A WOMAN SOLD 
 
 AND 
 
 OTHER POEMS. 
 
A WOMAN SOLD 
 
 AND 
 
 OTHER POEMS. 
 
 BY 
 
 AUGUSTA WEBSTER 
 
 w: 
 
 jj 
 
 SonDott ant) ©amBrtUge : 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 / ^67. 
 
***** 
 
 CAMBRIDGE : 
 
 PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M.A. 
 
 AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A Woman Sold:— 
 
 I. Eleanor Vaughan ..... i 
 
 II. Lady Boycott 14 
 
 Anno Domini 33: — 
 
 I. Bartim^eus . 38 
 
 II. Judas ....... 42 
 
 III. Pilate 53 
 
 IV. The Walk to Emmaus . . . . 68 
 The Old Year Out and the New Year In . . 74 
 In the Storm . . . . . . . 78 
 
 Never Again . . 80 
 
 Going . 81 
 
 The Red Star on the Hill 82 
 
 A Messenger 85 
 
 The River . . . 87 
 
 Two Maidens . . . . . ... 89 
 
 The Gift 90 
 
 
 If! 
 
 91 
 
v j Contents. 
 
 The Heiress's Wooer. 
 
 9 6 
 Dead Amy 
 
 „A March Night .....••■ 
 
 The Hidden Wound 
 
 . ior 
 Safe 
 
 I02 
 
 Passing Away 
 
 Too Faithful 
 
 Shadow 
 
 s Sunlight 
 
 • 108 
 
 A Mother's Cry ..•••• 
 Dreaming . . • ■ • 
 
 A Wedding 
 
 ^The Setting Star I14 
 
 To One of Many " 5 
 
 Looking Downwards . . . • • • • IT 7 
 
 On the Lake • ■ II9 
 
 To and Fro . . . ... • • • 12 ° 
 
 Afterwards " 12 ^ 
 
 Our Lily I25 
 
 On the Shore * I2 ? 
 
 Glad Waves I28 
 
 Deserted I2 9 
 
 Perjured . . • I32 
 
 How the Brook Sings . *34 
 
 The Lake . . I35 
 
Contents. vn 
 
 PAGE 
 
 In the Sunshine 138 f 
 
 Night Whispers 139 
 
 The Blush-Rose 142 " 
 
 A Bride 143 
 
 Mary Lost 144 
 
 The Land of Happy Dreams 145 
 
 The Shadow of a Cloud 146 
 
 Fairies' Chatter 147 
 
 Lota 199 
 
ERRATUM. 
 Page 8 1, line 5. For the stillness read a stillness. 
 
% Wiamm Soto. 
 
 I. 
 ELEANOR VA UGHAN. 
 
 Lionel Then it is true ! 
 
 Eleanor. Oh Lionel, you look 
 
 So strangely at me. Think, I all alone, 
 So many reasons, all my friends so fain, 
 My mother pressing me, Sir Joyce so good, 
 So full of promises, he who could choose 
 No bride among the highest ladies round 
 But she would smile elate and all her kin 
 Bow low and thank him and go swelled with pride — 
 You cannot wonder that my friends declare 
 They'll hear no Noes, but force me to my good. 
 
 Lionel. No, 'tis at you I wonder. Eleanor, 
 When first I heard this lie — I called it so 
 In anger for you, I will call it so, 
 Though your lips contradict me, till the last 
 
2 A Woman Sold. 
 
 /U Worst proof have sworn it other, 'tis so strange, 
 So recklessly untrue to that pure self 
 Of my love Eleanor— When first I heard 
 That lie on you, as if you, a young thing 
 In the bud of stainless girlhood, you the like 
 Of babies in your fond grave innocence, 
 You proud as maidens are who do not know 
 What sin and weariness is like in lives 
 Smirched by the pitch that seethes, they've told you, far 
 From your balm-scenting nostrils, but perceive 
 Yourselves are as the high accessless snows 
 Whose blushings do but prove their perfect white, 
 And so look coldly down on something base, 
 You know not what, beneath you — you whose smiles 
 Are gladder than most laughters, and whose voice 
 Rings like the wild birds' singing in the wood, 
 Because you are so young and new in heart, 
 You who to me — 
 
 But say, to put the least, 
 You, the Miss Vaughan we men agree to think 
 Worth anyhow such common reverence 
 As good girls like our sisters have from us — 
 That you were bought like any lower thing 
 Our Crcesus fancies, like the horse that won 
 The Derby last, the picture of the year, 
 The best bred pointer, or the costliest ring; 
 You bought by such a buyer, a cold fool 
 Whose very vices, like his polished airs, 
 
 52 
 
Eleanor Vaughan. 3 
 
 His tastes and small-talk, were acquired by dint 
 
 Of callous perseverance; one who'll own, 
 
 With a feigned yawn, he's something bored with life, 
 
 Meaning by life stale sins and selfishness; 
 
 A dried up pithless soul, who, having lacked 
 
 The grace to have a youngness in his youth, 
 
 Now lacks the courage to be old — You bought 
 
 For laces, diamonds, a conspicuous seat 
 
 In country ball-rooms, footmen, carriages, 
 
 A house in town and so on — and no doubt 
 
 Most liberal settlements, that is but just. 
 
 A man past youth and practised out of tune 
 
 For loving should not haggle at the price 
 
 When he buys girlhood, blushes, sentiment, 
 
 Grace, innocence, aye even piety 
 
 And taste in decking churches, such fawn eyes 
 
 As yours are, Eleanor, and such a bloom 
 
 Of an unfmgered peach just newly ripe. 
 
 Aye, when a modest woman sells herself 
 
 Like an immodest one, she should not find 
 
 A niggard at the cheque book. 
 
 Eleanor, 
 Can I not taunt you even to a no? 
 Look up ; defend yourself. Oh ! you sit there 
 Languid and still, and grow a little pale, 
 And flush a little, and will not reply 
 Even by a look. Be angry with me, child, 
 Cry out that I misjudge you to my shame ; 
 
4 A Woman Sold. 
 
 ?° Say I, like a rough lawyer, questioned you 
 Into a maze, and twisted me a yes 
 Out of your shifting coil of noes, while you 
 Were dimly pondering what I asked. Speak, speak : 
 Say anything, but do not let me break 
 My passion on you while you droop and give 
 Like a rock-rooted seaweed in the surf. 
 Say anything, except that I do well 
 To speak to you as I have spoken now. 
 
 Eleanor. Ah well ! you do no ill that I can chide. 
 I, who have gladly let you give me praise 
 Far past my merit in the foolish time 
 When I believed I could grow like your praise, 
 Must bear in patience now if you give blame 
 Perhaps a little harder than you know. 
 
 Lionel. So humble, Eleanor ! How you are 
 changed — 
 What is it? Are you ill? You were so proud. 
 
 Eleanor. Yes, that was long ago before I knew 
 I could be tempted even to do wrong. 
 You know my boast was that I never broke 
 The lightest merry promise. Long ago 
 I could be proud. 
 
 Lionel. Be proud again, my love, 
 
 My Eleanor ! I know you are yourself 
 When you speak so. Be proud again, too proud 
 Not to atone. Stay, shall I tell you, dear, 
 I, 1 How I received the tidings that Miss Vaughan 
 
Eleanor VaugJian. 5 
 
 Was pricked for Lady Boycott? Why, I laughed, 1** 
 
 Laughed, Eleanor, as any schoolboy might 
 
 Who heard his awful doctor had been caught 
 
 Picking a small boy's pocket for his pence. 
 
 It was not long ago. Young Polwarth came 
 
 To town, dined with me at our club, and there 
 
 Tossed out his precious news quite innocent 
 
 Of where it touched. "Miss Vaughan! " I laughed, 
 
 "The joke 
 Is too far-fetched. You do not know her well." 
 Till he, abashed, recanted, "Well, no doubt 
 The rumour is not true; but so it runs." 
 And later that same evening Pringle came, 
 And he — I think he knew he stung me — yes 
 He'd guessed why his sweet speeches forced a clash 
 Of discord in your ears, where other words 
 Were making your love music— he was loud 
 With the same story. " Aye," he said, " she's wise, 
 That coy Miss Eleanor, she knows her worth. 
 All very well to lure on you or me 
 With her odd ways, half peacock and half dove, 
 Strutting and cooing — but, for marriage, why 
 We come to business then. She's a shrewd girl." 
 And he would not recant: he'd swear 'twas true. 
 But I said, "You'd not play fool's trumpeter 
 To the idiot gossips who invent such trash : 
 No surely : You and I both know her well." 
 And, Eleanor, even now I say to you, j3 
 
 
\L 
 
 6 A Woma?i Sold. 
 
 P*> It is not true — I know it who know you. 
 
 Eleanor. Yes long ago you knew me, but not now. 
 
 Lionel. And when was long ago ? A second time 
 You talk of long ago. Not three months past 
 Since we last parted, and I took your word 
 Of sorrow-sweet good bye away with me 
 To be my sweetest memory, and thought, 
 "I shall succeed because she loves me so," 
 And turned me to my crabbed toil, as if 
 It had been some romance of a true love 
 That thrills the reader through — some rare romance 
 With your name in it, Eleanor, and mine, 
 And a glad end. You call this long ago, 
 And I still live in it, live in the life 
 Your love — the dream of your love was it? — gave. 
 What long ago? Not all a year by days 
 Has passed since first a sudden moment broke 
 My silence — ours. You looked me a reproach, 
 Not knowing how you looked, how pleadingly, 
 For a light word I spoke — as a man speaks 
 Who plays with his own heart and pricks at it 
 To prove because he laughs it does not feel — 
 A jest as if I thought gay scorn of love 
 And prized a woman as we prize a rose, 
 Meaning all roses and the one in hand, 
 All liked with just a difference for taste 
 In perfumes and in tints. You looked at me : 
 And I at you. How could I help it, child? 
 
Eleanor Vaughan. 7 
 
 I had remembered on for weeks and months 'If 
 That I was a poor man and should not speak, 
 But I forgot it just a moment long, 
 Because you had forgotten, ancl my eyes, 
 Hungry for one love look, met yours so full 
 That you grew red and trembled, and I knew 
 In a quick impulse that you were my own, 
 And that I had no life which was not you. 
 And I said, breathless — what, I do not know, 
 But something that meant " love me," and you raised 
 Your quivering face with a strange radiance on it 
 Of tenderness and promise and grave joy, 
 And looked into my eyes, and said no word, 
 But laid your hand in mine. And then you wept 
 Because — 'twas you that said it, Eleanor — 
 Because you were so happy. And I drew 
 Your head against my breast, and whispered "wife," 
 And you — oh sweet and simply loving girl 
 And natural — you put your lips to mine 
 And kissed me. Oh ! my wife that was to be, 
 My Eleanor, was that day long ago, 
 That day which always is my yesterday ? 
 
 Eleanor. No, no, you must not talk to me of that, 
 You must not. There are things one must forget — 
 One should at least. But ah ! it is so hard. 
 One must be happier than I can be 
 To be able to forget past happiness. 
 But, Lionel, what you call yesterday 
 
8 A Woman Sold. 
 
 n$ Seems to me parted from my present self 
 By a whole other life lived in the dark, 
 I know not when. Ah ! surely yesterday 
 Is long, ago when all its hopes are dead, 
 And Eleanor is dead who lived in it 
 And loved you — oh did love you. Do not think 
 I am all heartless. I did love you more 
 Than you will know now ever. 
 
 Let me go, 
 Let go my hand — not now — oh ! Lionel, 
 We are not each other's now. 
 
 Lionel. Did love me, did? 
 
 Is that a long ago too? My own love 
 You love me now. Yes love me. Look at me. 
 You'll keep your faith. You dare not say again 
 We are not each other's now. 
 
 Eleanor. You hold my hand ; 
 
 Look what you hold with it — it hurts me now 
 In your tight grasp, and it has hurt ere now 
 With another kind of pain. But bye and bye 
 I shall grow used to it. It means, you know, 
 
 My fetter to the hus to him, Sir Joyce, 
 
 Who will be soon — I suppose I am his now, 
 Marked by his ring. 
 
 Lionel. There, take your hand again. 
 
 It is his for the moment. It was mine 
 By a less unholy bargain. Answer me, 
 7 Do you love your happy lover, Eleanor Vaughan? 
 
Eleanor Vaughan. 9 
 
 Eleanor. He is kind. A good wife always gives her love 4/ 1 
 To a kind husband. 
 
 Lionel. Aye, some women can; 
 
 Not you. 
 
 Eleanor. Sir, though I have done wrong to you, 
 And so have humbled me before your scoffs, 
 I am a woman, as I think, not like 
 To fall short of my duty as a wife. 
 Be sure Sir Joyce will have his due from me. 
 
 Lionel. Yes, crane your neck in the old way, 
 flash down 
 Superb bright scorning from your hooded eyes. 
 Wife's duty, yes, you'll never shame that, child; 
 You'll make this sin of yours shine out at last 
 Like virtue by your married perfectness. 
 I can believe it. But you'd make me laugh, 
 Were't not for shuddering that you are so fooled 
 To your blind venture by a moral shred 
 Of heartlessness, "Kind husbands make good wives, 
 And good wives love their husbands" — very sage — 
 And prudent mothers preach it to their girls, 
 And the pith of it is "Do not choose by love, 
 But look to means; because a man who's poor 
 Must be unkind, for want of cash to spend 
 Upon his wife." And so you're all agreed, 
 You and your family, Sir Joyce will be 
 A model husband, (he's so rich), and make, 
 By paying bills, and giving jewelry, ^j 
 
io A Woman Sold. 
 
 A;M The typed good wife of you. But do you think, 
 You who at least have known that loving means 
 A something more than Thank yous, than replies 
 Of a civil sort, and easy going smiles, 
 And a fattening placid womanly goodwill 
 To a comfortable master, can learn now 
 To cheat your heart with such a dull content, 
 And be at rest and bask ? You, Eleanor ! 
 You'll pine to love as a caged sparrow pines 
 To fly, you '11 tear and break your useless wings 
 With beating at the bars, or else you'll mope 
 In obstinate tired stillness ; you'll not thrive 
 On caged birds' food, and sing. Oh! you are mad. 
 You do not know yourself. Oh ! child, be warned. 
 Why will you curse your youth with such a life? 
 Nay, let me speak to you — let me speak still. 
 I have not spoken to you of myself: 
 I would not beg for mercy, let you find 
 What a poor quivering wretch a man may be 
 Before the little blow from a light hand 
 That breaks his heart : I dared not even say 
 "Tis something hard on me," lest I should bare 
 A foolish throbbing anguish for myself 
 'Twere fitter to keep hidden, and should shock 
 Your cold ear with such outcry for the pain 
 As shames a man. But I will tell you once 
 Because, since you still love me, I believe 
 
 X 1 2 It may a little move you, I endure 
 
Eleanor Vaughan. n 
 
 More grief in this than — 
 
 Child, I cannot do it ! 
 I cannot Oh ! the passion will have vent. 
 Aye, if one could dissect one's living heart 
 And lecture coldly on it, I might speak 
 In sober phrases and set out my grief 
 With due pathetic touches, till perhaps 
 You'd weep a little for it. Now 'tis I 
 Who shed a fool's weak tears. Yes, keep your head 
 Turned from me \ you are wise, for if you looked 
 You might remember, were 't but in a mood 
 Of foolish pity, that I am the man 
 Who trusted you, set all his hopes on you, 
 Because he had your promise, loved you past 
 All thought of treachery from you. Aye, there, 
 There in one breath is the whole agony, 
 I love you. 
 
 Eleanor. Oh my love ! Oh, my own love I 
 Forgive me, help me. 
 
 Lionel. Yes, press your dear arms 
 
 Still round my neck, close, so. My Eleanor, 
 You are my own again, is it not so? 
 
 Eleanor. Yes, yes. — I cannot tell — Oh Lionel, 
 Do help me. Tell me what to do. 
 
 Lionel. My love, 
 
 My promised wife, we stand together now; 
 They shall not part us with their formal rules. 
 I gave my word, till I could come to them, 2*f 
 
12 A Woman Sold. 
 
 2-f? "I am rich enough to ask your leave again," 
 I would not take aloud the right you gave 
 And say " she is for me," nor ask to break 
 The weariness of absence with one word 
 Written to bid you think I worked for you, 
 Nor one dear answer that you loved me still. 
 "No letters, no engagement." I bore all, 
 And kept my faith. They've kept no faith with me : 
 And now I face them. Love, can you be firm 
 And wait ? Wait, not for such a wealth and rank 
 As shall be Lady Boycott's at the Hall, 
 But for a simple home where things are smoothed 
 By love more than by spending, for a life 
 Where little cares go plodding hand in hand 
 With little pleasures ? 
 
 Eleanor. Lionel, I know 
 
 I could be happier so — with you — I know, 
 Than in the tempting paradise Sir Joyce 
 Has won my parents with — and almost me. 
 Ah ! love, I have been weak. You were away. 
 And I was flattered. And I had gone far 
 Before I knew where I was being led. 
 It seemed too late at last. But I am yours : 
 I have come back to you. Yes I will wait 
 For always. 
 
 Lionel. Dear, it need not be for long, 
 If you will take a poor man, but half way 
 j ' To where he hopes to reach. I'm prospering, love. 
 
Eleanor Vaughan. 13 
 
 I shall not win for long what was to be 
 
 My goal for claiming you, the promised prize ; 
 
 But I take answer now from none but you, 
 
 And, very soon I hope, I shall return 
 
 And say "Come now, for there is room for you 
 
 In a fit home which I have earned." But, love, 
 
 You will be strong? 
 
 Eleanor. Yes; but you must not go, 
 
 You must be near me. 
 
 Lionel. Nay, dear, I must work. 
 
 Clients and causes stand , no truanting : 
 And I am greedy now to heap up gains. 
 Oh ! darling, I am sad to leave you here 
 In your changed churlish home. You will not find 
 Much kindness in it now? 
 
 Eleanor. You will be kind. 
 
 Lionel. Oh, darling ! oh, my love won back to me ! 
 Cling to me once again. My Eleanor ! 
 Sir Joyce can never buy my wife away. 
 
 Eleanor. Oh never, never. Love, I will be strong 
 
% Womm »oto t 
 
 ii. 
 lady boycott. 
 
 Lady Boycott. Yes, dear; come in. I. was but 
 looking out 
 At the soft twilight slowly growing specked 
 With those white stars. A dreamy sort of time 
 This is, and one forgets the clock goes on 
 While one is watching stillness so. I fear 
 I seem discourteous keeping thus apart; 
 I did not mean it. 
 
 Mary. And I did not think it. 
 
 Only your journey has been long — I feared 
 You might be over weary. 
 
 Lady B. I am tired. 
 
 I am always tired, I think. Shall we be missed 
 Beyond forgiveness if we sit awhile 
 Here in this quiet, you and I alone, 
 
Lady Boycott. 15 
 
 f 3 And dream a little as we used to do' 
 
 In the old idle days when we were young? 
 
 Mary. Were young ! Why I feel nearer to a child 
 And feel life newer now than when I went, 
 With all our school-girl ladylike grave airs 
 And necessary stateliness still worn 
 With the gloss not yet rubbed off, to play my part 
 Of bridesmaid to my classmate Eleanor — 
 Some months I think my elder. Then it seemed 
 As if months told in age. Do they count still ? 
 That was six years ago, and I am young : 
 And are you old? 
 
 Lady B. Ah ! well, you laugh at me. 
 
 But I count years by length of heavy days. 
 It is so different — a girl's time goes 
 Like music played for dancing; but a wife's — 
 Ah Mary married women soon grow old. 
 
 Mary. Love is itself a youth ; they should be young 
 Until their husbands die. 
 
 Lady B. And mine is dead. 
 
 Mary. Dear Eleanor ! My foolish sudden tongue ! 
 What was I thinking of? 
 
 Lady B. Why not of me. 
 
 You had forgotten me, I saw, just then. 
 Mary, you need not play now at belief 
 That the happiness of wifely love was mine — 
 Such love as we believed in when we talked 
 ^f In our dear wont here, oh ! so long ago, 
 
1 6 A Woman Sold. 
 
 3f In such soft dusk as this, of what should be 
 
 And what should not to make up that pure good 
 Of loving and of being loved again. 
 Mary, you know I never loved Sir Joyce. 
 
 Mary. Oh Eleanor ! I feared it. But indeed 
 I think you should not say it — even now. 
 
 Lady B. Oh let me say it, friend, sweet secret 
 friend, 
 Who will not babble it to the four winds 
 To have them blow it through the neighbours' homes. 
 Let me speak but to you, I who have smiled 
 A cheating silence for so many years. 
 You do not know the penance to be good 
 And pretty mannered dull day by dull day, 
 Lapping one's heart in comfortable sloth 
 Lest it should fever for its work, its food, 
 Of free bold loving. No, you cannot dream 
 How one may suffer just by doing right 
 When in one's heart one knows how under right, 
 For base of it, there lies a stifled wrong 
 Which is not dead. Ah me ! wrong never dies. 
 You lay it underground, you tread your path 
 Smoothly above it, then you build new hopes, 
 New duties, new delights, upon its grave — 
 It stirs and breaks up all. And, worse than this, 
 Mary, you cannot kill old happiness — 
 No not except by heaping new upon it — 
 [ c b And you remember in your heavy heart 
 
Lady Boycott. 17 
 
 The sweetness of delicious unwise days ^ 
 Left with your young girl follies — with your doll, 
 Your poetry, your dreamings, and your love ; 
 Irrational light pastimes. 
 
 Mary. Hush, oh ! hush. 
 
