Her being was, watching to see the bloomOf love's fresh sunrise roofing one by oneIts clouds with gold, a triumph-arch to beFor him who came to hold her heart in fee.XIV.Not far from Margaret's cottage dwelt a knightOf the proud Templars, a sworn celibate,Whose heart in secret fed upon the lightAnd dew of her ripe beauty, through the grateOf his close vow catching what gleams he mightOf the free heaven, and cursing—all too late—The cruel faith whose black walls hemmed him in,And turned life's crowning bliss to deadly sin.XV.For he had met her in the wood by chance,And, having drunk her beauty's wildering spell,His heart shook like the pennon of a lanceThat quivers in a breeze's sudden swell,And thenceforth, in a close-enfolded trance,From mistily golden deep to deep he fell;Till earth did waver and fade far awayBeneath the hope in whose warm arms he lay.XVI.A dark, proud man he was, whose half-blown youthHad shed its blossoms even in opening,Leaving a few that with more winning ruthTrembling around grave manhood's stem might cling,More sad than cheery, making, in good sooth,Like the fringed gentian, a late autumn spring:—A twilight nature, braided light and gloom,A youth half-smiling by an open tomb.XVII.Fair as an angel, who yet inly woreA wrinkled heart foreboding his near fall;Who saw him always wished to know him more,As if he were some fate's defiant thrallAnd nursed a dreaded secret at its core;Little he loved, but power most of all,And that he seemed to scorn, as one who knewBy what foul paths men choose to crawl thereto.XVIII.He had been noble, but some great deceitHad turned his better instinct to a vice:He strove to think the world was all a cheat,That power and fame were cheap at any price,That the sure way of being shortly greatWas even to play life's game with loaded dice,Since he had tried the honest play and foundThat vice and virtue differed but in sound.XIX.Yet Margaret's sight redeemed him for a spaceFrom his own thraldom; man could never beA hypocrite when first such maiden graceSmiled in upon his heart; the agonyOf wearing all day long a lying faceFell lightly from him, and, a moment free,Erect with wakened faith his spirit stoodAnd scorned the weakness of its demon-mood.XX.Like a sweet wind-harp to him was her thought,Which would not let the common air come near,Till from its dim enchantment it had caughtA musical tenderness that brimmed his earWith sweetness more ethereal than aughtSave silver-dropping snatches that whilereRained down from some sad angel's faithful harpTo cool her fallen lover's anguish sharp.XXI.Deep in the forest was a little dellHigh overarchèd with the leafy sweepOf a broad oak, through whose gnarled roots there fellA slender rill that sung itself asleep,Where its continuous toil had scooped a wellTo please the fairy folk; breathlessly deepThe stillness was, save when the dreaming brookFrom its small urn a drizzly murmur shook.XXII.The wooded hills sloped upward all aroundWith gradual rise, and made an even rim,So that it seemed a mighty casque unboundFrom some huge Titan's brow to lighten him,Ages ago, and left upon the ground,Where the slow soil had mossed it to the brim,Till after countless centuries it grewInto this dell, the haunt of noontide dew.XXIII.Dim vistas, sprinkled o'er with sun-flecked green,Wound through the thickset trunks on every side,And, toward the west, in fancy might be seenA gothic window in its blazing pride,When the low sun, two arching elms between,Lit up the leaves beyond, which, autumn-dyedWith lavish hues, would into splendor start,Shaming the labored panes of richest art.XXIV.Here, leaning once against the old oak's trunk,Mordred, for such was the young Templar's name,Saw Margaret come; unseen, the falcon shrunkFrom the meek dove; sharp thrills of tingling flameMade him forget that he was vowed a monk,And all the outworks of his pride o'ercame:Flooded he seemed with bright delicious pain,As if a star had burst within his brain.XXV.Such power hath beauty and frank innocence:A flower bloomed forth, that sunshine glad to bless,Even from his love's long leafless stem; the senseOf exile from Hope's happy realm grew less,And thoughts of childish peace, he knew not whence,Thronged round his heart with many an old caress,Melting the frost there into pearly dewThat mirrored back his nature's morning-blue.XXVI.She turned and saw him, but she felt no dread,Her purity, like adamantine mail,Did so encircle her; and yet her headShe drooped, and made her golden hair her veil,Through which a glow of rosiest lustre spread,Then faded, and anon she stood all pale,As snow o'er which a blush of northern-lightSuddenly reddens, and as soon grows white.XXVII.She thought of Tristrem and of Lancilot,Of all her dreams, and