 I never like you in your flouting moods. 
 You shall not scorn yourself so. Weep, dear, weep, 
 If you are sad, and bid me comfort you, 
 But let be with that jarring heartlessness. 
 Tis bitter acting, dear, when grief puts on 
 A show of laughters and makes mirth by scoffs. 
 
 Lady B. Aye, you were right to hush me. Let 
 me have 
 The ease of free complaining. There's no fault 
 If I look dull-eyed now, no secret told. 
 'Tis only loveless wives who must not fret, 
 For fear of being understood — indeed 
 For fear of understanding their own selves. 
 But I, alas ! there has a new thing chanced, 
 And forced myself upon me. I have burst 
 My serious due disguise of widowhood. 
 I am bold now with my sorrow. Why indeed 
 Should I talk shadows to myself or you 
 Who know the shape of truth behind them? Yes, 
 You read my secret, Mary, years ago : 
 You, with your show of taking me at what 
 I should have been, an easy-minded wife 
 Who loved her lord in quiet and was pleased ft* 
 
/>.' 
 
 1 8 A Woman Sold. 
 
 To have her comforts with him... or without; 
 
 You, with your silent tenderness, your talk 
 
 Of making duty dear by loving it 
 
 For God's sake, if not man's — you knew the while, 
 
 I saw it, you kind prudent hypocrite, 
 
 That I was wearier than the worn drudge 
 
 Who toils past woman's strength the hard day through 
 
 And cowers at evening to the drunken boor 
 
 Who strikes her with a curse because she's his 
 
 And that's his right upon her — wearier 
 
 Because my labour was to love against 
 
 The longings and the loathings of my heart, 
 
 Because the price I earned was only smiles 
 
 And too familiar fondlings. Ah ! he had 
 
 His rights upon me. And he meant me well. 
 
 He was not often hard to me; he gave 
 
 With an unstinting hand for all my whims, 
 
 And tricked me with the costliest fineries 
 
 Almost beyond my wish; was proud of me 
 
 And liked to look at me, and vaunted me, 
 
 My beauty and my grace and stateliness, 
 
 My taste and fashion. What could he do more? 
 
 We were not suited; some more fitting wife — 
 
 Say one who could have loved him, for that makes 
 
 The only fitness — one whom years or care 
 
 Had brought a little nearer to his age, 
 
 Enough to crave no more than was in him 
 
 Of sympathies and high ideal hopes ; 
 
Lady Boycott. 19 
 
 One who had never loved, or could forget 
 How the young love, and could bestow on him 
 A fond contented kindness for the sake 
 Of his meant kindness to her; such a wife 
 Might have enjoyed in him a better calm 
 Of meet companionship than I could find, 
 Might have shared with him little daily thoughts 
 And answered when he talked and not felt dull, 
 Nor missed- you do not know him I did love; 
 You do not know all that there • was to miss. 
 I cannot make you feel that for me. Well, 
 As for Sir Joyce, doubtless if he had used 
 A cruel tongue against me, cruel smiles 
 And frowns, or cruel hands, I must have been 
 Only more wretched; though I'd wildly think 
 Often and often I could draw free breath 
 Rather beneath a bad harsh tyranny, 
 Coming from him, than kindness and his smile 
 And condescending husbandly caress. 
 He made me feel so abject and so false 
 When he approved me so ! Why, I have longed 
 To shriek " No, hate me, I am false to you," 
 And have him think me fouler than my fault. 
 And yet I dreamed, not loving him, I loved 
 No other then. I thought my heart at least 
 Had numbed to an unsinning deadness. Yes, 
 I did in truth believe I had full learned 
 The difficult strange lesson to forget, 
 
20 A Woman Sold. 
 
 f'-f Because I would not, could not think of him. 
 Because I had no lover, I believed 
 I had no love. 
 
 Mary. Oh ! my poor Eleanor, 
 
 I stop you once again. You run too wild 
 In your regrets. I know you had no love, 
 Except as one may love the dead. You were 
 A weary woman plodding on alone, 
 Thinking sometimes "Alas I might have gone 
 A fairer way and held a guiding hand 
 Warm within mine," and sometimes looking back 
 Too sadly on the old bright time of love, 
 As in your age you might look back on youth ; 
 But you had no fond passion quick in you 
 To make a fever in your heart. That pulsed 
 Too slow and chilly. You were faint because 
 You had foregone the love on which it lived, 
 And you knew that. But, dear, you let the love 
 Go with the lover, mourning for them both. 
 I could read that much, plainly. 
 
 Lady B. Well, may be 
 
 You read it rightly, and I did not dash 
 My forced cold wifely duty with that blot. 
 I'll hope it. But there has a new life come 
 And joined on to the old that was before 
 My bargain with Sir Joyce, and now it seems 
 As if there had been scarce a break between — 
 Only a troubled rest, as when one tries 
 
Lady Boycott. 21 
 
 To wake and cannot, and yet does not sleep. ^ J 
 I cannot count you " Look, so many days, 
 Or years, or moments even, , I was pure 
 From present loving." I feel only this : 
 There is a man I know whose whisper was 
 To me all promise of the future days, 
 All sweetness of the present; and there is 
 A man who with one cold and civil look 
 Has broken me, has made me sick of hope 
 Because he is not in it, made my life 
 Too flickering to be worth the care it costs ; 
 And they are one, and they are my one love. 
 Oh ! Mary, darling, comfort, comfort me. 
 Yes, hold me to you, let my head lie so. 
 Yes, soothe me, love me, darling — Oh my friend 
 I need another love than yours, his love. - 
 I want it, want it. 
 
 Mary. Dear, dear Eleanor. 
 
 Ah ! you are hurt past help of mine. I would 
 I had this lover here : he should not keep 
 A placid conscience. But, dear, be too proud 
 To let him break you. If he, years ago, 
 Must win a girl's weak heart to toss it back, 
 A plaything you might hand on to Sir Joyce 
 While he should choose some other — 
 
 Lady B. Mary, No. 
 
 I was the one who wronged our truth — I, I. 
 He was all truth. ^^ 
 
22 A Woman Sold. 
 
 Mary. Ah ! now I understand 
 
 That you are sad beyond the help of tears. 
 Poor heart, how shall I soothe you. Ah ! you tore 
 The blossom of its hope with your own hand, 
 And then you hunger in a barren day 
 Because it bears no fruit. Dear sorrower, 
 What can I say? Take courage. Not a life 
 So lonely in this world but somewhere grows 
 A blessing for it out of other lives, 
 And warmth out of their fire-light. Not a soul 
 So lonely under heaven but it may reach 
 The hand of God, and lift itself from pain. 
 Take courage, dear. 
 
 Lady B. No, let me break my heart. 
 
 Would he had never loved me — only that, 
 Not to remember that he loved me once. 
 
 Mary. But, Eleanor, he may remember too. 
 Truly you did him such a bitter harm 
 As well may make a man grow hard and strong 
 Against a woman's sobbings, battling back 
 The vain breath of her words like a barred tower 
 Careless to the wild useless gusts of winds, 
 Silent against them. Yet, for the dear sake 
 Of what you were to him and he to you, 
 And for the likeness of your face to that 
 He loved to look on once, which smiled on him 
 With so unlike a smile, and for the thought 
 3,?7 That you might be yourself again through him, 
 
Lady Boycott. 23 
 
 And for the sorrow constant in your eyes, 
 
 He might put by his rancour, might , tune down 
 
 The bitter tongue of blame to just a strain 
 
 Of pity for himself who had lost you, 
 
 Until 'twas pity for you too, and so 
 
 He must forgive you. 
 
 Lady B. Oh .! your idle hopes ! 
 
 It is as if you'd mock me. They were mine. 
 I shaped them for myself — such pretty dreams ! 
 Like what one sees in clouds — and then the wind, 
 The lightest breeze that scarce can stir a leaf, 
 Will float them into nothings. Why, you give 
 My folly a clear voice, and make me laugh 
 To think how crookedly its answer falls 
 To the plain question of my wretchedness. 
 He does forgive me, has no rancour left, 
 Has quite forgotten bitterness and blame, 
 Doubtless would pity me if he but cared 
 To know if I am sorry or content — 
 He'd pity me out of his chivalry, 
 Because I am a woman. But he looks 
 Unmoved upon me, doubtless would allow 
 "Her face is fair, she has an easy grace, 
 Was most attractive, though now something worn;" 
 And there's an end of it. I am to him 
 At most the faded picture of a girl 
 Whom he once wished for but could teach himself 
 To do without, and so for that, because 
 
 xs C 
 
24 A Woman Sold. 
 
 *- s l / All memory which is not pain is sweet, 
 And for the courtesy of gentlemen 
 To well-bred women, he'll sit by my side 
 And chat a little, give a gracious laugh 
 At my tart sayings, talk of the last news, 
 Ask some one sitting near if he agrees 
 With Lady Boycott's judgment on the point, 
 And go to be as civil to the next 
 Upon his list of doll acquaintances. 
 Forgive me ! Blame me ! Why, he'll meet my eye 
 With a friend's carelessness, will smile at me 
 The perfect proper smile of drawing-rooms. 
 Oh ! my lost love ! one love of all my life ! 
 He cares no more for me than for the weed 
 In flower against his foot, that, if he has time, 
 He'll notice "In its way 'tis well," and pass, 
 Just stepping so as not to trample it, 
 Because he's kindly natured and would crush 
 No poor slight growing thing without a need. 
 He. cares for me no more than for the dream 
 He dreamed in last night's sleep, and waking lost : 
 No more than for the queen in pinafores 
 Loved in his days of slate and spelling-book. 
 I am nothing to him, nothing- — oh, my love ! 
 And I to shiver in the cold he makes 
 And smile to him ! Mary, I sometimes wish — 
 Yes, wish, as some sick wretch will idly moan, 
 2%3 "Give me sharp pangs rather than this dull pain," — 
 
Lady Boycott. 25 
 
 I. might go mad a moment, lose the sense £?/ 
 Of womanhood, and let his cold man's eyes 
 See to my heart, see my unhonoured love. 
 Not that he'd love me then — no never that — 
 But that there 'd be some bond between us then, 
 Or some defiance, not this civil show, 
 This mannerly kind hateful indifference. 
 At least he'd be ashamed for my shame, drop 
 His eyes that look on me so cold and pleased 
 At our next meeting, stammer when he spoke. 
 Perhaps he'd shun me. Aye, and at the least 
 I could shun him. Now I dare never wince, 
 Nor stand a step 'back from a meeting, lest 
 He should discover. 
 
 Mary. But,- my Eleanor, 
 
 Since all he knows is that you long ago 
 Took back your love, were it not possible 
 That he should silently be measuring 
 The present with the past and noting down 
 The unconscious signals? 
 
 Lady B. Not another word, 
 
 Not one smooth word of hope. When he did love 
 I knew before he spoke — half knew, I think, 
 Before he knew it. Now I as well know 
 He'll never, never, never think again 
 Of love and me together. Not if I crawled 
 To wile him on with all sweet artifice 
 Of wooings and of shrinkings interchanged J Of 
 
26 A Woman Sold. 
 
 Jio Which many women do not shame to use, 
 
 And all men smile at, pleased to be deceived : 
 
 Not if I worshipped him with the fine fumes 
 
 Of delicate nice flattery some I know 
 
 Will offer to their idol, while his brain 
 
 Grows dizzy with the scent and pleasant mist : 
 
 Not if I played at him the pouts and scolds 
 
 And provocations of a mimic feud : 
 
 Not if I pleased him with an equal mind 
 
 To be convinced by arguments of his : 
 
 Not if I sang to tears for him, made mirth, 
 
 Were sad, wise, foolish, all for him alone : 
 
 Not if I lived my whole poor life for him : 
 
 No, not if it were so that I might die 
 
 To serve him something: he'd not love me yet, 
 
 He could not. When you're in a pleasant dream 
 
 And some one wakes you rudely, try your most, 
 
 You cannot dream again that selfsame dream. 
 
 'Tis over, gone. You cannot even think 
 
 Exactly how it went, with what quick turns. 
 
 You'll dream again, perhaps, as he, they say, 
 
 Dreams once more now, but not that dream again- 
 
 Oh never that. 
 
 Kind Mary, talk to me 
 Of other things. No, let me tell you first, 
 (Lest you should too far scorn me), how it came 
 
 &$b This new old love sprang sudden to a growth 
 Beyond my checking now. 
 
Lady Boycott. 27 
 
 Mary. Dear, tell me all. 33L 
 
 It comforts you to tell me. Do not fear 
 I cannot share it with you. I have now 
 So large a happiness that it is wide 
 To hold most sorrows — more than sorrow can. 
 I know that, I, who once had sorrow too, 
 And scorn you, darling? Do you think me then 
 So shallow-righteous that I can scorn grief 
 Because perhaps there went one drop of wrong 
 To tip its sting? Scorn you too for your love? 
 I know you have all pride a woman should 
 Of modesty. You talk to me because 
 It is, here in this twilight we were wont 
 To call "our time," like talking to yourself: 
 But I know well you have been hushed to him — 
 You'd not woo, you, if you could win him so. 
 
 Lady B. Yet let me tell you. While my husband 
 lived 
 In seeming strength I had a creeping fear 
 Would haunt my conscience like bad memories there, 
 As if, if he should die, I should perceive 
 A sense of freedom, and go lighter stepped, 
 And not be sad at all as I must seem. 
 But while I nursed him dying that was changed. 
 I did not feign the tenderness I shewed, 
 Nor wear my care for ornament. I seemed 
 To love him since he suffered. And I felt 
 That to his best he loved me. So I wept 3 i is 
 
28 A Woman Sold. 
 
 31>>5 Because we were to part with such an awe, 
 And he was scared at dying, not because 
 It seemed the wife's right way. And then, he dead, 
 The irretrievable strange going hence, 
 And something too the still dread show of death, 
 Struck me with such a sadness as made tears 
 A natural comfort to me, made the calm 
 Of one who has, been grieving hush my life. 
 And while I still was sad a good kind soul — 
 If she had but grown dumb as well as deaf! — 
 Came with her cordial chatter. "So, my dear, 
 The widow's weeds put by. Well, quite time too : 
 You've worn them past the fashion for wives now. 
 I'm glad too ; for my nephew's coming soon. 
 Don't think I did not know that naughty work — 
 You were too bad. But he could never bear 
 A word against you. Ah ! he's true to you, 
 Like lovers in old times. You never heard 
 I think of that bad fever that he had 
 And raved of you long after you were wed. 
 Ah he raves now of you another way, 
 Poor boy. You'll not desert him now again." 
 I thought she knew. I had not seen him then 
 Since he had made me promise, but some months 
 Before my marriage, to be true to him, 
 And strong. — Strong ! I who was too weak to stand 
 Against, some breaths of anger and the stress 
 ^ Of long persuasions and the paltry lure 
 
Lady Boycott. 29 
 
 Of being the great lady all ablow 
 
 With insolent wealth and fashion. Strong ! and I — 
 
 Why did he trust me ? He should have staid near, 
 
 If but to look at me the silent look 
 
 That made me feel my purpose confident 
 
 Because he trusted. 
 
 Well, to tell my tale : 
 I played the cheat to him and to Sir Joyce : 
 Loved one and left him, did not love the other 
 And married him. But, foolishly enough, 
 It was the one I left who made complaint 
 As if I had been worth it. Laugh with me ; 
 How foolish men will be ! Aye you hold up 
 A warning finger. Welly I'll be sedate, 
 And pity my own sorrows decorously. 
 He was angry, had sonie bickering with Sir Joyce, 
 (They never told me what nor why), and so 
 They broke acquaintance and we never met. 
 How could I tell that the good cackler's talk 
 Was... what it was? 
 
 Alas ! for many weeks 
 It chimed in like rich music when I thought, 
 Growing sweeter, sweeter, sweeter, day by day, 
 As never surely the good woman's words 
 Were heard in any ears before. I framed 
 My hopes, my fancies, purposes, to them, 
 And, since the time seemed long till he should come, 
 Spent my full heart in day-dreams. 1 
 
30 A Woman Sold. 
 
 Did I say, 
 H 1 1 A while ago, I 'd dream here now with you 
 As we were wont ? Ah ! Mary, weariness 
 Can never dream. It sleeps, or is afire 
 With fever of a visionary toil 
 Over the trodden way that was so long. 
 I know no dreamings now. 
 
 Oh, foolish me ! 
 I saw one bar, and only one. I thought 
 "He'd never take me with my clog of lands, 
 Houses, and shares, and so forth, which are mine 
 Because I was another man's. He's proud, 
 He will not be beholden to Sir Joyce." 
 And so among my dreams I saw the joy 
 Of sacrificing what I once prized far 
 Beyond its worth, and still prized something well, 
 To him, to our new-blossomed love. And then 
 I fancied how he'd thank me, and forgive, 
 And praise me as in old days. 
 
 Well, we met. 
 I woke, at the first moment woke. He smiled, 
 And I could have shrieked, weeping out aloud, 
 But I smiled too. And bye and bye I tried 
 To fool myself a little : but 'twas vain. 
 We have talked often — always pleasantly, 
 Appropriately to the occasion too — 
 And I could hate myself who looked to him 
 ^ For more than that. I heard a while ago 
 
Lady Boycott. 31 
 
 That he was new betrothed. I never asked 
 Was the news true or false. To me 'tis one. 
 Nothing could make me less to him than now, 
 Or more. To him I 'm — Talk of something else, 
 Of any thing but me. 'Tis your turn now. 
 
 Mary. Well then of me. I '11 preach a little hope 
 Out of my simple life. Once, some years past, 
 I was betrothed — not yet so long ago 
 I could have told my tale more passionately, 
 With intricate vexed memories, have marked 
 The turns and changes and the subtle breaks, 
 Showing " I hoped thus" and "I sorrowed thus:" 
 But now I find so little to be told. 
 Whilst I was loving happily I learned 
 That I must love no more. I bade him wed 
 The mother of his child ; and that he did, 
 And has been worthier since. But, Eleanor, 
 I suffered. Nay I think it must be worse 
 Than one's own due remorse for wrong to find 
 Shame in you for the man you love. And I 
 Was heavy for the loss of love and hopes 
 That had been — ah we know what such hopes are. 
 I was so desolate for long. I would 
 That I could make you feel it; but myself 
 I cannot feel it now. The sun aglow, 
 Warm on my eyes, has dazzled them from sight 
 Of the clouds far floating backwards from the rent 
 It burst between them. Oh, dear Eleanor, , ^ 
 
32 A Woman Sold. 
 
 l/1* Never believe there is not happiness 
 
 Waiting you somewhere. I was helpless once, 
 And thought my life would limp on darkling, lost 
 In the clinging mist. 
 
 Lady B. And now you hope? 
 
 Mary. And now 
 
 I am happy, happy! Better too than that, 
 I make him happy — though that means the same. 
 
 Lady B. You, Mary, you ! I thought you'd mapped 
 your life 
 In solitary busy spinsterhood. 
 
 Mary. And he has quite remapped it. Did I 
 know 
 There was a man like him out in the world 
 Without a woman loving him and loved? 
 And, dear, we seem well paired. We think alike 
 On most things, leaving but some needful points 
 For controversy lest we should be drowsed 
 By nodding constant Yes-es. We blend well 
 In tastes too. And, since we both have known a love 
 Which darkened into storm and wearied us 
 With tossing long unrest — for once he wooed 
 Some fickle beauty and believed he'd won, 
 And then she left him — since we have both known 
 That fret and fevering, 'tis well for us 
 To have, in our fixed trust, calm fearless rest. 
 &> 2> Lady B. Mary, you do not love him ! No, you 
 
 talk 
 
Lady Boycott. t>?> 
 
 Too soberly. You do not love him. No, 
 
 Not with your heart, the very life in you — 
 
 Less will not do. You must not ; no, you niust not. 
 
 You shall not marry so. Oh ! if you guessed 
 
 What it will be to live as a wife lives 
 
 Beside a man who is not all to you ! 
 
 All, all, I tell you. 
 
 Mary. Do you think we love 
 
 But with half hearts because our love to us 
 Is part of daily life, too known a thing 
 To praise or wonder at or analyse ? 
 We are so sure, so happy, love so well, 
 That we forget 'tis loving, as one breathes 
 Pure genial air and never notes one breathes. 
 Not love him ! Well, you'll see him presently. 
 You'll know how far from possible it were 
 For the woman who loves Lionel Ellerton 
 To love a little. You laugh, Eleanor, 
 With that strange bitter laugh of yours that rings 
 Always half like a cry to me who knew 
 The days when you were merry honestly. 
 You scorn such bright monotony, you'd have 
 A love like mountain-showers and sunlights mixed, 
 Dashes of anger but the love light still 
 Prompt to the eyes. But wait, dear Eleanor, 
 Till love worth you, that yet makes you more worth 
 That you may be worth it and him you love. 
 Comes, as it yet will come, must come, and then -* 
 
 3 
 
34 A Woman Sold. 
 
 *'** You'll know what a rich thing my sunshine is, 
 My sunshine that makes beauty everywhere 
 Even upon the little cross black clouds 
 That cannot come athwart it but they change 
 And seem part of the sunshine. 
 
 Lady B. Yes, I know, 
 
 I understand, no doubt you love him well, 
 And he loves you. For your sake I am glad. 
 But, tell me, dear, he never owned the name 
 Of his fickle ladylove, or let you guess ? 
 1 mean, is she repenting all forlorn, 
 A woe-begone thin spinster, mourning him? 
 Or is she plump and cosy, well to do, 
 With a fit husband, house, and chubby babes ? 
 Or dead, more like — one way or other dead. 
 
 Mary. We thought it best and right I should not 
 know. 
 She is living, I might meet her, and 'twere hard 
 Not to be angry with her — though indeed 
 I have so much to thank her for. But then 
 She gave him pain he thought past bearing once 
 And shook his life to the very roots of it. 
 
 Lady B. Dear, I am glad he loves you. It is 
 good 
 To see you happy. I, whom no one loves, 
 Will pray you may be happy, both of you. 
 And I know something of your Lionel, know 
 ><? He is a man well thought of, one I think 
 
Lady Boycott. 35 
 
 We can trust you to. 
 
 Mary. You know him? 
 
 Lady B. Why, he has 
 
 An uncle — or aunt's husband I should say — 
 And cousins — pretty too, the girls — who live 
 Not far from Boycott Hall. Sometimes he comes 
 To see them : I have met him there. They say 
 He's growing famous at the bar, rich too — 
 A very rising man. I give you joy. 
 A husband with both means and merit ! Why, 
 You must have sold your soul to have such luck, 
 Signed a red bond to Satan. 
 
 Mary. Well I think 
 
 We shall know how to cheat him. He'll not gain 
 Much by our marriage. v 
 
 Lady B. Mary, promise me 
 
 You'll not betray me to your Lionel, 
 I would not have your lover know the trash 
 I've told you now. Weak baby trash enough, 
 But still my secret, Mary. 
 
 Mary. No indeed, 
 
 He'll never know it 
 
 Lady B. No, he'll never know it. 
 
 Mary. Listen ! He's there. He thought he might 
 be kept 
 Until to-morrow. But I knew he'd come. 
 
 Lady B. Dear, go to him. I'm tired. I'll rest 
 to-night. 
 
 3—2 
 
36 A Woman Sold. 
 
 J2f You'll say I'm tired — Or no, I'll follow you — 
 'Twill seem strange to your mother. Presently 
 I'll follow. Go to him. 
 
 Mary. Well if I must. (Exit Mary. ) 
 
 Lady B. Her Lionel ! Her husband ! Oh my heart, 
 The pain in it ! Her lover ! If I wait 
 She'll say "We've Lady Boycott here," and then 
 The quick surprise may make him tell her more 
 Than she should know. No, I must go to him, 
 Welcome him briskly, wear the cheerful face 
 Of pleasant meeting: he's my friend's betrothed, 
 And I must take him so. 'Twere easier 
 To ape indifference, dislike itself. 
 But I can play my part, and naturally, 
 And he'll not tell her, he'll be so at ease, 
 So careless of me. 
 
 For she must not know. 
 I will not have her peace one moment stirred. 
 She'd pity me too kindly if she knew, 
 Be sad for me : I will not have her sad. 
 I love her for herself, and Lionel loves — 
 I could know nothing between hate and love, 
 I think, for any woman he would wed, 
 I must thank God I love her. 'Tis best so 
 And comforts me. 
 
 Oh my rare smiling part! 
 My pretty cordial acting ! We shall be 
 
 Li J. A genial pair of friends. We both love her, 
 
Lady Boycott. 37 
 
 And there's our bond. Oh! to be day by day li*~ 
 Talking and talking, smiling and smiling ! Well 
 It will not last for ever. I have lied 
 In smiles and saying nothings prettily 
 To a worse purpose ere to-day. 
 
 Ah me! 
 I thought that I was hopeless : now I know 
 I had a little foolish lingering hope. 
 'Tis strange I could ! I knew so well the truth 
 That I was nothing to him. 
 
 Lionel, 
 I'm coming to you; I, not Eleanor: 
 She's gone, she's dead. But, as for Lady Boycott, 
 Perhaps you'll like her she is Mary's friend. (,1L 
 
%ma Mamini 33. 
 
 1. 
 
 BARTIM^US. 
 
 Blue happy sky, sweet lights of day, 
 Round hills that lean against the air, 
 
 Clear grass blades shining in my way, 
 How beautiful is everywhere ! 
 
 I cannot see all that I would 
 There is so much on every side, 
 This glorious earth is very wide, 
 And so much beauty to it given. 
 
 Dear Lord, the earth is wondrous good, 
 It must be very like thy heaven. 
 
 I see ! I see ! Look the great field, 
 A full bright lake of yellow ears 
 
 So sunlike that my eyes new healed 
 See through a golden mist of tears ! 
 
Bartimceus. 39 
 
 Look, the broad fig-tree over-head, 
 
 Oh cool green brightness through the leaves ! 
 
 What a fair web the spider weaves ! 
 
 Look where 'tis knit across the dock. 
 And who could find a richer red 
 
 Than the flushed poppy's on that rock? 
 
 Beautiful ! beautiful everywhere ! 
 
 Ah now I see that when I most 
 Moaned for lost sight in dim despair 
 
 I but half felt what I had lost. 
 Oh ! sight is happier than I knew : 
 
 I had forgotten more, I find, 
 
 What it was like not to be blind 
 
 Than I believed. What! long ago 
 Was green so green and blue so blue? 
 
 Did I laugh thus to see them so? 
 
 Oh darkness gone i oh dreary days ! 
 
 No human face, no world, no light ! 
 Large darkness meeting my strained gaze, 
 
 Vague darkness making sleep of sight ! 
 And all around things wax and wane, 
 
 And change and growth come over all, 
 
 But the dull eyes see but their pall. 
 
 And in the dark life seems so still; 
 Days come and go but you remain 
 
 With vacant night and drowse your fill. 
 
4-o Anno Domini 33. 
 
 Oh, weariness of darkness gone, 
 Broken as feverish last sleeps break 
 
 Because some sunbeam on us shone 
 And we start up and are awake ! 
 
 He was the sun that shone on me. 
 He looked and I could feel the light, 
 He spoke and once more I had sight, 
 I saw the hills, I saw the sky, 
 
 I saw the sunlight on the tree — 
 And I saw Him and did not die. 
 
 I saw Messiah's very face, 
 
 My daylight seemed to break from Him, 
 And I stood rooted to the place, 
 
 Trembling and cold in every limb. 
 And then I loved Him and was strong. 
 
 He spoke it "Faith has made thee whole.* 
 
 Light in my eyes ! Light in my soul ! 
 
 And I can love Him, and I see ! 
 Oh Lord, the darkness was so long. 
 
 Now I have sight — and I saw Thee! 
 
 Break into song, Oh ! Zion, shout. 
 
 Christ is among us, Christ the Light 
 Darkness is gone, and sin, and doubt. 
 
 Oh golden time ! the blind have sight 
 
Barthncens. 4 1 
 
 Light, light is on us, there is day. 
 From the glad earth a ringing voice 
 Bounds through my heart "Rejoice, rejoice," 
 Behold the day-spring from on high. 
 
 Rejoice the night has passed away, 
 Jesus of Nazareth comes by, 
 
%VLVLB 
 
 ommx 33. 
 
 11. 
 
 JUDAS. 
 
 Aye, what is it to them? They are content. 
 
 He's dead. No shrinking now at words of his 
 
 Scorning them, aye and what they hated more, 
 
 Teaching them, they the teachers. He had eyes 
 
 That saw too far through hearts, and so he's dead. 
 
 And what is it to them if I, the tool 
 
 Who did their wickedness at a low price, 
 
 Am God-accursed? No, they'll not even waste 
 
 A little cheap hypocrisy — no praise 
 
 For serving Israel's Lord, no promises 
 
 Of honour from my nation, no pretence 
 
 Of freeing me from blood-guilt — all that's past. 
 
 "What's that to us? Look to it thou thyself." 
 
 They gathered up my coins, though. All men love 
 The shining of good monies. How they '11 mock : 
 
Judas. 43 
 
 " We drove that bargain well, at least. The fool ! 
 
 To sell his Master on such easy terms, 
 
 And his own soul too — though what's that to us? 
 
 And then to toss us back the price again 
 
 As if that could change matters." 
 
 No, I'll have 
 My money back : they shall not profit so. 
 Rather the sea shall have it. The full sea 
 Will take it greedily, as a man takes, 
 And never look the fuller. But I doubt — 
 Not doubt, I know some horrible strange chance 
 Would kill me if I took it in my hands. 
 I dare not touch it. Let them keep it then, 
 And take the curse with it. 
 
 The price of blood ! 
 And who's? But He, how could he die indeed? 
 He could not with our death. Not if he was 
 Whom I at times believed him, Whom he said. 
 And if he said it falsely then 'twas fit 
 His dupes should be unduped — the priests urged that. 
 I could not go amiss : if he were Christ, 
 His glory would burst forth and dazzle earth, 
 Wake up our Zion, scare the Romans hence; 
 And if not Christ, why then the dread of death 
 Would make him speak plain words of what he was, 
 And be set free forgiven. 
 
 But he'd bate 
 No jot, no tittle, would be only Christ. 
 
44 Anno Domini 33. 
 
 And yet he died. He could not have been Christ. 
 And then what was he? 
 
 When I followed him, 
 The first great day he came among our hills 
 And talked of love and truth, he who was both 
 Whatever else he was, I knew at once 
 That God had sent him to us, and I thought 
 I felt God's voice bid me go forth with him. 
 Who was it sent me with him? Satan then 
 That I might murder him? 
 
 That black slow cloud, 
 Heavy on Calvary, looks ghastly now — 
 He might be in it, He, my lord, my friend. 
 If His face looked on me I should fall dead 
 Even if it should seem no more than man's. 
 I go in dread of that, and every sound 
 Has something of his voice in it. There's talk 
 As if he should appear still on the earth, 
 Stand life-like near the living, speak to them — 
 Great God ! — nay 'tis my folly. That long sigh 
 Of wind among the olives is not new 
 That it should startle me. I've often sat 
 And listened to it when the night came on 
 With its shrill breezy rustlings like the sea 
 We'd hear at home plashing on pebbly shores 
 Far from us, and it always seemed to me 
 To make me quieter as His voice did. 
 His voice ! How every thought comes back to Him ! 
 
Judas. 45 
 
 Can I know nothing then but this one man, 
 Him crucified? Why I have other friends — 
 No I mean had. I lost my natural friends 
 When I cast in my lot with him they thought 
 A devil's preacher sent to cozen us 
 With holy maxims, lost them for his sake, 
 Father and brother, yes my mother too, 
 Teachers and comrades and familiar guests, 
 They turned and loathed me. And my new friends 
 
 now, 
 I am a leper to them, one cast out 
 Past mercy from them. Would there one of them 
 Look upon me if I should crawl to him, 
 Grovel beneath his feet crying "Oh man, 
 Touch me that I may feel I am a man. 
 Touch with thine hand?" Would Peter, or would 
 
 James, 
 Or even sweet-tongued John? Would I forgive 
 If one of them had done the accursed deed? 
 No there's not one in all the world to speak 
 A praying word for me, not even to say 
 "Let him but die and never wake from death 
 Let him not know the name or face of God 
 Nor Jesus whom he slew; let him but die 
 As the beast dies, and rot as the dead tree, 
 And be no more." Himself was merciful, 
 But no mere men would be thus merciful : 
 They'd say " No, let him live on with the sense 
 
46 Anno Domini 33. 
 
 Of darkness round him and of some one near — 
 As if a murderer dragged the corpse with him 
 And shivered sickly lest it should arise 
 And shrivel him with dreadful ghostly looks, 
 Alive with awful life. Yes, let him breathe 
 With the sharp gasps of some mad hunted thing 
 When none pursue. Let him cry out aloud 
 With anguish, and not know how to repent. 
 Let him go agonized with doubt, and know 
 Doubt and belief make no more now for him 
 Than for dumb dogs. Only let him not die 
 And fall asleep." Yes none will say " His pain 
 Is more than he can bear." 
 
 Where Jesus was 
 None could be friendless, none despair: and now- 
 My name is blotted from among the names 
 Of the living, there is no man says to me 
 "Alas my brother!" There is no God for me 
 Who heareth prayer. I only in the world 
 Have not a God to cry to. Who is God 
 But He who sent us Christ? And who is Christ 
 But Jesus the Nazarene, Jesus who had 
 The Godhead in him ? Die, thou lost one, die ! 
 I know him now and tremble, know Him now 
 Whom I believed in vaguely, whom I sold ! 
 How should I pray? "Jehovah whose own Son, 
 A very part of thee, I did to death, 
 Be very gracious to me for His sake?" 
 
Judas. 47 
 
 Aye so, He said prayer should be in his name, 
 And taught us how to use it. Properly 
 'Twould fit my lips — His name a plea for me ! 
 Would God that Baal had a life in him 
 And could at least do harm. I'd pray to him 
 "Baal, for love of my great sin, do thou 
 Give me kind nothingness, make me a thing 
 Like thy block image, soulless, ignorant 
 Of light and darkness and of any thought." 
 "Baal," I'd say, "fall on me, batter me 
 To piecemeal rubbish, and drag down my soul 
 To thy void chaos where 'twill rot with thee, 
 To thy void chaos where God will not come, 
 Nor Jesus." 
 
 Did my heart leap to him once, 
 Our holy Master? Surely it did once. 
 I left my home, even as the others left, 
 Left all my worldly goods to follow him, 
 Even as the others, bore with scoffs and taunts, 
 And tender sad reproach more hard to bear. 
 I loved the holiness he taught, I loved 
 The love, I loved the glorious saintly scorn 
 Of all things tyrannous and cunning, loved 
 The pitying tenderness for all things weak. 
 And then his talk stirred longings in my heart 
 For freer breath than we draw now, strong days 
 Rid of the hindering trammels we have now, 
 Justice and mercy in our streets, rich peace, 
 
48 Anno Domini 33. 
 
 And God to rule and judge us as of old. 
 
 I thought the looked-for King was come in Him, 
 
 And he would so deliver us. I looked 
 
 To see the Romans scattered, fleeing hence, 
 
 Calling in terror on their idle gods, 
 
 Before avenging Israel. I looked 
 
 To have our Zion sing the song of praise, 
 
 And the hills laugh with golden harvests thick 
 
 Up to their brows, and the green valleys ring 
 
 With singing of full rivers through the fields, 
 
 Because the great Messiah King was come 
 
 With spoils in His right-hand of all our foes 
 
 And blessings for the people. But he seemed 
 
 To bow the neck to Caesar patiently 
 
 And care for no deliverance. Poverty 
 
 Was the first blessing that he offered us 
 
 To make the world a kind one. And we saw, 
 
 We who were watching for his cry to sound 
 
 "Now Israel to your tents," we who believed 
 
 We should be leaders under him and lords, 
 
 To have the people honour us, and live 
 
 In our ceiled palaces among the tribes 
 
 Content and prospering around us, saw 
 
 He would but teach submission to the yoke, 
 
 Saw we were only chosen to be poor 
 
 More than all others, meaner, more despised, 
 
 Servants of servants, we. And many turned, 
 
 And saw his face no more. But I remained, 
 
Judas. 49 
 
 I loved his teaching though it angered me, 
 I saw the greatness of it. 
 
 Would to God 
 I too had left him ! 
 
 Why did they all smile 
 With mocking eyes, that day when I was vexed 
 To see the spikenard wasted? If they had had 
 The wisdom to be secret of their thoughts 
 And somewhat less discerning, those prompt priests 
 With their shrewd chaffering might perhaps have had 
 No bargain out of me — I'd said them nay 
 To more before that time, and to my thought 
 They'd ceased to look to me for any help. 
 Why did the others chafe me? If the purse 
 Had now and then, 'twas rarely, furnished me 
 A secret pittance to supply the needs 
 And hide the shame of the poor squalid life 
 I led with sick dislike, had I not lost 
 The promise of good days ? Had I not lost 
 My chance of growing gains, my handicraft 
 To earn me something more than beggar's fare? 
 Did I not always with my nicest skill, 
 Such as not one of them could reach, swell out 
 Our wretched means and make two pence like three ? 
 Why, but by that, I gave more than I took, 
 Threefold and fourfold. Yes the brethren might 
 Have spared their smiles. How hot they made my 
 heart ! 
 
 4 
 
50 Anno Domini 2,3- 
 
 I hated them. 
 
 And then His grave sad look ! 
 He saw too far into men's hearts. What man 
 Can live with one who knows him at his worst? 
 It makes him have- no best. I could not bear 
 Their scorn, His knowing. I would show them all 
 I had some power — aye and I had a purse 
 Besides their bag to draw from. In my haste 
 I went — and afterwards it seemed too late. 
 I know not how, the priests can argue well, 
 If they pay smally. And the time was short; 
 I never seemed to have the space to think, 
 Till I awoke, and knew. 
 
 The time was short. 
 He saw too far into men's hearts: he knew 
 The purpose dizzying mine. Aye, there was need 
 To hasten its fulfilment. Could I wait 
 And nurse it while he watched me ? " What thou doest 
 Do quickly." And I did not dare to ask 
 A meaning for it. He knew me. And I fled 
 Out from his presence. What had it served then 
 To lag and waver, and perchance repent? 
 He knew me. 
 
 Jesus is dead, is dead. Go to, 
 The very devils, sure, must mourn for that; 
 For I mourn. Jesus is dead, who looked on me 
 As if he loved me though he knew me. Dead ! 
 I never thought they'd kill him. Dead, I say. 
 
Judas. 5 1 
 
 Out on you priests with your false glozing tongues, 
 Liars and murderers. Aye shoot your lips, 
 Look with your triumphing cold sidelong looks, 
 Take your full ease again, you've had your way. 
 There's one who could have saved the world from 
 
 death 
 Sickness and sin and weepings, dead through you. 
 What's that to you? There's one, your purchased 
 
 wretch, 
 Mad with the worst guilt the foul world has known, 
 His very prayer made sin. What's that to you? 
 You're very pious, you observe the law, 
 You have no blood- gouts on your fringe, you've caught 
 No unclean taint by touching death too near, 
 You only planned and plotted, you are pure. 
 You kept the high-day too, the cross was bare 
 When the sun set on the mere labouring day. 
 Oh zealous saintly rulers ! holy men ! 
 But I am only a poor common man, 
 And ignorant, and I must bear the curse 
 Of generations of lost death-struck men 
 Who'll cry "One came to save us, Jesus came, 
 But Judas took him from us." If I die 
 Or if I live the cry will still ring out 
 And shiver through and through me worse than pain — 
 "The world is lost, lost, left a prey to death 
 For ever and for ever since Christ died." 
 Oh me accursed ! the dead shall have their graves 
 
 4—2 
 
52 Anno Domini 33. 
 
 For ever, and the living have no hope, 
 Israel have no Messiah ! Will not earth 
 Cover me in her Hades out of sight 
 Of all these men whose souls I have destroyed? 
 I've done so much for death can I not die 
 Body and soul, body and soul, like all; 
 Body and soul out of the sight of death, 
 That I have made the Master of the world; 
 Out of the sight of life and death; henceforth 
 Both misery to every soul that breathes? 
 Why I can die. Why surely I can die 
 Like other men. I only of the world 
 To have the perfect life all were to have — 
 And find it perfect anguish ! That might be : 
 'Twere a rare vengeance on me, well assigned. 
 But death is for us all. I can have death 
 I'll think of it — body and soul asleep ! 
 
%\ma gcrntxm 33. 
 
 in. 
 
 PILATE. 
 
 Pilate. Foolishness ! foolishness ! Fye, you weary 
 me. 
 You are so small, you women, cannot peep 
 Over the fence next to you; so self-willed, 
 You'll not trust other's eyes who see a world 
 Stretched out beyond it. " Dearest" says the man, 
 "I see some certain hills and valleys there; 
 I'll draw them in my picture of the world." 
 "Not so" the woman says, "there's nothing more 
 Than this green yard we stand in. Map it out 
 And that's the world." And so she'll make her roads 
 Run straight to little points within the hedge, 
 And never thinks there may be curves to take 
 To reach great points outside. 
 
 Proda. And does that mean 
 
54 Anno Domini ■$$. 
 
 A woman thinks a judge is to be just, 
 And a man thinks a judge is to resolve 
 What policy were spoiled if he were just? 
 
 Pilate. It means a man, a ruler as I am, 
 Must look beyond the moment, must allay 
 Justice with prudence. Innocence is much 
 To save a man, but is not everything 
 Where a whole province is at stake for Rome. 
 How many lives think you had cost this life 
 Refused to these hot zealots? In one word 
 Sum up the answer — war. You tender soul 
 Who weep so for this one man dead, what tears, 
 What cataracts of tears would wear the sight 
 Out of your frightened eyes if I had been, 
 W 7 hat by the Gods I longed to be, mere just, 
 Had, starving them of their sweet blood- draught, 
 
 roused 
 The wild dog lurking in each several man 
 Of your dear Jews, these stubborn sullen Jews 
 Who are ready any moment to spring up 
 And flesh their teeth in Roman throats ? Aye, think — 
 Bloody rebellion loosed; the ready cry 
 " Insult to Moses' law " howled through the land, 
 Maddening these tiger tribes; the Roman sway 
 Tottering and rent as by an earthquake's throes; 
 Our Romans hacked and maimed and trampled, snared 
 In ambushes and onslaughts in the dark. 
 And then the vengeance ! these your hero Jews, 
 
Pilate. 55 
 
 Whose myths and hymns so take you, trodden out 
 
 Like reptiles underneath the heel; not one, 
 
 But hundreds, crucified ; rapine and fire 
 
 And slaying everywhere. Then, bye and bye, 
 
 The province settled in an angry peace, 
 
 Half our Jews dead, the other half grown dumb 
 
 For utter fear, and Rome supreme again, 
 
 Caesar bethinks him whence the mischief came : 
 
 " Our procurator — What ! to save one man 
 
 Who preached, he thought, a fine philosophy 
 
 He put a slight upon the famous law 
 
 He was bidden touch so gingerly, and set 
 
 The land in that fierce uproar ! Call him home 
 
 And let him answer it." You'd blame me then 
 
 In sadder fashion, Procla. Aye, I know" 
 
 You women do it. Always 'tis a fault, 
 
 Never an evil fortune. A man dies, 
 
 You're wretched, but you tell him while he dies 
 
 It was his fault. 
 