of kind fairies' might,And how that dell was deemed a haunted spot,Until there grew a mist before her sight,And where the present was she half forgot,Borne backward through the realms of old delight,—Then, starting up awake, she would have gone,Yet almost wished it might not be alone.XXVIII.How they went home together through the wood,And how all life seemed focussed into oneThought-dazzling spot that set ablaze the blood,What need to tell? Fit language there is noneFor the heart's deepest things. Who ever wooedAs in his boyish hope he would have done?For, when the soul is fullest, the hushed tongueVoicelessly trembles like a lute unstrung.XXIX.But all things carry the heart's messagesAnd know it not, nor doth the heart well know,But nature hath her will; even as the bees,Blithe go-betweens, fly singing to and froWith the fruit-quickening pollen;—hard if theseFound not some all unthought-of way to showTheir secret each to each; and so they did,And one heart's flower-dust into the other slid.XXX.Young hearts are free; the selfish world it isThat turns them miserly and cold as stone,And makes them clutch their fingers on the blissWhich but in giving truly is their own;—She had no dreams of barter, asked not his,But gave hers freely as she would have thrownA rose to him, or as that rose gives forthIts generous fragrance, thoughtless of its worth.XXXI.Her summer nature felt a need to bless,And a like longing to be blest again;So, from her sky-like spirit, gentlenessDropt ever like a sunlit fall of rain,And his beneath drank in the bright caressAs thirstily as would a parchèd plain,That long hath watched the showers of sloping grayForever, ever, falling far away.XXXII.How should she dream of ill? the heart filled quiteWith sunshine, like the shepherd's-clock at noon,Closes its leaves around its warm delight;Whate'er in life is harsh or out of tuneIs all shut out, no boding shade of lightCan pierce the opiate ether of its swoon:Love is but blind as thoughtful justice is,But naught can be so wanton-blind as bliss.XXXIII.All beauty and all life he was to her;She questioned not his love, she only knewThat she loved him, and not a pulse could stirIn her whole frame but quivered through and throughWith this glad thought, and was a ministerTo do him fealty and service true,Like golden ripples hasting to the landTo wreck their freight of sunshine on the strand.XXXIV.O dewy dawn of love! O hopes that areHung high, like the cliff-swallow's perilous nest,Most like to fall when fullest, and that jarWith every heavier billow! O unrestThan balmiest deeps of quiet sweeter far!How did ye triumph now in Margaret's breast,Making it readier to shrink and startThan quivering gold of the pond-lily's heart.XXXV.Here let us pause: O, would the soul might everAchieve its immortality in youth,When nothing yet hath damped its high endeavorAfter the starry energy of truth!Here let us pause, and for a moment severThis gleam of sunshine from the days unruthThat sometime come to all, for it is goodTo lengthen to the last a sunny mood.PART SECOND.I.As one who, from the sunshine and the green,Enters the solid darkness of a cave,Nor knows what precipice or pit unseenMay yawn before him with its sudden grave,And, with hushed breath, doth often forward lean,Dreaming he hears the plashing of a waveDimly below, or feels a damper airFrom out some dreary chasm, he knows not where;—II.So, from the sunshine and the green of love,We enter on our story's darker part;And, though the horror of it well may moveAn impulse of repugnance in the heart,Yet let us think, that, as there's naught aboveThe all-embracing atmosphere of Art,So also there is naught that falls belowHer generous reach, though grimed with guilt and woe.III.Her fittest triumph is to show that goodLurks in the heart of evil evermore,That love, though scorned, and outcast, and withstood,Can without end forgive, and yet have store;God's love and man's are of the self-same blood,And He can see that always at the doorOf foulest hearts the angel-nature yetKnocks to return and cancel all its debt.IV.It ever is weak falsehood's destinyThat her thick mask turns crystal to let throughThe unsuspicious eyes of honesty;But Margaret's heart was too sincere and trueAught but plain truth and faithfulness to see,And Mordred's for a time a little grewTo be like hers, won by the mild reproofOf those kind eyes that kept all doubt aloof.V.Full oft they met, as dawn and twilight meetIn northern climes; she full of growing dayAs he of darkness, which before her feetShrank gradual, and faded quite away,Soon to return; for power had made love sweetTo him, and, when his will had gained full sway,The taste began to pall; for never powerCan sate the hungry soul beyond an hour.VI.He fell as doth the tempter ever fall,Even in the gaining of his loathsome end;God doth not work as man works, but makes allThe crooked paths of ill to goodness tend;Let him judge Margaret! If to be the thrallOf love, and faith too generous to defendIts very life from him she loved, be sin,What hope of grace may the seducer win?VII.Grim-hearted world, that look'st with Levite eyesOn those poor fallen by too much faith in man.She that upon thy freezing threshold lies,Starved to more sinning by thy savage ban,—Seeking that refuge because foulest viceMore god-like than thy virtue is, whose spanShuts out the wretched only,—is more freeTo enter Heaven than thou wilt ever be!VIII.Thou wilt not let her wash thy dainty feetWith such salt things as tears, or with rude hairDry them, soft Pharisee, that sit'st at meatWith him who made her such, and speak'st him fair,Leaving God's wandering lamb the while to bleatUnheeded, shivering in the pitiless air:Thou hast made prisoned virtue show more wanAnd haggard than a vice to look upon.IX.Now many months flew by, and weary grewTo Margaret the sight of happy things;Blight fell on all her flowers, instead of dew;Shut round her heart were now the joyous wingsWherewith it wont to soar; yet not untrue,Though tempted much, her woman's nature clingsTo its first pure belief, and with sad eyesLooks backward o'er the gate of Paradise.X.And so, though altered Mordred came less oft,And winter frowned where spring had laughed before,In his strange eyes, yet half her sadness doffed,And in her silent patience loved him more:Sorrow had made her soft heart yet more soft,And a new life within her own she boreWhich made her tenderer, as she felt it moveBeneath her breast, a refuge for her love.XI.This babe, she thought, would surely bring him back,And be a bond forever them between;Before its eyes the sullen tempest-rackWould fade, and leave the face of heaven serene;And love's return doth more than fill the lack,Which in his absence withered the heart's green;And yet a dim foreboding still would flitBetween her and her hope to darken it.XII.She could not figure forth a happy fate,Even for this life from heaven so newly come;The earth must needs be doubly desolateTo him scarce parted from a fairer home:Such boding heavier on her bosom sateOne night, as, standing in the twilight gloam,She strained her eyes beyond that dizzy vergeAt whose foot faintly breaks the future's surge.XIII.Poor little spirit! naught but shame and woeNurse the sick heart whose lifeblood nurses thine:Yet not those only; love hath triumphed so,As for thy sake makes sorrow more divine:And yet, though thou be pure, the world is foeTo purity, if born in such a shrine;And, having trampled it for struggling thence,Smiles to itself, and calls it Providence.XIV.As thus she mused, a shadow seemed to riseFrom out her thought, and turn to drearinessAll blissful hopes and sunny memories,And the quick blood doth curdle up and pressAbout her heart, which seemed to shut its eyesAnd hush itself, as who with shuddering guessHarks through the gloom and dreads e'en now to feelThrough his hot breast the icy slide of steel.XV.But, at the heart-beat, while in dread she was,In the low wind the honeysuckles gleam,A dewy thrill flits through the heavy grass,And, looking forth, she saw, as in a dream,Within the wood the moonlight's shadowy mass:Night's starry heart yearning to hers doth seem,And the deep sky, full-hearted with the moon,Folds round her all the happiness of June.XVI.What fear could face a heaven and earth like this?What silveriest cloud could hang 'neath such a sky?A tide of wondrous and unwonted blissRolls back through all her pulses suddenly,As if some seraph, who had learned to kissFrom the fair daughters of the world gone by,Had wedded so his fallen light with hers,Such sweet, strange joy through soul and body stirs.XVII.Now seek we Mordred: He who did not fearThe crime, yet fears the latent consequence:If it should reach a brother Templar's ear,It haply might be made a good pretenceTo cheat him of the hope he held most dear;For he had spared no thought's or deed's expense,That, by-and-by might help his wish to clipIts darling bride,—the high grand mastership.XVIII.The apathy, ere a crime resolved is done,Is scarce less dreadful than remorse for crime;By no allurement can the soul be wonFrom brooding o'er the weary creep of time:Mordred stole forth into the happy sun,Striving to hum a scrap of Breton rhyme,But the sky struck him speechless, and he triedIn vain to summon up his callous pride.XIX.In the court-yard a fountain leaped alway,A Triton blowing jewels through his shellInto the sunshine; Mordred turned away,Weary because the stone face did not tellOf weariness, nor