 Procla. Alas ! Have I deserved 
 
 This bitterness? 
 
 Pilate. • Because you harp and harp 
 On one cross theme — that necessary death. 
 You know it vexed me sharply. Let me be. 
 The past is past, the dead are dead, and groans 
 And "would I had nof's will not make not done 
 That which was not done scarce a minute back. 
 Fate's self can never say "the past is not," 
 
56 Anno Domini 33. 
 
 Only the coming swerves for fate or gods, 
 And how can a man's sorrow touch it then? 
 
 Procla. He may find good from sorrow for ill 
 deeds. 
 
 Pilate. What good ? Will sorrow lengthen a man's 
 days 
 Or give him wealth or triumphs ? Sorrow eats 
 Into the heart like a wasp into the fruit, 
 Eats up the pith within you, leaves you, like 
 The Dead Sea dust fruits, proper to the sight 
 For customary use, but inwardly 
 Unserviceable ashes. Do you think 
 I've vexed Apollo or some fire-breathed God 
 Who'll dart a plague on me unless I bend 
 And offer hecatombs? No, no, the wrong 
 Is but against my nature and the man 
 Who died not having sinned; so there is none, 
 Nor God, nor man, to whom I can atone. 
 Nor see I how my sorrowing would help. 
 
 Procla. I know it. Yet, if Jesus were divine — 
 
 Pilate. What then, you Nazarene? 
 
 Procla. Why then 'twould be 
 
 As if you had vexed Apollo. You would bring 
 A sacrifice to make his anger cease. 
 
 Pilate. My child, this Jesus, if he were divine, 
 Was a philosopher. Such would not snuff 
 Our reeking altar smokes with much delight. 
 What sacrifice could he have? 
 
Pilate. 57 
 
 Procla. I have heard 
 
 He used to say the sacrifice to him 
 Was sorrow for ill-doing 
 
 Pilate. Said he that ? 
 
 If a poet now could have his pick of Gods 
 To put in heaven, he'd make him one for that. 
 My Procla, I have heard of many things 
 Most noble and most touching that man taught, 
 And I believe that he, though of mean state, 
 Not tutored as I think in subtle lore 
 Of the wise Greeks nor of our reasoning schools, 
 Would yet have left his stamp upon the world 
 As deep as any sage's, would have raised 
 A school of teachers of the highest flight 
 Who might perhaps have learned for us some things 
 We vaguely yearn to know of, found perhaps 
 Something to take for real and hold fast 
 In the confusion of philosophies 
 And shifting dulled traditions of our Gods 
 Who let us wander on and make no sign — 
 For what are we to them or they to us? 
 Something at least to take for starting point 
 Amid the coil of labyrinths that twist 
 And fret and cross and bring us back again 
 To where we were, the labyrinths that seem 
 To wreath and puzzle round a gaping void 
 Where truth, we're told, should be, — a starting point 
 To find the clue from, and perhaps the goal.... 
 
58 Anno Domini $$. 
 
 Which our philosophers put* out of count, 
 As if the work was to make labyrinths, 
 More than we have, and see where they might end. 
 For him, he seemed, if he had not seen truth, 
 At least to think he had; and that is much. 
 And if I could have saved him, but for this 
 That he might reason with me, I had done it 
 And I, whom the Jews call a cruel man, 
 At least love justice as a Roman should, 
 And that man's innocence, (I tell you this 
 That you may cease to make my trouble worse), 
 Weighs on me like my guilt, though I indeed 
 Absolve myself from share in dooming him. 
 But there was no way left; you know I tried 
 To save him and I failed. No more of this. 
 Now never vex me with his name again, 
 Unless you'd have me loathe you as I loathe 
 The murderous Jews who dragged their victim from 
 
 me 
 By threats of Caesar. 
 
 Procla. No, you'll love me still. 
 
 I will not fret you, you are grieved enough. 
 But you'll have his name forced upon you yet— 
 They say he's risen. 
 
 Pilate. Pretty simpleton, 
 
 You look as awestruck, draw your breath as quick 
 As if you were no wiser than the geese 
 That cackle in the back lanes of all towns. 
 
Pilate. 59 
 
 Risen, my baby ! I have heard this talk. 
 
 And do you think death but an actor's mask 
 
 To be thrown off and there's the man alive? 
 
 I would he could be risen. I should laugh 
 
 To see the Jews' scared faces. More than that 
 
 I should be thankful, sleep more easily; 
 
 And you'd smile all the sweeter. But the dead 
 
 Lie stark and helpless, then rot into earth, 
 
 And there's an end. That's the deep sadness, child, 
 
 Which all our hearts, outface it as we will, 
 
 Faint at and whimper at through all our thoughts, 
 
 That the dead are really dead and not asleep, 
 
 And so there is no rising. Nay indeed 
 
 If they should rise, what body could they wear? 
 
 Is there not loathsome mildewing decay 
 
 That eats the putrid flesh? My fond fair wife, 
 
 Let us take life as softly as we can 
 
 So hard a toil, and gild it with all joys, 
 
 And not nurse sorrow on it, as you'd do, 
 
 Because of evil chances; for so soon 
 
 As it is given us foul death begins 
 
 To nibble at it, and one day he gnaws 
 
 The heartstrings and we go back to the earth, 
 
 And there's nor joy nor sorrow nor fond hope, 
 
 For we are nothing. 
 
 Procla. Do you think indeed 
 
 There is no soul? 
 
 Pilate. I know there is a soul, 
 
60 Anno Domini 33. 
 
 Since there's a body and the body moves 
 
 And feels and breathes, though 'tis such reeking dung 
 
 When something's gone, the something that is soul. 
 
 But that dies first, gasps into nothingness, 
 
 And after that the body dies and fats 
 
 The earth it came of. Nay, if the soul lived 
 
 As part of the great breath we call the air 
 
 And so a part of life and every life, 
 
 What life were that to us to call it ours? 
 
 We die, my Procla, and to die is death. 
 
 Procla. Those Jewish wondrous writings which I 
 love 
 And you call glorious phantasies allow 
 Another sense to death — which one should come 
 To show men plainly, so that none should die. 
 Oh husband, if this Jesus were the man 
 Or god who was to show it ! 
 
 Pilate. Aye, indeed 
 
 That were a parlous loss ! But they can hope 
 And dream without a teacher, and what more 
 Could any teach them than to hope and dream? 
 And now, dear Procla, leave me, I have work, 
 Letters and long reports to write for Rome. 
 Go to your tapestries — a titter use, 
 And fairer, for your wits than these sad thoughts 
 Which, saddening us, may make us sooner die, 
 But cannot soften death. Go dear. 
 
 Procla. I go. 
 
Pilate. 6 1 
 
 But as for tapestries, the needle flies 
 
 And thought flies quicker. Sorrow will not die 
 
 Upon the needle's point. Good bye awhile. 
 
 Pilate. Good bye, be merry, and forget this talk. 
 
 {Exit Procla.) 
 Aye, so one says forget. She may forget : 
 Women are but bird-minded, flying quick 
 And eager from one tree-perch to the next, 
 And sometimes lighting on a thorny bough, 
 By chance, but not for long. A day or two 
 And she'll forget the prophet, be content 
 With her dear Jewish legends. But, for me, 
 Her sobbings and her talk will vex me, long 
 Past her remembering them. I'm strangely moved! 
 Indeed these several days I have not lost 
 The sense of shame that shook me when he looked 
 With quiet eyes at me, standing condemned 
 By my allowance. Wonderful weird man ! 
 If gods indeed would take men's shapes, I'd say 
 I saw the God in him. It is past thought 
 That any, even haters like the Jews, 
 Could hate him. Well they did and murdered him. 
 But I am guiltless of his blood. I went 
 To the utmost verge of prudence — nay, beyond — 
 To check the infuriate mob. Yes, by the gods, 
 No light task 'twould have been to clear myself 
 For my part in the mischief, if there 'd grown 
 A riot from the trial, and that seemed like 
 
62 Anno Domini 33. 
 
 Before I yielded. They are hard at Rome 
 On luckless governors. Aye, aye, my Jews 
 Had made a rare case of it: for the man, 
 Though to our Roman sense most innocent 
 Of all save too much wisdom for their wits, 
 Was doubtless somewhere tangled in the toils 
 Of their fastidious laws. Why, he had washed 
 At the wrong time — or had not washed, which was 
 
 it? 
 He said the Scribes were pedants and the priests 
 Rank hypocrites... which only we may say, 
 And which we're bidden not say to the Jews ; 
 He told the mob their God was, after all, 
 More than their Moses ; and, most heinous sin, 
 He healed their sick on sabbaths. By their law 
 He ought to die; their rulers urged that loud. 
 Never let any say I was unjust. 
 "The Son of God" he took for name, they said. 
 Belike one of their Syriac metaphors 
 Which, like hot-tempered kestrels, overfly 
 The quarry aimed at. But, if he did mean 
 To boast a mystic kindred with some source 
 Of life and thought divinely different 
 From the every-day plain sires who made our lives, 
 I'd never mock his claim until I knew 
 Its secret import. Not if the title was 
 Of his own taking. If the sheepish herds, 
 That flock around each new teacher, all asweat 
 
Pilate. 63 
 
 With running and jostling for the nearest place, 
 
 To stare and wonder what he means and cry 
 
 " Oh the rare teacher !" till the next one comes, 
 
 So dubbed him, why, 'tis but the ancient tale : 
 
 The multitude, self-conscious, thinks a man 
 
 Must be a fool and base, and when it finds 
 
 One who is neither, or at least not both, 
 
 Is sure by that his father is a god, 
 
 Or he's a god himself, or going to be. 
 
 But Jesus if he said I am the Son 
 
 Of a divine one, or of the One God, 
 
 Implied some esoteric subtlety 
 
 With a great import — for I looked on him 
 
 And heard him speak, and his was no crazed soul, 
 
 Fired from its own dank heat like ill-housed ricks ; 
 
 And no impostor, sane, would in such stead 
 
 Have kept so obstinate a courage. 
 
 : , Truth! 
 He claimed to know truth, which no man yet knew. 
 Was that his meaning? Truth is real life, 
 Such as the gods might have, and he had reached 
 To truth and so was as One near the gods, 
 Or near the great One God — which possibly 
 Is but a name of life. 
 
 But why waste thought 
 To beat out the philosophy or creed 
 He would have taught, from the disfiguring husks 
 Rough rumour gives as grain ? The man is dead ; 
 
64 Anno Domini 33. 
 
 Guilty or innocent, wise or possessed, 
 
 He sleeps the silent sleep which ends all hope, 
 
 And we may bawl our questions at his door, 
 
 He'll make no answer. Dead philosophers 
 
 Are just as useful to the living world 
 
 As are dead lions, or dead rats... they help 
 
 To make good soil. As for the coins they leave, 
 
 Of thought, for us to heir, why, ninety-nine 
 
 Out of each hundred stamp their own images 
 
 On all their dies, and so the coins mean nought, 
 
 Save to disciples who will let them pass 
 
 As money 'twixt themselves, still bickering, 
 
 The while, about their values. If by chance 
 
 We take the mint of one man for some worth, 
 
 Then in a trice we're rich with counterfeits 
 
 Yielding base metal to the assayer's tests. 
 
 Let the sage live and give us his own gold, 
 
 That's something : we are all disciples then 
 
 After a fashion. For at least we're sure 
 
 That what we hear him speak he speaks — or thus, 
 
 The sounds he makes have such results on ears 
 
 Which are our own, and so we say we're sure, 
 
 Though in true sense we're sure of nothing. 
 
 Aye, 
 We're sure of nothing. That's the wretched void 
 Which makes all thinking sad and like the wind 
 That with much blustering breaks itself a way 
 And passes on to nowhere. We live now, 
 
Pilate. 65 
 
 And life means a great hurrying on to death; 
 And then we die and death means nothingness; 
 And weep, or scoff, or reason at it, still 
 Two facts so bald as these are all we have 
 For fruit of all our pains, and those we had 
 Taking no pains at all. All other things, 
 As how we live, and why, and whence, remain 
 A fretting mystery. Like shipwrecked men 
 We try to float upon a sea of doubts : 
 We'd swim for shore if there were any shore, 
 But the only ground at hand to give us rest 
 Is the loathed home of dead things underneath. 
 This Jesus now — how strangely he has seized 
 Upon my mind ! I cannot lose the sense 
 Of his sad look fixed on me sovereign 
 With patient high rebuke — he seemed to wear 
 A quiet on him, as if he did rest, 
 As if he somehow would have given rest 
 To those who learned of him. But he is dead ; 
 And I half feel as if in killing him 
 They had refused the last hope of the world 
 For any comfort in the heavy gloom 
 That death and doubt throw on it. They I say we. 
 I am accomplice; gloze it as I will 
 With fair and true excuses, in my heart 
 It rankles a great shame and bitterness. 
 I killed him, I, the unjust and coward judge 
 Who cringed before the passion of a mob 
 
 5. 
 
66 A?ino Domini 33. 
 
 And was their tool. Gods ! 'twas a hideous deed, 
 A dastardly foul deed, to let him die. 
 I'm sick at it, I'm weary like a man 
 Who carries crimes on him he dares not name 
 Even to his next and dearest lest they'd turn 
 And loathe him. Every creeping silent hour 
 Since I beheld him haled forth to the cross 
 Has dragged an age of thought with it, and what 
 I know not how to name except as dread. 
 
 And yet what do I dread ? But more and more, 
 Like a poor baby shuddering in the dark 
 And peopling loneliness with awful shades, 
 I feel as if I could not be alone 
 Because I tremble. Somewhere there must be 
 A terror near, or why should I be scared? 
 There's all my reasoning. The baby cries, 
 And some one helps it, lights it safe to bed. 
 The man must hold his peace, or they'll say "mad" 
 And chain and lash him long before he's mad 
 With trying to make out his bugbear's shape. 
 
 Nay I'll not peer for mine. I could not bear 
 Poor Procla's fancies and I sent her hence, 
 To be in peace, but my own fancies are 
 Like monster shadows, hers thrown hideously 
 On lurid mists. What ! can I never now 
 Trust myself with myself? Must there still come 
 This madman's mood upon me, as if guilt 
 Were more than man can bear who yet bears death 
 
Pilate. 67 
 
 With pleasantness if any one be near 
 To give him honour for it? 
 
 Ah ! they say 
 Through all his anguish he would still look down 
 With an ineffable strange pitying, 
 As if 'twas those below who died, not he ; 
 They say through all he — nay, no more of this. 
 The crime sits hard enough on my wrung mind 
 Without these useless broodings to swell out 
 Its vampire bulk. I know too certainly 
 I shall be haunted with it all my days, 
 As if the Furies clung to me. But I 
 Refuse the guilt, I did not will the doom; 
 Let the Jews look to it, they took his death 
 On them and on their children. 
 
 But if aught 
 Could purify me I'd give this right hand 
 The water should have cleansed from that just blood, 
 To purchase that redemption. 
 
 Well, 'tis naught. 
 To weep past evil is a vainer thing 
 Than to shake drops of dew upon the fire. 
 I'll think no more of it — were't possible 
 I'd never think again. There's much to do, 
 These letters should be sent to Rome at once. 
 
 5—2 
 
%nna gornmi 33. 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE WALK TO EMM A US. 
 
 Cleopas. I cannot see to reason, 'tis as if 
 I walked amid a cloud and saw all blurred 
 Through its slow hazes, nothing certain shaped. 
 What this portends I guess not. But 'tis strange. 
 
 The other Disciple. Most strange indeed ! The 
 closing stone roll'd back 
 By stealth ! the body stolen from the tomb ! 
 Think you the rulers have done this, for fear 
 His tomb should be a sacred place for us 
 Who loved him, and the fickle people, moved 
 With memory of his great signs and words, 
 Might come and touch his tomb with reverence, 
 And build about it a great monument 
 To honour him to all the future days, 
 A prophet, yea and more? 
 
The Walk to Emmaus. 69 
 
 Cleopas. Nay but they said, 
 
 The women, they had looked upon and heard 
 A vision of great angels. 
 
 The other. Idle tales. 
 
 Alas ! they have been weeping now so long, 
 They go distraught for sorrow. One of them 
 Had a sick fancy, and the rest, all scared 
 And horror-struck because the dead was gone, . 
 Believed her ravings, and came huddling back, 
 Breathless like children who have news to tell 
 And could not wait to see if it were true 
 Lest some one else should tell it first. Their words 
 Seemed to the Apostles idle tales, and they 
 Know more than we. 
 
 Cleopas. But then the Lord is gone. 
 
 The other. Yes they have taken him. Would we 
 but knew 
 Where they have laid him ! Will they wreak their 
 
 hate 
 Even on the dead ? Oh cruel ! could they not 
 Have left us so much comfort as there is 
 To weep outside a grave ? 
 
 Cleopas. And yet he talked 
 
 Of rising. 
 
 The other. Dost thou think it ? Did that mean 
 That he should rise his own same self again? 
 
 Cleopas. Alas who knows? He shewed us many 
 things 
 
70 Anno Domini ■$$. 
 
 Which we perceived but dimly, for weak eyes 
 Wink at the light and see it in a haze. 
 We cannot tell. He said he was the life, 
 Yet he saw death. He came to be our light, 
 And we grope in the darkness, crying out 
 To know which way we tend, and none replies, 
 Nor takes our hand to set us in the path. 
 
 The other. Aye, we may weep. We seemed to 
 have a hope 
 For Israel and for us. And lo ! the strength 
 Of Satan has been stronger than Christ's strength. 
 We are given over to our sins and death, 
 God will not pity us. He has looked down 
 On Israel's stubbornness, and turns aside 
 His purposed blessing from us. Jesus came 
 And said "Be happy, be the sons of God." 
 And Israel answered " Nay, but we will have 
 The yoke that is too heavy and the pain 
 That is too sharp. We will not come to thee 
 For life, but we will live our life and die." 
 And Israel answered "Nay but thy sweet words 
 Are bitter in our ears because of sin. 
 Depart from us, be dumb among the dead." 
 And so they slew him. Oh ! our Master slain 
 With the transgressors ! And the promise given 
 For ages and for ages, Israel's hope 
 And consolation, marred in the very hour 
 Of its fulfilment ! Now shall men drudge on 
 
The Walk to Emmaus. 71 
 
 For ever in the same unhopeful round, 
 Sadder than sunless days, for Christ is slain 
 Who was the Sun of lives. 
 
 Cleopas. So after all 
 Thou too continuest sure he is the Christ. 
 
 The other. We who have known him, know he 
 was the Christ 
 Because he told us so. In all this doubt 
 We will not doubt of that. But, woe is me 
 For our lost hope ! Christ should have ruled the world. 
 Cleopas. Therefore it seems to me death cannot have 
 Dominion over him. 
 
 The other. It should be so. 
 
 But he is dead. 
 
 Cleopas. Yet if the angels spake 
 
 "Why will ye seek the living with the dead? 
 He is not here." 
 
 The other. Alas ! my Cleopas, 
 
 We saw him die. 
 
 Cleopas. There is another life. 
 
 The other. Yes, some dim other life which was a 
 sleep 
 Until Messiah came... then should be life. 
 But he has come, and now what is that life? 
 For whom do the sleepers wait? 
 
 Cleopas. My brother, hear. 
 
 I am not subtle, cannot gather up 
 The several threads of counter prophecies 
 
72 Anno Domini 33. 
 
 And show them crossing but as woof and warp, 
 
 But I trust God and Jesus whom he sent, 
 
 Whom we call Lord. God shall save Israel 
 
 From all their sins : the promise was set forth 
 
 In many signs and many various words, 
 
 And came scarce a day later to the world 
 
 Than sin itself, which the serpent taught the world. 
 
 The promise was because of sins. Shall then 
 
 The father of all sins, who is the serpent, 
 
 Be master of the world through Israel's sin 
 
 Against the promise? Can men thwart God's will? 
 
 Jesus also himself declared to us 
 
 We should be comforted. How comforted, 
 
 If he sleep carelessly among the dead, 
 
 And the hope die with him? Since Christ is come 
 
 It must be that the promise is fulfilled, 
 
 And is fulfilled in him? 
 
 The other. Fulfilled? But how? 
 
 Cleopas. I know not. Oh, my brother, we must 
 weep, 
 And the tears darken out the light. 
 
 The other. We weep 
 
 Because the light is gone. 
 
 Cleopas. Oh Jesus, Lord, 
 
 Light out of Heaven, our glory and our love, 
 Thou art gone from us. Gone ! Oh ! can the dead 
 Hear thee and love thee as the living once? 
 Why then the dead are living, we are dead. 
 
The Walk to Emmaus. 73 
 
 Let us live with thee Lord among the dead. 
 
 Alas ! I am a blind man crying out 
 
 For sight, and know not if my eyes would wake 
 
 On only heavy darkness of the night 
 
 Or if there's day upon the earth. 
 
 The other. Alas ! 
 
 Can day give any comfort to the blind? 
 And, Jesus gone, we every one are blind, 
 With none to heal us. Oh our light ! our life ! 
 Thou gone we are blind, we are dead. Oh Cleopas, 
 Had God forsaken him? 
 
 Cleopas. Oh no, no, no. 
 
 It could not be. Our Christ ! the Son of God ! 
 
 The other. The Son of God, as we believe, God's 
 Own, 
 A very part of God. And yet he died 
 Even as a man dies whose life is wind. 
 And where then is our hope? 
 
 Cleopas. Woe, woe, is me ! 
 
 Is then our hope made vanity? Is life 
 The way to death ? Nothing but the way to death ? 
 Shall the world lie in darkness to the end 
 And desolate? 
 
 AND JESUS HIMSELF DREW NEAR. 
 
THE OLD YEAR OUT AND THE NEW 
 YEAR IN 
 
 Ring then, ring loudly, merry midnight bells, 
 
 Peal the new lord of days blithe welcoming — 
 What though your sweet-scaled tones be also knells, 
 
 Be knells the while for the old fallen king 
 Resting his dying head upon the snow? 
 Ring out the old year, for the new year ring. 
 
 Mock him with laughing voices, bid him go; 
 It Let him make haste to rest among the dead, 
 He is no more a lord for life to know. 
 
 Ring in the coming year; his power has fled, 
 
 He has no blessing and no sorrow more. 
 Ah well ; yet should no tear for him be shed ? 
 
 Surely some gift of good to men he bore, 
 
 He too was greeted as an honoured guest; 
 Ah fickle! do we joy his reign is o'er? 
 
The Old Year out and the New Year in. 75 
 
 Should we so vex him, as he sinks to rest, 
 
 Greeting with glad acclaim his passing sigh? 
 He droops into his grave unmourned, unblest; 
 
 With dying ears he hears the joyous cry 
 
 That bids his rival take his crown and reign ; 
 The mirth of music and of songs laughs by; 
 
 He hears men merry at his dying pain, 
 
 "He breathes his last, laugh him a gay good-bye," — 
 And yet he did not live with us in vain. 
 
 But what is this to me? Well, let him die. 
 
 Did he bring any joy or good to me? 
 He taught me tears, shall tears now flood mine eye ? 
 
 But I among the rest make jubilee, 
 
 (Here in the midnight, sitting all alone, 
 Far in my heart from any thought of glee), 
 
 And, triumphing to see him overthrown, 
 
 I say " Yes die, make haste to thy far flight, 
 Let the new days reap that which thou hast sown." 
 
 For thou hast sown ; and if thy stormful might 
 
 Has crushed the buddings of the former years, 
 Ah well ! their fields of promise were too bright, 
 
76 The Old Year out and the New Year in. 
 
 Too bright — oh ! childish folly of vain tears, 
 
 To weep for weeds which were no more than fair, 
 And dwarfed the fulness of the golden ears ! — 
 
 Too bright with cornflowers and the crimson flare 
 
 Of idle poppies, and with purpled chains 
 Of trailing vetch too frail its weight to bear. 
 
 Well, thou hast broken them with thy strong rains 
 And buried them to death beneath thy snows — 
 What though with them have sunk the swelling grains ? 
 
 For nought can perish quite; the crimson glows 
 
 Will be more faint, the purples pale away, 
 But harvest wealth will wave in closer rows. 
 
 The buried blooms give life from their decay, 
 And strength and fulness to the aftergrowth, 
 Out from their graves it climbs to perfect day. 
 
 So comes a richer fruit. Why am I wroth 
 
 With thee, old year ? And yet I am content : 
 Now in that thought, now this, and doubting both. 
 
 I say "Haste hence; I joy thy life is spent, 
 
 I shall breathe freer when thy reign is o'er ; 
 Let the young lord of hopes make his ascent." 
 
The Old Year out and the New Year in. 77 
 
 I say "Oh dying year, my heart is sore 
 
 For thee who hast become a part of me, 
 I grieve that I shall see thy face no more." 
 
 And all the while the death-chills creep o'er thee 
 Lying on thy cold couch 'mid snow and rain; 
 A moment now, and thou hast ceased to be. 
 
 Hark ! hark ! the music of the merry chime ! 
 
 The King is dead ! God's blessing on the King ! 
 Welcome with gladness this new King of Time. 
 
 Oh merry midnight bells, ring blithely, ring, 
 
 Wake with your breathless peal the startled night, 
 High in your belfry in mad frolic swing. 
 
 Laugh out again, sweet music and delight, 
 
 In happy homes a moment hushed to hear 
 The midnight strokes boom out the old year's flight. 
 
 See, he is gone for ever, the old year, 
 
 Why should we vex our hearts with sad farewells ? 
 Let the dead sleep, bare not his shrouded bier. 
 
 Ring on, ring yet more gladly, merry bells, 
 
 Peal the new lord of days glad welcoming— 
 What though your happy chimes be also knells? 
 
IN THE STORM. 
 
 A wild rough night : and through the gloomy grey 
 One sees the blackness of the headland grow, 
 
 One sees the whiteness of the upflung spray, 
 The whiteness of the breakers down below. 
 
 A wild wild night : and on the shingly rim 
 
 The furious sea-surge roars and frets and rives ; 
 
 And far away those black specks, growing dim, 
 Are tossing with their freights of human lives. 
 
 And all the while upon the silent height 
 
 The strong white star, beneath' the starless sky, 
 
 Shines through the dimness of the troubled night, 
 Shines motionless while the vexed winds hoot by. 
 
 Oh ! steadfast light, across dark miles of sea 
 
 How many straining eyes whence sleep is chased 
 
 Are watching through the midnight storm for thee 
 Large glimmering through the haze to the grey waste ! 
 
In the Storm. 79 
 
 And in the night, fond mothers, scared awake, 
 And lonely wives, pushing the blind aside, 
 
 See thee and bless thee for their sailor's sake, 
 And thank God thou art there, the dear ship's guide. 
 
 Oh ! strong calm star, so watching night by night, 
 And hour by hour, when storm-winds are astir, 
 
 They find thee changeless with thy patient light, 
 A beacon to the sea-tossed wanderer. 
 
 Oh strong and patient ! Once upon my life 
 Shone such a star, and, when the trouble wave 
 
 Reached me and I grew faint with tempest strife, 
 Through all I saw that hope-star and was brave. 
 
 Oh my lost star ! my star that was to me 
 Instead of sunlight that the happy know ! 
 
 Oh weary way upon life's trackless sea ! 
 
 And through the gloom there shines no beacon glow. 
 
NEVER AGAIN. 
 
 Never again. This shivering rose, that sees 
 Its dwindled blossoms droop and fall to earth 
 Before the dullness of the Autumn rain, 
 Will bud next summer with more fair than these — 
 But when have love's waned smiles a second birth? 
 Never again, Never again. 
 
 Never again. Oh dearest do you know 
 All the long mournfulness of such a word? 
 And even you who smile now on my pain 
 May seek some day for love lost long ago 
 And sigh to the long echo faintly heard 
 Never again, Never again. 
 
 Never again. The love we break to-day 
 May linger in my heart unto the last; 
 And even with you some memory must remain, 
 But ah ! no more. The sunlight died away 
 Will wake again, but never wakes the past — 
 Never again, Never again. 
 
GOING. 
 
 The ripples break upon the beach, 
 And sway the shadow of the heights ; 
 
 The long slant beams that shoreward reach 
 Are fretted in a thousand lights. 
 
 But on the shore *he- stillness dreams, 
 In the blue sky the hill-tops sleep, 
 
 And through the haze of golden gleams 
 The quiet shadows show more deep. 
 
 Oh silent hills ! oh sleeping shore ! 
 
 Soon shall I lose you in the grey 
 Of stealthy evening creeping o'er, 
 
 Of evening darkening o'er the bay. 
 
 Oh silent hills ! oh sleeping shore ! 
 
 The waning light will come again, 
 But I shall look on you no more, 
 
 For me morn wakens you in vain. 
 
 Sleep on, fair shore and sun-loved hills — 
 I seek the land where I was born; 
 
 I seek the grey north with its chills; 
 I shall not look on you at morn. 
 
 6 
 
THE RED STAR ON THE HILL. 
 
 I wake before the morn, when all is still ; 
 
 No noisy crowing clamours yet to hail 
 That first long glimmer o'er the eastern hill. 
 
 Dim shadow rests upon the quiet vale; 
 
 Night silence holds it yet in happy rest; 
 Voiceless the silver river shimmers pale; 
 
 One star peeps shily through the clouded west 
 
 Above the moor's low blackness stretching wide 
 From the dusk ridges of the wood's long crest. 
 
 One light gleams redly on the mountain side 
 
 And seems to cheer the gloom. And yet perchance 
 That gleam were more with thought of grief allied. 
 
 Perhaps a mother, with love-restless glance, 
 
 Sits lonely by it, weeping in the night, 
 Watching the tokens of death's stern advance ; 
 
The Red Star on the Hill. 83 
 
 And with a trembling hand she trims the light 
 
 That flickers strangely on his dying face, 
 Her son's dear face that lies so worn and white ; 
 
 And prays unceasing that dear Heaven's grace 
 
 May yet withdraw him from the Cold One's grasp, 
 And seeks in vain for sign of his retrace. 
 
 Perhaps this moment hears his dying gasp, 
 
 And she, all stony in her mother-woe, 
 Feels a dead hand lie heavy in her clasp. 
 
 Some grief, alas ! that little star's red glow 
 
 Has surely shone on through a troubled night, 
 Some anguish such as pallid watchers know. 
 
 And I, who, wakened ere the morning light 
 By a vague consciousness of inward pain, 
 Look outward through the gloom with tear-dimmed 
 sight, 
 
 And, feeling power is given me in vain 
 
 Of joying in degree surpassing speech, 
 Pine as one hill-born tethered to a plain, 
 
 And sigh because my days may never reach 
 
 Fullness of life and love their need to fill — 
 Somewhat my thoughts my sicklier fancy teach. 
 
 6—2 
 
84 The Red Star on the Hill 
 
 Seeing that sorrow-star upon the hill, 
 
 And reading many's sorrows by its ray, 
 I turn me from myself with holier will, 
 
 And know my feet tread not too rough a way, 
 Though some sharp stones lie crimsoned from their 
 blood ; 
 Know I have cause to thank as well as pray. 
 
 And know moreover that, well understood, 
 
 It is great love that gives us not all joy, 
 So we may learn more joy in others' good, 
 
 And learn a love more free from self's alloy, 
 And so" live deeply, having heavenly food, 
 Being love-workers in God's great employ. 
 
A MESSENGER. 
 
 Summer wind surging the branches, 
 Dost thou come from the far away shore by the sea ? 
 Was my love looking out on the waves astir, <- 
 Thinking "Ah would they might bear me to her," c 
 And did he whisper his thought to thee? L 
 
 Hast thou no message for me? i, 
 
 Summer wind kissing the roses, 
 Summer wind come to me here from the sea, 
 Is my true love sighing for when he was here 
 With his lips to the lips that he holds so dear? 
 Did he whisper a little word to thee ? 
 
 Hast thou no message for me? 
 
 Summer wind wooing the lily, 
 Summer wind come far away from the sea, 
 Is his love as true and as single yet 
 As it was when our parting tears were wet? 
 Did he whisper his faith and his trust to thee? 
 
 Hast thou no message for me? 
 
86 A Messenger. 
 
 Summer wind fretting the willow, 
 Summer wind stolen from the shore by the sea, 
 Is my true love longing and lone at heart 
 In the bright rest-days where I have no part? 
 Did he not whisper his yearning to thee? 
 
 Hast thou no message for me? 
 
 Summer wind waving the ivy, 
 Summer wind sent to me here from the sea, 
 Is my true love counting the days that go by 
 Ere he clasp my life into his till I die? 
 Did he not whisper his longing to thee? 
 
 Hast thou no message for me? 
 
THE RIVER. 
 
 They rode through the wood at the dead of night, 
 
 Three knights and a lady sad and pale, 
 While the moon drooped down with a wan weird light, 
 And a low wind sighed through the sleeping dale, 
 And the dead leaves rustled under their tread, 
 And the trees swayed muttering overhead, 
 And the moans of the forest pines came nigh; 
 But the river rolled onward silently. 
 
 Two of the knights rode^straight and strong, 
 
 But the middle one bowed on his horse's mane, 
 And the winding path that they came along 
 Was_£racked with a terrible crimson stain, 
 And a terrible sound, as of dying groans, 
 Rose as they passed o'er the broken stones 
 Down where the gorge lay bare to the sky, 
 And the river rolled onward silently. 
 
 And the lady wailed with a piteous woe, 
 
 While they rode on steadily down the bank 
 Where the blackness of water lay below 
 
 And the tall sedge-weeds grew lush and dank; 
 And the lady shrieked and prayed for grace, 
 But her brothers rode to the fording place 
 And looked with a triumphing deadly eye 
 Where the river was rolling on silently. 
 
88 The River. 
 
 They rode their steeds to the middle stream — 
 The water stood at each horse's mouth — 
 
 They waited awhile in the dreary gleam 
 
 While their wearied chargers slaked their drouth; 
 
 And they raised from his saddle the wounded 
 knight — 
 
 One moment his armour flashed in the light, 
 
 Then an eddy whirled and passed slowly by, 
 And the river rolled onward silently. 
 
 Two plashes, a face twice seen to rise, 
 
 The water a moment tinged with gore, 
 Then a gurgle heard mid the lady's cries, 
 
 A sudden bubble and all was o'er. — 
 And the knights rode quickly back to the bank 
 Where the lady watched while her lover sank — 
 Three that had come and but two to hie — 
 And the river rolled onward silently. 
 
 But the lady struck at her palfrey's side 
 
 And plunged him down with a plashing bound 
 
 Into the dark stream's deepest tide, 
 
 And they saw the white wreaths of foam whirl 
 round; 
 
 And the palfrey swam to the farthest shore, 
 
 But the lady came to the land no more. 
 
 And two lay dead where but one should die. 
 But the river rolled onward silently. 
 
TWO MAIDENS. 
 
 Two maidens listening to the sea — 
 The younger said "The waves are glad, 
 The waves are singing as they break." 
 
 The elder spake 
 " Sister, their murmur sounds to me 
 
 So very sad." 
 
 Two maidens looking at a grave — 
 One smiled "A place of happy sleep. 
 It would be happy if I slept." 
 
 The younger wept 
 "Oh save me from the rest you crave, 
 
 So lone, so deep." 
 
 Two maidens gazing into life — 
 
 The younger said "It is so fair, 
 
 So warm with light and love and pride." 
 
 The elder sighed 
 "It seems to me so vexed with strife, 
 . So cold ,and bare." 
 
 Two maidens face to face with death — 
 The elder said "With quiet bliss 
 Upon his breast I lay my head." 
 
 The younger said 
 " His kiss has frozen all my breath, 
 
 Must I be his?" 
 
THE GIFT. 
 
 Oh happy glow, oh sun-bathed tree, 
 
 Oh golden-lighted river, 
 A love-gift has been given me, 
 
 And which of you is giver ? 
 
 I came upon you something sad, 
 Musing a mournful measure, 
 
 Now all my heart in me is glad 
 With a quick sense of pleasure. 
 
 I came upon you with a heart 
 Half sick of life's vexed story, 
 
 And now it grows of you a part, 
 Steeped in your golden glory. 
 
 A smile into my heart has crept 
 And laughs through all my being, 
 
 New joy into my life has leapt, 
 A joy of only seeing ! 
 
 Oh happy glow, oh sun-bathed tree, 
 
 Oh golden-lighted river, 
 A love-gift has been given me, 
 
 And which of you is giver ? 
 
IF? 
 
 If I should die this night, (as well might be, 
 
 So pain has on my weakness worked its will), 
 And they should come at morn and look on me 
 
 Lying more white than I am wont, and still 
 
 In the strong silence of unchanging sleep, 
 
 And feel upon my brow the deepening chill, 
 
 And know me gathered to His time-long keep, 
 
 The quiet watcher over all men's rest, 
 And weep as those around a death-bed weep — 
 
 There would no anguish throb my vacant breast, 
 
 No tear-drop trickle down my stony cheek, 
 No smile of long farewell say " Calm is best." 
 
 I should not answer aught that they should speak, 
 
 Nor look my meaning out of earnest eyes, 
 Nor press the reverent hands that mine should seek; 
 
 But, lying there in such an awful guise, 
 
 Like some strange presence from a world unknown 
 Unmoved by any human sympathies, 
 
92 Iff 
 
 Seem strange to them, and dreadfully alone, 
 
 Vacant to love of theirs or agony, 
 Having no pulse in union with their own. 
 
 Gazing henceforth upon infinity 
 
 With a calm consciousness devoid of change, 
 Watching the current of the years pass by, 
 
 And watching the long cycles onward range, 
 With stronger vision of their perfect whole, 
 As one whom time and space from them estrange. 
 
 And they might mourn and say "The parted soul 
 
 " Is gone out of our love ; we spend in vain 
 "A tenderness that cannot reach its goal." 
 
 Yet I might still perchance with them remain 
 
 In spirit, being free from laws of mould, 
 Still comprehending human joy and pain. 
 
 Ah me ! but if I knew them as of old, 
 
 Clasping them in vain arms, they unaware, 
 And mourned to find my kisses leave them cold, 
 
 And sought still some part of their life to share 
 Still standing by them, hoping they might see, 
 And seemed to them but as the viewless air! 
 
 For so once came it in a dream to me, 
 
 And in my heart it seemed a pang too deep, 
 A shadow having human life to be. 
 
 
m 93 
 
 For it at least would be long perfect sleep 
 
 Unknowing Being and all Past to lie, 
 Void of the growing Future, in God's keep: 
 
 But such a knowledge would be misery 
 
 Too great to be believed. Yet if the dead 
 In a diviner mood might still be nigh, 
 
 Their former life unto their death so wed 
 
 That they could watch their loved with heavenly 
 eye, 
 That were a thing to joy in, not to dread. 
 
THE HEIRESS'S WOOER. 
 
 Love ! Yes, it fits thee well to talk of love ! 
 A dainty word, a music-mellow word! 
 
 Set it with phrases from thy bauble wit — 
 "A joy enthroned all other jOys above; 
 
 It is strange sweetness but to speak of it, 
 For one whose soul has by its thrill been stirred." 
 
 Love ! What is love to beings like to thee ? 
 An idol, glaring blank through jewelled eyes, 
 
 Its soulless framework garnished round with gold ; 
 A stair to mount thee to a high degree; 
 
 A tinsel gewgaw fashioned to be sold, 
 Whose little value must be glozed with lies. 
 
 Thou speak of love! thou speak of love to me! 
 How have I lowered me that I should seem 
 
 So sunk beneath myself to have thee dare 
 Deem I might bow my pride, my love to thee? 
 
 If thou couldst love, then hadst thou known despair, 
 And hadst not vexed me with such useless theme. 
 
The Heiress's Wooer. 95 
 
 Oh I am fair ! oh very dearly fair ! 
 
 I know it, I have heard the thing ere now, 
 
 And I at lesser price can buy such praise — 
 Who gleams in gold finds dazzled eyes not rare— 
 
 'Twere somewhat dear to barter youth's bright days 
 For the cheap flattery of a coin -paid vow. 
 
 Woo me no more. I will not hear thy prayer. 
 One listened once who gave thee all her heart, 
 
 But she was poor, she could not give thee more. 
 Great grief no doubt ! Alas thy deep despair ! 
 
 " Death anguish all thy martyred spirit tore, 
 " But it was duty though a death to part." 
 
 Ah ! shrink : thou didst not dream I knew the tale — 
 She plains it now among the mouldering dead — 
 
 Shame thee to sorrow if thou canst know shame. 
 How couldst thou dream thy pleadings should pre- 
 vail? 
 
 What woman-due of honour could I claim 
 If I could stoop with such as thou to wed ? 
 
 I will not hear thee. Do not chafe me more ; 
 It lessens me that thou hast seen one ray, 
 
 One least faint ray of hope that thou shouldst 
 snare 
 My fancy with thy false tongue's practised lore. 
 
 I buy no lover, I. Waste no more care. 
 I pray thee seek thyself some fitter prey. 
 
DEAD AMY. 
 
 Do I weep because she is dead? 
 Ah no, it is very calm in the grave, 
 And she needed calm, for storms were wild 
 And my darling was never very brave : 
 Now she smiles in sleep like a little child 
 
 Dreaming at night in its happy bed : 
 
 Why should I weep for her dead? 
 
 She was very young and bright, 
 But she could not laugh her sorrows away 
 As I, who am stronger and harder, could do, 
 Though the brown of my locks grew dimmed with 
 
 grey: 
 But she, her heart was too simple and true 
 
 To jest with grief, and her cheek grew white — 
 
 It was once so fair and bright. 
 
 Perhaps it was all for the best 
 For both, though it leaves me so very lone, 
 I could hardly have borne so much distress, 
 If it had not been all and only my own. 
 Ah well ! her smile was a thing to bless 
 
 My sharpest pain, but nought pains her rest, 
 
 So I think it is all for the best. 
 
Dead Amy. 97 
 
 For I think I must have gone mad 
 Had I seen her grow worn and early old 
 With the care and the burden of toilsome days. 
 To see her pallid with hunger and cold 
 And pained by want in a thousand ways, 
 
 To see her sweet face grow rigid and sad, 
 
 Surely I must have gone mad ! 
 
 But she would have borne it all 
 And still have smiled, but she could not bear 
 All the shame and the loathing that others draw 
 On our name, and our burden of lonely care — 
 For we had not many friends that were true, 
 
 So had small love-comfortings in our fall, 
 
 And she could not bear it at all. 
 