could he bear to-day,Heartsick, to hear the patient sink and swellOf winds among the leaves, or golden beesDrowsily humming in the orange-trees.XX.All happy sights and sounds now came to himLike a reproach: he wandered far and wide,Following the lead of his unquiet whim,But still there went a something at his sideThat made the cool breeze hot, the sunshine dim;It would not flee, it could not be defied,He could not see it, but he felt it there,By the damp chill that crept among his hair.XXI.Day wore at last; the evening star arose,And throbbing in the sky grew red and set;Then with a guilty, wavering step he goesTo the hid nook where they so oft had metIn happier season, for his heart well knowsThat he is sure to find poor MargaretWatching and waiting there with lovelorn breastAround her young dream's rudely scattered nest.XXII.Why follow here that grim old chronicleWhich counts the dagger-strokes and drops of blood?Enough that Margaret by his mad steel fell,Unmoved by murder from her trusting mood,Smiling on him as Heaven smiles on Hell,With a sad love, remembering when he stoodNot fallen yet, the unsealer of her heart,Of all her holy dreams the holiest part.XXIII.His crime complete, scarce knowing what he did,(So goes the tale,) beneath the altar thereIn the high church the stiffening corpse he hid,And then, to 'scape that suffocating air,Like a scared ghoul out of the porch he slid;But his strained eyes saw bloodspots everywhere,And ghastly faces thrust themselves betweenHis soul and hopes of peace with blasting mien.XXIV.His heart went out within him, like a sparkDropt in the sea; wherever he made boldTo turn his eyes, he saw, all stiff and stark,Pale Margaret lying dead; the lavish goldOf her loose hair seemed in the cloudy darkTo spread a glory, and a thousandfoldMore strangely pale and beautiful she grew:Her silence stabbed his conscience through and through:XXV.Or visions of past days,—a mother's eyesThat smiled down on the fair boy at her knee,Whose happy upturned face to hers replies,—He saw sometimes: or Margaret mournfullyGazed on him full of doubt, as one who triesTo crush belief that does love injury;Then she would wring her hands, but soon againLove's patience glimmered out through cloudy pain.XXVI.Meanwhile he dared not go and steal awayThe silent, dead-cold witness of his sin;He had not feared the life, but that dull clay,Those open eyes that showed the death within,Would surely stare him mad; yet all the dayA dreadful impulse, whence his will could winNo refuge, made him linger in the aisle,Freezing with his wan look each greeting smile.XXVII.Now, on the second day there was to beA festival in church: from far and nearCame flocking in the sunburnt peasantry,And knights and dames with stately antique cheer,Blazing with pomp, as if all faërieHad emptied her quaint halls, or, as it were,The illuminated marge of some old book,While we were gazing, life and motion took.XXVIII.When all were entered, and the roving eyesOf all were staid, some upon faces bright,Some on the priests, some on the traceriesThat decked the slumber of a marble knight,And all the rustlings over that ariseFrom recognizing tokens of delight,When friendly glances meet,—then silent easeSpread o'er the multitude by slow degrees.XXIX.Then swelled the organ: up through choir and naveThe music trembled with an inward thrillOf bliss at its own grandeur: wave on waveIts flood of mellow thunder rose, untilThe hushed air shivered with the throb it gave,Then, poising for a moment, it stood still,And sank and rose again, to burst in sprayThat wandered into silence far away.XXX.Like to a mighty heart the music seemed,That yearns with melodies it cannot speak,Until, in grand despair of what it dreamed,In the agony of effort it doth break,Yet triumphs breaking; on it rushed and streamedAnd wantoned in its might, as when a lake,Long pent among the mountains, bursts its wallsAnd in one crowding gush leaps forth and falls.XXXI.Deeper and deeper shudders shook the air,As the huge bass kept gathering heavily,Like thunder when it rouses in its lair,And with its hoarse growl shakes the low-hung sky,It grew up like a darkness everywhere,Filling the vast cathedral;—suddenly,From the dense mass a boy's clear treble brokeLike lightning, and the full-toned choir awoke.XXXII.Through gorgeous windows shone the sun aslant,Brimming the church with gold and purple mist,Meet atmosphere to bosom that rich chant,Where fifty voices in one strand did twistTheir varicolored tones, and left no wantTo the delighted soul, which sank abyssedIn the warm music cloud, while, far below,The organ heaved its surges to and fro.XXXIII.As if a lark should suddenly drop deadWhile the blue air yet trembled with its song,So snapped at