 She did not often weep 
 But grew more silent and still every day, 
 And seldom moved, but sat white and sad; 
 So when I saw she must pass away 
 I had almost the courage to be glad — 
 
 Ah well! my darling has happy sleep, 
 
 And so I do not weep. 
 
A MARCH NIGHT. 
 
 White moonbeams, trembling through the night 
 Upon the wind-stirred lawn, and swayed 
 
 By sudden gusts in tossing light 
 
 On bare March boughs along the glade, 
 
 Shine clear upon the surge-lashed head, 
 Shine clear upon the rock-set bay : 
 
 The sea has had enough of dead, 
 
 And the brave ships plunge on their way. 
 
 Wild river, flying from the wind 
 
 On, past the quiet village homes 
 With their long furrowed fields behind, 
 
 To leap into the mad sea-foams, 
 
 Wail echoing to the cruel sea, 
 Wail for us that it spare its prey: 
 
 Mothers are weeping on bent knee, 
 And the frail ships toss on their way. 
 
 Fierce whirlwinds, warring on our plain 
 
 With the strong trees that heave and crash, 
 
 Hurling away the pelts of rain, 
 
 Shrill shrieking through the rattling sash, 
 
 Faint, weary from thy rage, and die : 
 Far off the billows writhe in spray, 
 
 We waken at thy voice and sigh, 
 
 And the dear ships plunge on their way. 
 
THE HIDDEN WOUND. 
 
 The lady spoke with a merry scorn, 
 
 Laughed with scorn when they talked of care, 
 "Oh you talk and talk, but the tale is worn 
 
 Of poisoned love that kills by despair, 
 There may be love, but for lover's sake 
 Never was heart yet known to break." 
 And she turned away with a haughty smile — 
 But a deep wound bled in her heart the while. 
 
 And " Life is too full of change," she said, 
 
 "That grief, like joy, should not pass away. 
 And why for a dreaming moment fled 
 Should one sorrow the livelong day? 
 And what though a fickle love be lost, 
 Is it worth the light of a life for cost ? 
 But I would laugh with such love to part" — 
 And all the while blood oozed from her heart. 
 
 She decked her beauty in silk and lace, 
 She set rich gems in her braided hair, 
 And shone in a glory of youth and grace; 
 
 Men's hearts leaped high that she was so fair ; 
 Her proud eye flashed with a queenly glance, 
 Her step was light and fleet in the dance, 
 Her laugh rang out with a silver sound — 
 But the red drops ran from the hidden wound. 
 
 7—2 
 
ioo The Hidden Wound. 
 
 There fell on her face no sorrow-sign, 
 
 Nothing the slow sharp pain to speak, 
 Save beneath her eye one soft dark line, 
 
 One soft white edge to each rich rosed cheek; 
 Her large dark eyes grew strangely bright, 
 And who has seen tear-drops dull their light? 
 And she spoke glad words with a wondrous smile- 
 But the life-blood oozed from her heart the while. 
 
 Weeping they laid her low in the grave, 
 
 She had not wept to pass away, 
 And " Surely " they said " she was very brave ; 
 
 With a life as bright as the summer-day, 
 To look on death with a tearless eye 
 Almost as though she wished to die !" 
 And they never knew of their early dead 
 How the deep deep wound in her heart had bled. 
 
 But one in strife with an awful dread 
 
 Asked himself "Did I slay her indeed? 
 She was so young — and now she is dead. 
 
 Yet can one small wound so deadly bleed?" 
 But some one came and stood by his side, 
 A sweet fair face — and he loved his bride — 
 And he thought " Ah ! no, for life is too fair 
 "That one should sink under any despair; 
 "In truth not long could such wound have bled " — 
 But she who had loved him so was dead. 
 
SAFE. 
 
 Wild wintry wind, storm through the night, 
 Dash the black clouds against the sky, 
 
 Hiss through the billows seething white, 
 Fling the rock-surf in spray on high. 
 
 Hurl the high seas on harbour bars, 
 Madden them with thy havock-shriek 
 
 Against the crimson beacon-stars- — 
 
 Thy rage no more can make me weak. 
 
 The ship rides safely in the bay, 
 
 The ship that held my hope in her — 
 
 Whirl on, wild wind, in thy wild fray, 
 We hear our whispers through the stir. 
 
PASSING AWAY. 
 
 Passing away from you, love, 
 And you look so sad, sitting there by my bed, 
 And I know you are thinking "How will it be? 
 "She is the meaning of living to me, 
 " How can I live with her dead ?" 
 
 Passing away from you, love, 
 Growing weaker and weaker every day : 
 Soon you will sit near me, ah ! so alone, 
 For I shall not turn to you, I your own, 
 
 I shall not heed what you say. 
 
 Passing away from you, love, 
 It will not be long now before the last: 
 We are thinking about it, feign as we will, 
 While I seem to sleep and you are so still, 
 
 Our clasped hands holding fast. 
 
 One same thought in our minds, 
 How strangely lone you will feel in your home 
 When I have gone out of your waking days 
 And you dream of our life in a sorrowful maze 
 
 When the desolate evenings come. 
 
Passing Away. 103 
 
 But, love, it cannot be lost, 
 The life that is ours, that I leave to you yours, 
 As something far more than a memory; 
 We know it something too real to die, 
 
 It is love, and love endures. 
 
 It will follow you into the new; 
 You cannot part it from you, chance what will, 
 You could not live as if I had not been ; 
 So to you long hence when my grave is green, 
 
 Love, I must be somewhat still. 
 
 Passing away from you, love, 
 And the weakness and weariness grow into pain, 
 So that the last would seem dropping asleep 
 If it were not for you. But one rests in God's j 
 keep, 
 
 So I think you will find me again. 
 
 
TOO FAITHFUL. 
 
 Too fond and faithful, wilt thou vainly yet 
 
 Waste love on one who does not ask it now 
 And, having wronged thee, seeks but to forget? 
 
 A fairer face smiles on his love, and thou, 
 
 Thou with thy truth and fervour, stand aside, 
 Thou nobler-natured to her beauty bow. 
 
 There lingers in thee yet this much of pride 
 
 That he who thus has wronged himself and thee 
 Could never win thy truth whate'er betide, 
 
 Since in thine eyes he never more may be 
 
 So true and great that thou couldst bend to him, 
 Oh never more 1 Why is thy heart not free ? 
 
 Oh wilt thou weep because his eyes are dim? 
 
 And wilt thou blush because his choice is shame 
 Falling on one whose love is but a whim? 
 
 An idle whim to stir a languid heart, 
 
 A business chaffering of the more and less 
 And rise and falling of the marriage mart. 
 
Too Faithful. 105 
 
 Yet is it cause to deepen thy distress 
 
 That he shall suffer for his misplaced trust? 
 For did he come into thy life to bless? 
 
 Jle buys a bauble something touched with rust, 
 
 Passing through many hands that did not hold, 
 Its lustre deadened by the market's dust. 
 
 But what to thee, if he for this has sold 
 
 His faith, his living heart, his nobler mind, 
 And given gold for that which is not gold? 
 
 Oh better that he should rest ever blind, 
 
 Better for him — but should he wake to see 
 The gem, he dreamed so pure, of paltriest kind, 
 
 Too fond and faithful, what were that to thee? 
 Thou hast thy sorrow; wherefore look beyond 
 To sorrow for his sorrow that shall be? 
 
 Too fond and faithful, weak in being fond, 
 
 False to thyself by faithfulness to him, 
 Since he has freed thee wherefore art thou bond? 
 
 And if his cup hold poison to the rim, 
 
 Dregged with life's malady beyond life's cure,! 
 Why should its bitter drops to thine o'erbrim? 
 
 And yet, if thou hast love so deep and pure 
 
 That, whatsoever change the years shall bring, 
 Before the sight of God it may endure, 
 
106 Too Faithful. 
 
 And if it seem to thee a holy thing 
 
 That, should he need it in his day of pain, 
 Thou mayst have sister power of comforting, 
 
 Well, if thy love be thus, let it remain; 
 
 Thou wilt not fear to name it in thy prayer, 
 As though it were some passion wild and vain. 
 
 Well, let it be, it may make less that care 
 
 Centred in self thou canst not wholly quell, 
 If others' not thine own its place shall share. 
 
SHADOW. 
 
 Dark, dark, as when dull autumn yields his breath • 
 Strange days when will ye change and let me see 
 A little sunshine ere I pass in death? 
 
 Oh ! sadder than long sad hours of the night 
 
 When watching closing eyes that will not wake 
 Ever again to hold the morning light. 
 
 Oh long long heavy hours and how long still? 
 
 Strangest of all is it that ye who have 
 Such deadening power should not have power to 
 kill. 
 
 Oh ! days all night — but, if the morning come > 
 
 I shall awaken, in whichever world, 
 With opening eyes, and know myself at home. 
 
SUNLIGHT. 
 
 Blithe birds, sing to the spring; 
 The spring has waked on this young April day, 
 With all your tiny voice give welcoming, 
 The spring has waked, we waken and are gay. 
 
 So long the winter lowered, 
 So weary long upon the mourning earth; 
 So tremblingly the shivering March blooms flowered 
 And waned, touched with the frost death from their 
 birth. 
 
 So long the skies were low 
 And always darkening downwards cold and grey, 
 So long forgotten was the sunlight glow, 
 So far far in the past the last bright day. 
 
 And now the spring has come; 
 Sing, sing, wild twittering birds, sing from the trees, 
 You who, as I, can only feel a home 
 In the great earth when glad with days like these. 
 
 We waken, you and I, from winter chills, 
 With the new sunny days, with the young flowers; 
 Sing with me, sing your clearest happiest trills, 
 The riches of the springtime all are ours. 
 
A MOTHERS CRY. 
 
 Child, child, will you have me die ? 
 You are merciless in your mute despair. 
 Will there never be love again 
 Between us two ? — Oh ! life of my life, 
 Have I only lived for my mother care, 
 And now are we lost in a silent strife? 
 Child, is not yours also your mother's pain? 
 
 And you look on me stonily ! 
 
 What was there left me to do? 
 Could I give my child to a libertine, 
 Could I give to one mocking God? 
 I would die to make him that which he aped, 
 But could I dare — Oh ! child, were you mine 
 But that I should trample the bliss you shaped? 
 But the lonely cold home beneath the sod 
 
 Than his had been better for you. 
 
no A Mother's Cry. 
 
 Ah ! surely if you had learned 
 By bitter taste the ill that I dread 
 You would think "Did my mother sleep, 
 Or did her love, that she yielded her . child 
 To one whom it was but a curse to wed? 
 Yes she has held my happiness cheap, 
 For / by my young heart's love was beguiled, 
 
 But she must have surely discerned." 
 
 And now, do you think my cry 
 Went not wildly up in the sleepless night 
 With an anguish and storm of prayer 
 That God would spare me this bitterness? 
 Do you think I did not struggle with might 
 While the blood in my veins seemed less and less, 
 Sickened with pain before I could dare 
 
 To fashion him that reply? 
 
 Because you believed in him yet, 
 Because you loved him, and I — my own, 
 Think you I do not turn to you 
 With a yearning passionate agony? 
 And must I go mourning and alone 
 A love-reft mother ? Ah ! if you knew 
 How I steal in the night to where you lie 
 
 And I watch — ah ! my cheeks so wet ! 
 
A Mother's Cry. in 
 
 But you turn your heart from me, 
 You sit with a pate and sorrowful face, 
 Hushed and listless the live-long day 
 Till I even wish I could see you weep, 
 For you never stir from the selfsame place, 
 Your hands in your lap, and no word you say, 
 And I scarce know whether you wake or sleep, 
 
 Though I creep to your side to see. 
 
 Alas ! and I hear your heart 
 Speak through the stillness its bitter plaint 
 "I who have loved my mother so dear, 
 I bleed from a deadly wound within, 
 And she it is" — Oh! my heart grows faint. 
 Child, my child, have you not one tear, 
 Not one smile for your mother to win? 
 
 Do not I also bear my part ? 
 
 Yes I who must see you pine, 
 Worn with the weight of your heavy cross, 
 Paler and thinner day by day, 
 And know that my lips pronounced your doom, 
 Thus for my gain and your love for loss ! — 
 Oh hear, my God, how I cry from the gloom, 
 Shall not this darkness vanish away? — 
 
 Oh my child art thou no more mine ! 
 
DREAMING. 
 
 The quivering ripples all dancing now, 
 
 Tossing each other the glow, 
 A hundred lights on the lowest bough 
 
 Flickering to and fro, 
 A humming murmur of tree and stream, 
 
 And the voices of wild birds glad, 
 And I lie lost in a languid dream, 
 
 Too happy not to be sad. 
 
 A happy dream of a sweet spring hour 
 
 In the arch of an avenue 
 Where the chestnuts are dropping a snowy shower 
 
 And the sunbeam lies on the dew, 
 And a voice is answering very low, 
 
 In mine a timid hand lies, 
 And a tangle of golden hair aglow 
 
 Droops shadows on downcast eyes. 
 
 And I should be conning a learned book, 
 
 (Study makes a man grow wise), 
 But I lie tranced by the spell of the brook, 
 
 Lulled into sweet reveries, 
 Lost in a dream of a leafy aisle 
 
 And two lovers whispering there, 
 Lost in a dream of a sunny smile 
 
 And the glitter of golden hair. 
 
A WEDDING. 
 
 A bridegroom waits in the green churchyard- 
 Waits and waits, but he speaks no word, 
 The smile on his lips is cold and hard, 
 His rigid look turns never aside, 
 The folds of his cloak are never stirred. 
 A bridegroom waits for his young young bride 
 By a grave in the still churchyard. 
 
 A maiden comes to her wedding plight — 
 
 Roses burn on her white soft cheeks, 
 
 The gleam of her eyes is clear and bright, 
 
 She looks before with a gaze that reads 
 
 In her bridegroom's calm the peace she seeks. 
 
 A maiden comes for the rest she needs, 
 
 And joys in her wedding plight. 
 
 She lays her head on his quiet breast — 
 "My bridegroom is holy and wise, 
 Lap me, sweet death, in thy solemn rest," 
 And looks with a love-look fond and brave, 
 And thrills in his clasp with happy eyes. 
 The bridegroom clasps in the silent grave 
 His young young bride to his breast. 
 
THE SETTING STAR. 
 
 Set pallid star, the yellow light 
 Is waking o'er the slopes of corn, 
 
 The autumned woods upon the height 
 Are golden-pencilled by the morn. 
 
 Set fading star, the happy sky 
 Is blushing at the kiss of day, 
 
 Set ere thy saddened lustre die 
 
 In the rich rays that track his way. 
 
 Set darkened star, the silver stream 
 
 That loved thy image through the night 
 
 Will lose it soon in fuller gleam, 
 Set ere it learn a new delight. 
 
 Tremble no longer on the brink, 
 
 Droop downward, seeking skies of rest, 
 
 Droop downward, setting star, and sink 
 Before the twilight leaves the west. 
 
TO ONE OF MANY. 
 
 What ! wilt thou throw thy stone of malice now, 
 Thou dare to scoff at him with scorn or blame? 
 He is a thousand times more great than thou : 
 Thou, with thy narrower mind and lower aim, 
 Wilt thou chide him and not be checked by shame ? 
 
 He hath done evil — God forbid my sight 
 
 Should falter where I gaze with loving eye, 
 
 That I should fail to know the wrong from right. 
 
 He hath done evil — let not any tie 
 
 Of birth or love draw moral sense awry. 
 
 And though my trust in him is yet full strong 
 I may not hold him guiltless, in the dream 
 That wrong forgiven is no longer wrong, 
 And, looking on his error, fondly deem 
 That he in that he erreth doth but seem. 
 
 8—2 
 
n6 To One of Many. 
 
 I do not soothe me with a vain belief; 
 He hath done evil, therefore is my thought 
 Of him made sadness with no common grief. 
 But thou, what good or truth has in thee wrought 
 That thou shouldst hold thee more than him in aught ? 
 
 He will redeem his nature, he is great 
 In inward purpose past thy power to scan. 
 And he will bear his meed of evil fate 
 And lift him from his fall a nobler man, 
 Hating his error as a great one can. 
 
 And what art thou to look on him and say 
 " Ah ! he has fallen whom they praised, but know 
 My foot is sure"? Upon thy level way 
 Are there the perils of the hills of snow? 
 Yea, he has fallen, but wherefore art thou low? 
 
 Speak no light word of him, for he is more 
 Than thou canst know — and ever more to me, 
 Though he has lessened the first faith I bore, 
 Than thou in thy best deeds couldst ever be ; 
 Yea, though he fall again, not low like thee. 
 
LOOKING DOWNWARDS. 
 
 The sunlights waver from rock to rock, 
 
 And the pied clouds come and go, 
 And the restless bay, with a flickering mock, 
 
 Quivers back shadow and glow. 
 Change and change, as all changes in life, 
 But through all I hear the same voice of strife, 
 Surges of seas and their sullen shock 
 At the base of the crag below. 
 
 Surges far down below at the base, 
 
 How many feet, can I guess, 
 From me in my high cliff resting-place, 
 
 Alone with my weariness? 
 How many feet? — And out and away 
 The surges roll back to the tossing bay; 
 And if I lay whelmed in their seething race 
 
 Would the world laugh any the less? 
 
 A moment or two and a troubled heart 
 Might be still in a troubled sea — 
 
 And surely, if that were all, one's part 
 Might be played out and sleep might be; 
 
1 1 8 Looking downwards. 
 
 For the dead are quiet and never weep. 
 But sorrow of life is nobler than sleep 
 And a heart may be strong though it writhe and 
 smart 
 Oh ! heart be thou strong in me. 
 
 Change and change ! and the sunlights shake 
 
 And flit at the wind's wild hest, 
 And the clouds and shadows gather and break. 
 
 Change and not any rest ! 
 And never a light of man's life so still 
 But its good may be darked with some wind-waft ill ; 
 i ; Yet surely to sleep is less than to wake, 
 !' And sorrow of life is best' 
 
ON THE LAKE. 
 
 A summer mist on the mountain heights, 
 
 A golden haze in the sky, 
 A glow on the shore of sleeping lights, 
 
 And shadows lie heavily. 
 
 Far in the valley the town lies still, 
 Dreaming asleep in the glare, 
 
 Dreamily near purs the drowsy rill, 
 Dreams are afloat in the air. 
 
 Dreaming above us the languid sky, 
 Dreaming the slumbering lake, 
 
 And we who rest floating listlessly 
 Say, love, do we dream or wake? 
 
TO AND FRO. 
 
 There is much shadow on this sunlit earth, 
 And sorrow lingers deep in laughing eyes, 
 
 Sad echoes tremble mid glad peals of mirth, 
 Low wailings whisper through rich melodies. 
 
 You cannot say of any one you know, 
 " I see his life, I know him very blest," 
 
 For would he tell you of the canker woe 
 That preys upon his being unconfessed? 
 
 You cannot think in any festive place 
 
 Of mirth and pastime and smiles flashed on all 
 
 There is no mimic weary of his face, 
 No actor longing for the curtain's fall. 
 
 Among the dancers cruel spectres float 
 
 And chill their victims with a dull distress, 
 
 And, sighing through the measure's clearest note, 
 Weird voices murmur, full of bitterness. 
 
 Old sorrows fester on in aching hearts, 
 
 New sorrows rack them with hot spasm pain; 
 
 Who knows? The ball-room actors play their parts, 
 And we smile with them and discern no strain. 
 
To and Fro. 121 
 
 If one should say "This is a doubtful word, 
 That men so sorrowing can cheat our sense" 
 
 Yet let him own when grief his soul has stirred 
 He has been merry with gay eloquence. 
 
 And that is best. For what would it avail 
 If he should say " Lo, I am very sad " 
 
 To idle hearers, though they heard his tale 
 And ceased a little moment to be glad? 
 
 But each heart keeps its sorrow for its own 
 Nor bares its wound to the chill general gaze ; 
 
 Men laugh together ... if they weep alone : 
 
 But sorrow walks in all the wide world's ways. 
 
 What, will you fly? her step is very fleet, 
 Her freezing touch will seize you unawares. 
 
 Look on her, never grovel at her feet, 
 For he is hers for ever who despairs. 
 
 Wait calmly; as she waits on that old plain, 
 The stony smiler on the desert sand, 
 
 Smiling upon old pride's long-cycled wane, 
 Smiling unchanged upon a saddened land. 
 
 She saw the glories of the ancient days, 
 She ever sees the tombs of buried kings, 
 
 She has not lost the quiet of her gaze 
 
 Looking a silence deep with solemn things. 
 
122 To and Fro. 
 
 The great sand-surges press upon her close, 
 She in eternal calm looks out above — 
 
 And who shall look upon a waste of woes 
 
 With such grand patience which no change may 
 move? 
 
 Yet wait; let the great desert clouds whirl by, 
 And sunlight once more floods upon the plain. 
 
 Yet wait ; the foolish leaf that flies the blast 
 Grows never greenly on the bough again. 
 
 Yet wait ; for sorrow's self is not all sad : 
 
 Put forth your hand and draw her veil aside ; 
 
 Behold, what secret of masked smiles she had, 
 What royal lovegifts in one cloked hand hide. 
 
 You will not say those were your saddest years, 
 In which you sorrowed. Void is worse than pain. 
 
 And many a rich bloom grows because of tears ; 
 And we see Heaven's lights more when our lights 
 wane. 
 
 Ah ! who knows what is ill from what is well ? 
 
 And we, who see no more than we are shown 
 Of others' hearts, can we so much as tell 
 
 If grief or joy be chiefest in our own? 
 
 For sunlight gleams upon this shadowed earth, 
 Sunlight and shadow waver to and fro, 
 
 And sadness echoes in the voice of mirth, 
 And music murmurs through the wail of woe. 
 
AFTER WARDS. 
 
 A little word not said, 
 A little word begged in vain — 
 And oh ! I would be rather lying dead. 
 If only then he would love me again. 
 
 A foolish touch of pride, 
 Pride more than half meant to please — 
 And I, that should deck me a May-morn bride, 
 Sit weeping alone by the bare March trees. 
 
 And soon, soon, May will come, 
 And soon, soon, May will be gone, 
 But my love will have made him a lonely home, 
 And I must be loving him, loving alone. 
 
 How strange he could not tell 
 His peace was made at a word; 
 If I acted my anger never so well, 
 Could he catch no echoes from love-words once 
 heard ? 
 
124 Afterwards. 
 
 Too late for him to know ! 
 Too late ! Let him think me cold, 
 And loveless and false as he says; better so. 
 But my love, my love, I love more than of old. 
 
 Oh, best love of my heart, 
 Oh love, my lover no more, 
 You have ruled it firmly that we should part, 
 But you cannot make me less yours than before. 
 
 Yours, yours, yours alone, 
 Still yours though you will not care, 
 Yours with a love that has been but half shown, 
 For 'tis fit to be coy... and I did not dare. 
 
 You'll not know all your life 
 What loving you means to me. 
 I thought " Oh the bold brave love of his wife !" 
 But, oh ! once my betrothed, who shall she now be ? 
 
OUR LILY, 
 
 The angels dropped us a wee white flower, 
 Yes surely it was from heaven it fell : 
 
 Then came the wind and the beating shower, 
 But it was sheltered down in our dell. 
 
 And it grew and grew through the fresh spring days, 
 The sweetest blossom that ever God made : 
 
 Then came the sun with his scorching rays, 
 
 But down in our dell there was cool and shade. 
 
 And it grew and grew in the summer air, 
 
 It was a lily of Paradise, 
 And we watched it open each day more fair, 
 
 Nothing on earth so dear in our eyes. 
 
 And tenderly we fenced it about, 
 
 And the angels of Heaven they guarded it well : 
 Then came the time of the sultry drought, 
 
 But the brook ran clear in our shadowy dell. 
 
 So it grew and grew, come foul, come fair, 
 And never a soil on its whiteness stood, 
 
 And, because the angels made it their care, 
 From good and bad it drew only good. 
 
126 Our Lily. 
 
 And oh ! the blessing to see it grow, 
 
 And I think that our hearts both grew as it grew, 
 And oh ! we loved it, we loved it so ! 
 
 And we called it ours and thought we spoke true. 
 
 But at last it had grown so sweet and so white, 
 That the angels could not leave it us still, 
 
 And they came and took it away in the night, 
 One sad still night when the mist was chill. 
 
 And oh ! the blank when our lily went ! 
 
 And we look in each other's faces alone, 
 And we say sometimes "Well it was but lent," 
 
 Yet, even in Heaven, we call it our own. 
 
 And I think it must be meant for us at last, 
 For would God have made us love it in vain ? 
 
 Perhaps, if the gates of Heaven were past, 
 His hand would give us our blossom again. 
 
ON THE SHORE. 
 
 The angry sunset fades from out the west, 
 A glimmering greyness creeps along the sea, 
 
 Wild waves be hushed and moan into your rest, 
 Soon will all earth be sleeping, why not ye? 
 
 Far of! the heavens deaden o'er with sleep, 
 The purple twilight darkens on the hill, 
 
 Why will ye only ever wake and weep ? 
 I weary of your sighing, oh ! be still. 
 
 But ever ever moan ye by the shore, 
 
 While all your trouble surges in my breast. 
 
 Oh waves of trouble surge in me no more, 
 Or be but still awhile and let me rest. 
 
GLAD WAVES. 
 
 Leap on, glad waves, in summer glee, 
 
 A voice of joy has come to-day, 
 A voice of joy has come to me — 
 
 Leap on glad waves, flash through the bay. 
 
 Laugh, merry waves, laugh back the light, 
 Laugh back the light that is not yours, 
 
 On me another's joy suns bright — 
 
 Dash, laughing waves, against your shores. 
 
 Surge on, bright waves, beneath bright skies, 
 Voice out delight; but through your speech 
 
 There ever swells a voice of sighs — 
 Break, sighing waves, against the beach. 
 
 Sigh on, bright waves, through summer glee : 
 While on my thoughts a joy floats bright, 
 
 A bitterness is deep in me — 
 
 Sad waves laugh back the happy light. 
 
DESERTED. 
 
 No, mother, I am not sad : 
 Why think me sad? I was always still, 
 You remember, even when my heart was most glad 
 And you used to let me dream at my will; 
 And now I like better to watch the sea 
 And the calm sad sky than to laugh with the rest. 
 You know they are full of chatter and glee, 
 
 And I like the quietness best. 
 
 Nay, mother, you look so grave. 
 I know what you're thinking and will not say; 
 But you need not fear; I am growing brave 
 Now that the pain is passing away, 
 And I never weep for him now when alone, 
 For perhaps it was better — who can tell ?— - 
 That it ended so. I shall soon be well 
 
 Now that the hardest is known. 
 
 I am so much stronger to-day 
 I can look at all past and think how it grew 
 And how by degrees it faded away, 
 That light of my life. Ah ! when I first knew 
 
 9 
 
130 Deserted. 
 
 I had only been a plaything to him 
 Through all my loving, it seemed so strange. 
 If the high noontide at once grew night-dim 
 , It would not be such a change. 
 
 I wonder I did not die. 
 Mother, I'll own it you now I am strong, 
 I used to wake in the night and lie 
 Wishing and wishing it might not be long- 
 Oh ! it was wicked, and you all so kind, 
 How could I wish to bring you a grief? 
 But too much unhappiness makes one blind 
 
 To all but one's own relief. 
 
 I am not so wicked now; 
 You need not fear I am hoping that still, 
 I am learning to lean on God, and I bow, 
 Yes I think I bow my heart to His mil. 
 I found it a long hard struggle to make, 
 To clasp my sorrow and say " It is best," 
 But, believe it, you need not fear for my sake ; 
 
 Yes, mother, I am at rest : 
 
 Yet, listen, if I should die soon — 
 And I know what they say, though you hide it from 
 
 me — 
 Mother, you'll grant me my last-asked boon, 
 That you'll try not to think it his fault, and if he, 
 
Deserted. 131 
 
 Mother, if he should seek you some day, 
 You will not make him a hard reply, 
 But tell him, before I passed away, 
 I sent him kind good-bye. 
 
 Mother, kiss me, do not cry. 
 I could not keep from speaking of this; 
 It is nothing to say " If I should die," 
 It cannot bring death more near than it is; 
 And I am much stronger. You shall not weep — 
 Who is it tells me that weeping is wrong? 
 But let me lean on your lap and sleep, 
 
 I lay waking last night too long. 
 
PERJURED. 
 
 In my dream he came — 
 I lonely in a slumbrous twilight mind, 
 Seeing the water ripple to the wind 
 And the leaf-shadows quiver on my dress. 
 Hearing the answer of the sycamore 
 And the corn surge like waves on a sand shore, 
 I lulled into a pensive tenderness, 
 Gathering all life into a heart of love — 
 
 And then he came — 
 Or some sound rose as if he spoke my name. 
 Was it the wind in the sycamore above? 
 
 But I saw him — him, 
 Not looking with the face of one long dead; 
 But the last sunbeams playing on his head, 
 Flashing its chestnut gold, and in his eyes 
 The light that came because he looked on me. 
 Oh love, but I did love thee, though there be 
 A past of wrong between us, though new ties 
 Have barred between me even and thy grave. 
 
 Yes, my eyes were dim, 
 My heart weak at that sudden thought of him, 
 And so I saw him there — oh heart be brave. 
 
Perjured, 133 
 
 What now is regret? 
 Or what can I atone towards him now 
 When penitence is sin? for the wife's vow 
 Leaves room for no dead lover; and — if they 
 Who die away from us can love us still — 
 He could not love me though he pass the ill 
 My falseness worked him in a shameful day 
 And sad — Ah sadder than for him for me. 
 
 Hush, then no regret, 
 My folly and my fault far off is set. 
 Oh worst remorse which never may be free ! 
 
HOW THE BROOK SINGS. 
 
 The long low sunbeams eastward fall, 
 
 Long yellow glories lie 
 Between the trees, on the ivied wall, 
 
 On the brooklet singing by. 
 
 The brook is singing low to me — 
 You cannot hear what it says — 
 
 Its voice is rich and glad with the glee, 
 With the love of happy days. 
 
 Ah ! the shadows have dimmed its glow ! 
 
 Yet still it sings to me 
 Of joy and love that were long ago, 
 
 And joy and love that shall be. 
 
THE LAKE. 
 
 She said no word, but looked on him, 
 
 And then he knew that she was won; 
 And all thd world grew far and dim, 
 
 And they were two beneath the sun. 
 And "Oh my love" and "Oh my own" 
 
 And " Leave the little hand in mine :" 
 While from below the lake's long moan 
 
 Came upwards from the shore's low line 
 
 "Oh! love, through all a stormy life 
 
 That brought not rest nor any bliss, 
 While angry in the hard world's strife, 
 
 I looked for such an hour as this." 
 " Oh ! love, through all a cold hushed youth, 
 
 I never dreamed such joy in store." 
 And so they plighted lovers' truth: 
 
 And the grey lake moaned on the shore. 
 
136 The Lake. 
 
 II. 
 
 She stood upon the silent hill 
 
 And watched the creeping shadows grow: 
 And " Surely he must love me still :" 
 
 And "I would give the world to know." 
 And " It was here we said we loved :" 
 
 And "Love, through all I love thee more. 
 While slow the creeping shadows moved, 
 
 And the dim lake sighed on the shore. 
 
 A o 
 
 And slow and singly over head 
 
 The white stars looked on her alone: 
 And "Oh! my love, they make me wed, 
 
 And not one word to claim thine own!" 
 And "Not one word, love, not one word!" 
 
 And " Oh my love if thou wert dead !" 
 While through the pines the night-winds stirred, 
 
 And the dark lake moaned in its bed. 
 
 III. 
 
 He watched the sunlights on the lake, 
 The shadow of a yellow cloud: . 
 
 And " It was here my love I spake, 
 And it was here our love we vowed." 
 
The Lake. 137 
 
 And "Women love the man that's near, 
 
 And more than love count wealth and show." 
 
 While from the sky a lark sang clear, 
 And the blue lake plashed light below. 
 
 And "So soon dead! And yet I would ■ 
 
 It had been sooner; for she seemed 
 So good — What then? he calls her good, 
 
 Her husband, dreams her what I dreamed." 
 And "Oh dead love!" And "Oh lost love! 
 
 Dead with a baby on thy breast!" 
 And the glad lark trilled on above, 
 
 And the lulled lake basked into rest. 
 
IN THE SUNSHINE. 
 
 Carol it merrily out, blithe birds, 
 Trill from the branches, chirp from the eaves, 
 Whisper it cheerily, waving leaves, 
 Chirrup it, grasshopper, shrill to green earth, 
 Chime, all day's voices, in love and mirth — 
 My joy is too full for words. 
 
 Laugh it in sparkles, quivering brook, 
 Plash it, clear fall, in your trebling showers, 
 Breathe it in perfume, fresh-scented flowers, 
 Smile, smile, all my gladness, tender sky, 
 Speak, all day's glories — I cannot, I, 
 She must learn it all in a look. 
 
 Murmur it softly, far-off tide, 
 Surge it lovingly, billowing corn — 
 I who have sighed for the day I was born, 
 Have no joy words for the thoughts that rise- 
 Well she must read them all in my eyes, 
 She will look in them now, my bride! 
 
NIGHT WHISPERS. 
 
 There crept a whisper through the night 
 
 "All is dying, all is dead: 
 
 Turn away thy wearied sight, 
 
 Rest thee in thine earthy bed: 
 
 Life is sorrow, life is pain, 
 
 And thy prayer for strength is vain, 
 
 Yield thee to thyself and weep, 
 
 Weep thy weakness into sleep, 
 
 Death has slumber sweet and deep." 
 
 There crept a whisper through the night 
 "All is dying, all is dead; 
 All the glory and delight, 
 All the beauty, all have fled, 
 And thy youth is lorn of life: 
 Wilt thou wage with Sorrow strife? 
 Ah! the vainness! canst thou raise 
 From the dust thy drooping days 
 That faint beneath her deadly gaze?" 
 
140 Night Whispers. 
 
 There crept a whisper through the night 
 "All is dying, all is dead : 
 Hateful is the morning's light, 
 Hateful is the evening's red : 
 All is hateful, all is pain, 
 Rest comes never more again. 
 Hope and love for aye are o'er, 
 Peace and joy return no more, 
 Follow them to Death's still shore." 
 
 But I answered to the Night, 
 "All is dying, all is dead, 
 All the glory and delight 
 All the beauty, all have fled : 
 I am heavy and oppressed, 
 And I know Death has calm rest, 
 And I know Life has much care, 
 But I will not mar my prayer 
 With the cries of weak despair." 
 
 So I answered to the Night 
 
 "All is dying, all is dead, 
 
 But I have not dimmed all sight 
 
 With the bitter tears I shed. 
 
 And I know Life's darkest ways 
 
 Are crossed by golden heaven-rays, 
 
 Well I feel Death's rest were sweet, 
 
 But I know it is more meet 
 
 To seek high goal with onward feet." 
 
Night Whispers. 141 
 
 Crept the whisper through the night 
 
 "All is dying, all is dead." 
 
 But I answered "This is right, 
 
 Not to shrink with coward dread 
 
 From a pain that must be borne. 
 
 I know Life's good and have not lost 
 
 All trust though trust has dearly cost, 
 
 Nor faith in Heaven though tempest tossed." 
 
 And the whisper still crept by 
 "All is dying, all is dead," 
 But I said "Though all should die 
 Nothing is quite perished." 
 
THE BLUSH-ROSE. 
 
 Free forest bird, beat the wild wing, 
 
 Fly north and south the whole day through, 
 
 To north, to south, fly wavering, 
 On every side the skies are blue. 
 
 Fly north and south through all the day, 
 Fly westward when the skies are red, 
 
 Perch thee upon the topmost spray 
 Of the blush-rose in its mossy bed. 
 
 Sing to my love thy tenderest song, 
 (Each evening she bends o'er the tree 
 
 I set and she has watched so long), 
 And see, sweet bird, thou sing of me. 
 
 But roses die, and memory 
 
 May call to sleeping love in vain; 
 What if the rose should bloom and die 
 Before I seek my love again? 
 
 And would my love for ever sigh, 
 Or would she learn a lighter strain? 
 
 "What if the tree's last bloom should die 
 And I not seek my love again? 
 
A BRIDE. 
 
 Weep for me, Weep for me ; 
 
 I am young to die. 
 But they say "Who talks of death? 
 Maiden, weave thy wedding wreath." 
 
 Weep for me, Weep for me 
 
 With my wedding nigh. 
 
 Weep for me, Weep for me — 
 
 Jewels on my breast, 
 Velvet robes all seamed with gold, 
 An Earl's young son my train to hold. 
 
 Weep for me, Weep for me 
 
 At the wedding feast. 
 
 Weep for me, Weep for me — 
 
 All at my command, 
 Serfs and knights and lands and halls 
 All his bride's my bridegroom calls. 
 
 Weep for me, Weep for me 
 
 When he takes my hand. 
 
 Weep for me, Weep for me — 
 
 Ere the spring goes by 
 My murdered love will make me his: 
 He swears it me with each night's kiss. 
 
 Weep for me, Weep for me; 
 
 I am young to die. 
 
MARY LOST. 
 
 Dance, dance on thy way, thou rippling stream, 
 
 Laugh to the summer skies — 
 But joy lies dead in thy laughing gleam, 
 
 Like Love in a false love's eyes. 
 
 Chant, plashing river, thy even lay, 
 
 Gush liquid harmonies — - 
 But the mirth of thy music has passed away, 
 
 And its burden is turned to sighs. 
 
 Flash in clear shallows and rock-rimmed deeps, 
 
 Glitter in sun-bright pride — 
 But the gloom of that cypress where Mary sleeps 
 
 Casts shadows on all thy tide. 
 
 Storm thy way at the foot of the hill, 
 
 Dash o'er the bars of stone — 
 But the stream of my life is checked and still, 
 
 And the force of its flow is gone. 
 
 
THE LAND OF HAPPY DREAMS. 
 
 In the land of happy dreams 
 Through a short dream-life I dwelt — 
 Was it very long ago? 
 There was music in the streams, 
 Vague weird voices soft and low ! 
 Purple mists would rise and melt, 
 Golden vapours floated by, 
 Trancing all with mystery, 
 With a sweet strange mystery 
 In the land of happy dreams. 
 
 Ah the land of happy dreams ! 
 Ah the beauty ! Ah the love ! 
 Was it very long ago ? 
 Can I tell? Long, long it seems 
 Since a wild wild wave of woe — 
 Ah I strove ! ah vainly strove ! — 
 Bore me from the golden shore. 
 I shall dream there nevermore; 
 I shall rest me nevermore 
 In the land of happy dreams. 
 
 10 
 
THE SHADOW OF A CLOUD. 
 
 Only a moment ago, and the beams 
 Were dancing along the ivied wall, 
 
 And the leaves were aglow to the happy gleams : 
 But the cloud has darkened it all. 
 
 Only a moment ago, and the brook 
 Shook in a golden smile down the fall 
 
 Bright to its heart by the sky's kind look : 
 But the cloud has darkened it all. 
 
 A moment ago — does it need no more, 
 
 And the heart is dulled by a thing so small? 
 
 Was it I who was glad to the very core ? 
 But the cloud has darkened it all. 
 
FAIRIES' CHATTER. 
 
 Oh ! come, the hour to us belongs : 
 Slumber seals tired sleepers' eyes, 
 Hushed are the glad melodies, 
 The voice of laughter arid of songs, 
 The echoes of the joy-winged feet 
 Beating time in cadence fleet 
 To the minstrel measures sweet : 
 Hushed the merry greybeard's jest, 
 And the fair child's glee in its tricksome freak, 
 
 And the low love-word 
 That brought the quick flush to the maiden's cheek, 
 That brought the strange thrill to the maiden's breast, 
 And echoes in dreams through her happy rest 
 While she smiles asleep through the night's last hours, 
 Though she played with her knots of mimic flowers 
 
 As though 'twere unheard : 
 Hushed the buzz of friendly talk : 
 Hushed upon the frost-crisped walk 
 The footfall of the home-bound guest : 
 
 10 — 2 
 
148 Fairies' Chatter. 
 
 And there wakes no sound 
 Of human life through the ancient house 
 Save the long-drawn breath of sleep. 
 But the gossiping crickets chirp their round, 
 Merry, so merry, chirp chirp, cheep cheep, 
 
 And the stealthy mouse 
 Scuds with small pattering feet through the house 
 While her kinsfolk shrill from the panelled wall. 
 
 And the log, yet ablaze, 
 Crackles and crisps in the chimney deep, 
 
 And the last flame rays 
 Gurgle and bubble and flicker and leap 
 And spurt into fire ere they fade out quite, 
 Spurt and flash ere they die. 
 Oh ! come, ere they die, 
 To laugh in the light of the crimson glow, 
 And chase on the floor, as they come and go, 
 The frolicsome bars of light, 
 With feet that fly 
 As blithe and as noiseless to and fro. 
 
 Ah ! the flames are dead, 
 And the smouldering log burns a dim dull red ; 
 And there is no light in the ancient hall, 
 But from the great moon shining white. 
 We cannot see her but she is there, 
 
 Outside in the night; 
 For look where the shimmering halos fall 
 On the frosted panes till they glitter fair 
 
 
Fairies' Chatter. 149 
 
 Like fretted silver brilliant set, 
 And calm St Lucy, carved in stone 
 And corbelled 'neath the oriel's roof, 
 Is crowned with moonbeam coronet : 
 And back the deadened rays are thrown 
 From the old knightly coats of proof, 
 And the battered shields and spears 
 Ranged there uselessly for years : 
 And the wreathed hollies, every one, 
 Sparkle as though newly wet 
 In April's rain against the sun. 
 
 There is little change in the ancient hall 
 
 Since days too far for these men's ken, 
 
 And we have not changed, but the lives of men 
 
 And their ways and their words are altered all. 
 
 And how is Sir Hugh, by his Christmas fire, 
 
 Portly and ruddy, in sober prate, 
 
 As he sips his wine with complacent smile, 
 
 Of rights and wrongs and needs of the state, 
 
 (The children playing him tricks the while), 
 
 Like old Sir Hugo his far off sire, 
 
 Hugo, whose sword was ever red in fray 
 With the blood of many foemen slain, 
 Holding the lordly feast in knight's array 
 Amid his vassal train? 
 Ah ! they are gone, the noble knights 
 Whose pennons waved in gallant fights; 
 
150 Fairies' Chatter. 
 
 They are gone, the loving eyes 
 Lighting them to high emprize. 
 Ah ! their day has passed away, 
 
 Their day that was our day, 
 When all about the English land 
 
 Blithely dwelt the fairy band, 
 
 Something feared and yet well-loved, 
 
 When through homes of men we moved, 
 
 Holding viewless fellowship 
 
 With the toilers true of heart, 
 
 Bearing in their labours part, 
 
 Giving gifts and sweet content; 
 
 But to men of evil bent 
 
 Dealing crooked punishment, 
 
 Cross and loss and ache and nip; 
 
 Thwarting the unwilling toil 
 
 Of the sluggard leaden-eyed, 
 
 Lowering with shame-edged despite 
 The heart of pride; 
 
 Snatching from the miser's grip, 
 
 While he told it in the night, 
 
 The red gold stained with hidden soil 
 Of fraud and shame. 
 So we blessed the good, and we checked the ill- 
 But now the days of our power are gone, 
 We love the land and we linger still, 
 But sundered from mortals now, and none 
 Joy or fear at our name. 
 