once that music's golden thread,Struck by a nameless fear that leapt alongFrom heart to heart, and like a shadow spreadWith instantaneous shiver through the throng,So that some glanced behind, as half awareA hideous shape of dread were standing there.XXXIV.As when a crowd of pale men gather round,Watching an eddy in the leaden deep,From which they deem the body of one drownedWill be cast forth, from face to face doth creepAn eager dread that holds all tongues fast boundUntil the horror, with a ghastly leap,Starts up, its dead blue arms stretched aimlessly,Heaved with the swinging of the careless sea,—XXXV.So in the faces of all these there grew,As by one impulse, a dark, freezing awe,Which, with a fearful fascination drewAll eyes toward the altar; damp and rawThe air grew suddenly, and no man knewWhether perchance his silent neighbor sawThe dreadful thing which all were sure would riseTo scare the strained lids wider from their eyes.XXXVI.The incense trembled as it upward sentIts slow, uncertain thread of wandering blue,As 't were the only living elementIn all the church, so deep the stillness grew,It seemed one might have heard it, as it went,Give out an audible rustle, curling throughThe midnight silence of that awe-struck air,More hushed than death, though so much life was there.XXXVII.Nothing they saw, but a low voice was heardThreading the ominous silence of that fear,Gentle and terrorless as if a bird,Wakened by some volcano's glare, should cheerThe murk air with his song; yet every wordIn the cathedral's farthest arch seemed nearAs if it spoke to every one apart,Like the clear voice of conscience in each heart.XXXVIII."O Rest, to weary hearts thou art most dear!O Silence, after life's bewildering din,Thou art most welcome, whether in the searDays of our age thou comest, or we winThy poppy-wreath in youth! then wherefore hereLinger I yet, once free to enter inAt that wished gate which gentle Death doth ope,Into the boundless realm of strength and hope?XXXIX."Think not in death my love could ever cease;If thou wast false, more need there is for meStill to be true; that slumber were not peace,If 't were unvisited with dreams of thee:And thou hadst never heard such words as these,Save that in heaven I must ever beMost comfortless and wretched, seeing thisOur unbaptizèd babe shut out from bliss.XL."This little spirit with imploring eyesWanders alone the dreary wild of space;The shadow of his pain forever liesUpon my soul in this new dwelling-place;His loneliness makes me in ParadiseMore lonely, and, unless I see his face,Even here for grief could I lie down and die,Save for my curse of immortality.XLI."World after world he sees around him swimCrowded with happy souls, that take no heedOf the sad eyes that from the night's faint rimGaze sick with longing on them as they speedWith golden gates, that only shut out him;And shapes sometimes from Hell's abysses freedFlap darkly by him, with enormous sweepOf wings that roughen wide the pitchy deep.XLII."I am a mother,—spirits do not shakeThis much of earth from them,—and I must pineTill I can feel his little hands, and takeHis weary head upon this heart of mine;And, might it be, full gladly for his sakeWould I this solitude of bliss resign,And be shut out of Heaven to dwell with himForever in that silence drear and dim.XLIII."I strove to hush my soul, and would not speakAt first, for thy dear sake; a woman's loveIs mighty, but a mother's heart is weak,And by its weakness overcomes; I stroveTo smother bitter thoughts with patience meek,But still in the abyss my soul would rove,Seeking my child, and drove me here to claimThe rite that gives him peace in Christ's dear name.XLIV."I sit and weep while blessed spirits sing;I can but long and pine the while they praise,And, leaning o'er the wall of Heaven, I flingMy voice to where I deem my infant strays,Like a robbed bird that cries in vain to bringHer nestlings back beneath her wings' embrace;But still he answers not, and I but knowThat Heaven and earth are both alike in woe."XLV.Then the pale priests, with ceremony due,Baptized the child within its dreadful tombBeneath that mother's heart, whose instinct trueStar-like had battled down the triple gloomOf sorrow, love, and death: young maidens, too,Strewed the pale corpse with many a milkwhite bloom,And parted the bright hair, and on the breastCrossed the unconscious hands in sign of rest.XLVI.Some said, that, when the priest had sprinkled o'erThe consecrated drops, they seemed to hearA sigh, as of some heart from travail soreReleased, and then two voices singing clear,Misereatur Deus, more and moreFading far upward, and their ghastly fearFell from them with that sound, as bodies fallFrom souls upspringing to celestial hall.