Fairies' Chatter. 151 
 
 None love us now, none as they loved, 
 The whilome dwellers in this hall, 
 They whom we honoured and well proved, 
 Loved by the fairies passing all, 
 
 They who would vaunt to trace 
 Back to a far-off day 
 Their lineage from a fairy race, 
 And tell how Amys gained for bride 
 The gold-haired valley fay, 
 Wherefore this valley shall abide 
 
 With their true heirs for aye. 
 They knew the fairies ever watched their way, 
 
 They gloried in such lot; 
 For them we love their children of to-day 
 
 Who know us not, 
 And think us wholly faded from the earth, 
 
 Shades that have ceased to be. 
 And yet for our remembrance have they spared 
 The twisted tree, 
 All ringed and lichened with its years, 
 That saw beneath the moon our dancing mirth, 
 
 So bears our name till now, 
 Have propped the branches time has bent and bared, 
 Have let the waving grassknots grow 
 Un vexed by formal gardener's shears, 
 And the long sprays unlopped droop o'er 
 From the lush bramble hedge grown round. 
 
152 Fairies' Chatter. 
 
 This for love of the dear fays 
 "Who," say they, "in ancient days 
 
 Made here by night their meeting ground; 
 
 Fays departed from old haunts for evermore, 
 Gone with the times of yore." 
 
 And therefore do we tend them yet, 
 
 Though we be left unthanked, unknown. 
 Now, ere the full-faced moon be set, 
 
 Now, while the still hours are our own, 
 Light will we glide 
 To the sleeper's side, 
 And bring sweet dreams of that which shall betide, 
 And bring sweet dreams of that which has 
 ' gone by 
 In a happy past; 
 And, in a vague dream-mirror glassed, ' 
 Shape something of that weird a fairy eye 
 Reads in the prophet-book of time ; 
 And in low lullabies of rhyme 
 Whisper them the fate discerned 
 In the page for them new-turned — 
 For, while the merry midnight chime 
 
 Rang clear and high, 
 The old year perished utterly 
 And a new era came to men. 
 
 Ah ! we fairies count not years ; 
 Laughing see we Time depart, 
 
Fairies' Chatter. 153 
 
 We are as we were ; 
 But men follow him with tears. 
 • Ah ! we have no deadened heart, 
 Feeble strength, and furrowed brow, 
 Marking off the weary Now 
 
 From the better Then. 
 
 No long, foreseeing fears, 
 
 No restless hopes, no doubts of change to grow, 
 Vex us with a futurity of care : 
 
 No dull regrets, no keen incessant woe, 
 
 Vex us from the old years past by, 
 No bitter memory. 
 Nought nought of these we know, 
 Save from the cry 
 
 Wrung from the children of humanity. 
 But they! Their fitful life 
 Is fretted with uneven change, 
 Waxing and waning, creeping, rushing on, 
 Wavering through its narrow range, 
 Lulled by love and chafed with strife, 
 Gloomed with shade and glad with light, 
 With the smiles of Heaven made bright, 
 Darkened by Hell's malison. 
 
 So runs for men the round of years : 
 
 What marvel then that each new date 
 
 Wakes them to war of hopes and fears, 
 To anxious questionings of fate? 
 
154 Fairies' Chatter. 
 
 Ah ! could they know, as we can know, 
 
 In signs and voices of the night 
 
 When one year comes and one must go, 
 What chances wait for them, what woe, 
 
 What love, what hatred, what delight! 
 But they are not given sight 
 Of anything to-morrow brings; 
 They hear no sound of coming things. 
 And we fairies warn in vain, 
 For we may not tell them plain, 
 And their grave wits are too slow 
 To catch the fleeting sense of dreams. 
 
 Yet come, on noiseless wings, 
 Soft and silent as the beams 
 Creeping through the blinded pane, 
 Through the hushed rooms flit stealthily 
 Waking in the sleep-locked eye 
 Golden glowing shadowings 
 Of what shall happen bye and bye. 
 Murmur by the sleeper's ear 
 An undulating melody 
 
 Very sweet and low: 
 Sing it softly till he hear 
 
 Softly through his rest, 
 Till it vaguely touch the sense 
 
 He wots not of in his own breast, 
 Slumbrous, mole-eyed prescience, 
 And he see the far off near 
 
Fairies' Chatter. 155 
 
 In a visionary show. 
 
 But be the dream 
 With as little darkness as it may; 
 Let the bright all brightness seem, 
 Let the blackness pale away, 
 Let sorrow wait for sorrow's day. 
 
 And what of sadness should be for him, 
 
 The scarce four-wintered boy? 
 
 Even his sleep is joy. 
 In baby grace of rounded limb 
 Beautiful he lies : 
 
 His little head, thrown back, just dints 
 
 The tiny arm that glints 
 
 In the moonlight like smooth pearls 
 
 Through the pale gold of the curls 
 Tossed backwards from his fair flushed cheeks; 
 
 The blue darkness of his eyes 
 Shades through their fringed lids' opal lucent white; 
 The half-closed mouth is happy with a smile. 
 So sleeps he still and doubtless dreams the while, 
 Of the evening's glee, 
 
 And how the wondrous tree 
 Bore Christmas fruit of toys and baubles bright : 
 For see one small hand slumber-wandering seeks 
 The mimic watch, too dear to lay aside, 
 With scarlet ribbons round his fair throat tied, 
 And o'er his head, 
 
156 Fairies' Chatter. 
 
 Mid the white flutings of his little bed, 
 Glitters the nursery warrior's new-won pride, 
 The harmless sword at whose flashed blade 
 His mother and his nurse will seem afraid, 
 
 And, struck at flying, mimic pain 
 
 Till he kiss them well again. 
 As thou dreamest now so dream on, fair boy, 
 
 Dream of thy happy play; 
 Little thy mirth has now of alloy, 
 
 Let the night but image the day. 
 Dream, fair boy, of thy mother's eyes 
 
 Looking such love on thee, 
 And thy father's merry mimicries 
 
 As he gallops thee on his knee. 
 Dream of thy fresh child wonder at life, 
 Dream of the sweet surprise 
 In every hour of thy being rife, 
 
 Now when all things are new, 
 
 And the face of earth and the heavens' blue 
 And the daily form of common things 
 
 In thy young mind discerned 
 Come with the joy of imaginings 
 
 And the freshness of things new learned. 
 So baby dream till, morning-eyed, 
 
 Thou laugh to be awake, and play 
 
 Thy cunning trick of every day 
 Sly clambering to thy mother's side. 
 
Fairies' Chatter. 157 
 
 And she oh what shall her dreamings be? 
 Let her dream of the merry days when she, 
 Spoiled pet of the house that welcomes her now 
 With the quiet of matron cares on her brow, 
 Frolicked away her careless hours, 
 Vexing the house with pranks like ours 
 When our merry malice was high, 
 Laughing and teasing, yet loving most; 
 
 And her startled eye 
 The wrath from the heart of the chider wiled, 
 For the lips that scolded her smiled. 
 And there was not the lightest care to press 
 On her heart as she danced her way, 
 Pure and light as a sunborn ray, 
 In her heart and her life a happy child, 
 
 Only a woman in loveliness. 
 
 Let her dream how he came, 
 And the mirth of her laugh was no more the same ; 
 
 And yet he came but to bless. 
 Let her dream how he waked into life 
 
 The woman that slept in her; 
 Let her dream how he whispered "wife," 
 And childhood had no more bliss, 
 
 And all her heart was astir, 
 And she knew her for ever his. 
 
 Then let her dream 
 She has floated calmly along life's stream, 
 
 A many days' journey, far ahead, 
 
158 Fairies' Chatter. 
 
 And she sees in her own her mother's face, 
 
 Her mother who is dead; 
 And her husband's brow bears time's wrinkled trace ? 
 And there are grizzles of grey in his hair, 
 And he walks with an old man, sober air, 
 
 But his eyes have the same fond look; 
 
 And their love seems yet to spread 
 Though stiller, more wide and more deep, 
 As the many-voiced eager brook 
 Deepens and widens towards the bay, 
 Though it moves with a calmer sweep 
 
 And hushes its happy lay. 
 And, very rich in love and trust, 
 They sit together on an Old Year's night 
 And round them in young faces' light 
 
 See the fair memory of their own 
 
 In the years by flown; 
 
 And hear the New Year's plans discussed, 
 
 Their children's buoyant schemes; 
 And, young in heart through so much love, 
 
 Talk youthful thoughts on youthful themes, 
 
 Scarce feeling that themselves are old, 
 Scarce noting how the days remove 
 From the days when they could say 
 
 "Next year and next," nor be too bold. 
 Thus be her dreams. 
 
 But what shall sleep unfold 
 
 To him, her husband? For the heart 
 
 Of a man busy with his part 
 
Fairies' Chatter. 159 
 
 In the turmoil of life's fray, 
 
 Cares not with far thoughts to stray 
 
 From the story of to-day : 
 
 The anxious eager Now is more 
 
 Than long futures, days before. 
 
 Tell him if the work in hand 
 
 Shall go fitly, as he planned; 
 
 Has he gained a step or so 
 
 On the onward upward way? 
 
 Show him, tell him, yea and yea. 
 Then, while his visions bring the glow 
 
 Of worthy-won success to him, 
 Let hers a portion of them grow : 
 
 Let him all the while 
 See her fond triumphant smile, 
 
 See her blue eyes happy dim 
 With the dear kind tears. 
 Let him seem to lead her through the busy years, 
 Busy years with strength and labour happy and astir, 
 
 Let him taste twice sweeter pleasure 
 
 In won honours, in won treasure, 
 Because he worked for her. 
 
 Leave them in sweet rest, pass by 
 To the quiet chamber where 
 
 Loving in locked arms they lie, 
 
 Whitely draped and blossom fair, 
 
160 Fairies' Chatter. 
 
 Like fresh flowers amid the snows : 
 Both beautiful in beauty most apart, 
 White snowdrop and glad rose. 
 
 Ah ! we might weep, 
 Watching your maiden sleep, 
 Sweet strangers, sister-linked in heart, 
 To know how He draws nigh, 
 The severer whom ye cannot fly. 
 
 But now we will not make you sad 
 With the sorrow that shall be. 
 Sleep on, fair snowdrop, pure and white 
 As calm St Lucy in the hall 
 
 To whom thy lover likens thee, 
 Sleep, and in dreams be glad. 
 Look how the chestnut-blossoms fall 
 Where the spring-breeze flickers light, 
 Along the budding avenue, 
 And village children, two and two, 
 Laden with spring-flowrets strew 
 
 The path before thy feet : 
 And thou art coming by his side 
 Back to thy love's home, his bride : 
 
 And the voice of welcome is sweet : 
 And she who now to thy side is pressed, 
 With only the look of love in her face, 
 
 Welcomes thee best, 
 Thy sister then by a dearer tie — 
 But dream not for how short a space. 
 
Fairies' Chatter. 1 6 1 
 
 Ah ! must the red rose die ? 
 Alas ! sweet rose that art so budding bright, 
 
 So joyous fair, 
 Wailings for thee will vex the summer night, 
 
 Thou lying there 
 In a great stillness, motionless and white, 
 Calm in the dreamless quiet of the dead. 
 
 Hush ! she turns her head 
 With a little sigh, as though heart-oppressed : 
 
 We vex her rest 
 With dim forebodings that work but pain. 
 
 Sweet let them fade from thy brain, 
 
 Fold thee to shadowless slumber again. 
 Dream not, we will not shape for thee 
 
 Visions of young delight, 
 Lest to the things that be 
 
 Love-links clasp thy soul too tight. 
 Dream not, but rest in quiet deep 
 
 Close folded to her side, 
 
 Thy loved, thy brother's bride, 
 Who breathes e'en now his name in sleep. 
 
 Does he breathe thine, white snowdrop ? Doubt it not. 
 
 Do ever his day-dreams leave out thee 
 In their cloud-limnings of his coming lot? 
 
 And truly how should it be 
 We could whisper promise of joy to his heart 
 Where thou his best joy shouldst have no part? 
 
 IT 
 
162 Fairies' Chatter. 
 
 Nay but swiftly to him we fly 
 
 Where he sleeps in the turret-chamber nigh, 
 And we picture thee to his happy eyes, 
 Moving through all his destinies. 
 We show him the purpose fulfilled . 
 
 Which thou hast helped him to frame, 
 And the honour ye both have willed 
 
 His by the noble claim 
 Of one who, with a manly might 
 
 Strained for his brethren to the most 
 In all brave cause of truth and right, 
 
 Has made fair prisoner of fame, 
 
 With not one fleck of shame for cost 
 Let him seem to stand 
 Amid a great sea by his whisper stirred, 
 A whirl of men all eager on his word, 
 
 Himself possessed by his own earnestness. 
 Let him seem to hear 
 In the great council of the land 
 
 The sudden hush his eloquence confess, 
 
 The pleasant voice of praise 
 
 Buzz "Is not this a man of heart and hand, 
 
 A man among the men of modern days?" 
 
 But let her low voice in his ear 
 Ring more dearly, 
 Ring more clearly, 
 Ring through sweet clearness all above, 
 
 One with his conscience, one with his own pride, 
 
Fairies' Chatter. 1 63 
 
 And sweet, oh trebly sweet with love. 
 
 Dream on, young lover, dream thy dream of life 
 
 All rainbow dyed, 
 And, in the golden centre, picture her thy wife. 
 
 Gently, oh yet more gently here : 
 
 This sleeper's face is sad, 
 There clings to the lash one lingering tear — 
 Why did it spring? 
 Did she weep because many were glad 
 To-night in their happy gathering 
 With the wealth of love sympathies, 
 
 And she felt so lone? 
 Did she weep, who was once so gay 
 
 In her girlhood long agone, 
 That her youth has withered away 
 And the light is dulled in her eyes 
 And fretted lines have vexed her brow 
 And the golden hair is deadened with grey 
 And no long looks rest on her now? 
 
 She is beautiful no more. 
 "She is old" they say "she is old," 
 And her heart within her grows cold, 
 Learning the cruel lore. 
 And doubtless she, musing alone to-night 
 When the music and dances were o'er, 
 
 Looked on the ghosts of the buried years, . 
 And moaned in her heart for their love and their light, 
 
164 Fairies' Chatter. 
 
 Lost love and lost light, 
 Till she rested in tears 
 From the sorrowful labour of thinking. 
 And how could she knit her being again 
 
 To hers whom she saw with the ghosts of time, 
 Knit her to her with a broken chain, 
 A lapse in its golden linking? 
 And how read the poem of former days 
 In the newer's saddened paraphrase, 
 
 When the music of measure and rhyme 
 
 Has died from the strain? 
 Hush ! that was an angel passing us. 
 
 There did no voice speak, 
 But there did come to her 
 A comfort messenger, 
 
 Telling her how to seek 
 The shattered links, the vanished melody. 
 How was it ? Ah ! the meaning is too high : 
 We fairies have in these heaven-thoughts no part. 
 
 But was it not something thus, 
 "That through much loving she should find a bliss 
 In all things loved and loving on the earth, 
 And have the fullness of its beauty in her heart"? 
 
 Is herein any mirth, 
 To have her love in love which is not hers, 
 Her joy in joy which other bosoms miss? 
 
 Alas ! we cannot fathom this. 
 But we know how to gladden her sleeping. 
 
 
Fairies' Chatter. 165 
 
 She shall see how on her way 
 Many bless her, many say 
 "Tis her gift to make care less," 
 And the happy bring her their happiness, 
 And she comforts the souls of the weeping. 
 And she shall wander in her dreams 
 
 Through haunts as fair as ours, 
 Shall feel the joy of sunny gleams, 
 As we feel it when they pass 
 Through green leaves in golden streams 
 Slanting to the shadowed grass, 
 Feel the quick delight of flowers : 
 And in gladness at the beauty she shall bless 
 Her Maker that she is and earth has loveliness. 
 
 Sir Hugh sleep sound to-night; 
 He will sleep more sound, ere next winter be gone. 
 Beside his wife 'neath the sculptured stone 
 Where she and his firstborn have waited him long. 
 
 Well, he looks hale and strong; 
 But 'tis many a year since his hair turned white, 
 
 And there gathers a clouding over his sight, 
 And his limbs grow soon weary of any toil. 
 
 Age has his life for spoil. 
 And he will not tremble to see strong Death 
 Snatch from her withered clutch the prey. 
 "I am old, my children," often he saith, 
 "It cannot be long ere I go my way, 
 
1 66 Fairies' Chatter. 
 
 And be no more seen. 
 And I think you will sorrow, and truly I 
 Shall be loth at heart to bid you good-bye. 
 
 But I trow I have truly had my day, 
 A long and a happy day on the whole, 
 
 As little cumbered with grief and teen 
 As well may chance to a human soul. 
 
 And now I ween 
 That life and I must soon weary each other, 
 
 Who already are grown each to each something 
 cheap. 
 Well, we shall part as friends should do, 
 
 Go thy way, kind life, though a man should 
 not weep, 
 There's a sigh for thy sake from thy gossip Hugh, 
 
 As thou turnest from him and he from thee. 
 
 So we two shall good-bye it — soon, may be. 
 What then, dear children, has not your brother, 
 
 The bright merry boy that was firstborn and best, 
 Gone before me by twenty-five years? 
 
 And she has been seven years now at her rest, 
 Whom I rarely speak of for fear of tears : 
 Yes, seven years now since we lost yoUr mother. 
 
 And surely 'tis time for me as well, 
 
 Time that the even funeral bell 
 Should usher me forth at the old hall-gate, 
 Should usher me forth to join them who wait, 
 Wife and son." 
 
Fairies' Chatter. 167 
 
 So saith Sir Hugh, but he cannot foresee 
 Where two are waiting shall wait him three. 
 Doth he guess of his rose's doom? 
 Red rose, so sweet and wild, 
 
 Withered in its bloom, 
 Bright face, so sweet that smiled, 
 Decaying in the tomb, 
 Death won. 
 So in his dreaming let him not hear 
 Her voice calling, 
 Though it be so dear. 
 But let the murmur low and clear, 
 
 Like hill echoes failing, 
 Of the two beloved who rest, 
 
 Come to him very sweet — 
 "Hasten, beloved and best, 
 Fold thy wife to thy breast, 
 Take thy boy's hand in thine, 
 Say to us 'ye are mine.' 
 
 Oh beloved, it is time we should meet." 
 Yea let him hear their voices and the voices 
 That were lost 
 From his merry boyish time, 
 From his busy manhood's prime, 
 Those he loved most, 
 Calling him till he in the thought rejoices 
 
 That death might mend life's broken links. 
 Call him, call him, in their voices 
 
1 68 Fairies' Chatter. 
 
 Till he sinks, 
 Dreams he sinks in the outstretched arms 
 
 Waving him home, 
 Feels in their clasp no doubtings, no alarms, 
 
 Knowing they do but carry him home. 
 Call him, call him, in their voices; 
 He can hear us now in his sleep, 
 
 But he will not hear, it will be so deep, 
 His sleep in the earth, ere the next year come. 
 
 Fairies, the moon has risen so high 
 That St Lucy in the hall 
 
 Is surely uncrowned of her moonbeam crown, 
 And never a ray can fall 
 
 To the panoplies in the archway down 
 
 Nor in broken lights on the hollies lie, 
 And the crystal sparkling of the pane 
 Must have dulled into dead frost again. 
 
 But yet a little foot of the sky 
 
 Has the climbing moon to go 
 
 Ere she reach her topmost place. 
 
 And fair is the omen that we have stood 
 By every child of our favoured race 
 Resting within the home to-night 
 Ere she have dropped from her airy height 
 To the lap of the waters below. 
 
 Else had it verily boded small good 
 To the fortunes of this line, 
 
 
Fairies' Chatter. 169 
 
 And the valley fay had risen weeping — 
 She who by her love church-blessed 
 Of human nature grew possessed, 
 And human death, and human rest 
 Guarded by the holy shrine — 
 Had risen ghostly from the deep grave's keeping, 
 Wringing shadow hands, and sobbing 
 For a nearing day 
 When the blessing should have passed away, 
 And the honour dwindled to decay, 
 And the name's last stay, 
 Last in whose veins was throbbing 
 The blood of Amys flushed with hers, 
 Should be lying 
 Under alien skies, 
 Staring out of glassy eyes 
 At the dark-robed ministers 
 
 Death-missioned to the dying, 
 
 Should be lying 
 Dying, name and race so dying. 
 
 -But now let the long years cycle on 
 Till their two dark centuries be gone, 
 
 And the new year's moon again 
 Touch, at that self-same hour, 
 That self-same spot of sky, and look 
 
 Down where they stood, 
 She and the knight, by the running brook 
 
170 Fairies' Chatter. 
 
 Thawed by the yesterday's rain : 
 And her brow was dewed by the christening 
 shower 
 
 And sained by the sign of the holy rood, 
 And her hand unclasped The Book 
 
 That yields to no evil might, 
 And she read the holy name 
 
 No evil tongue can read aright, 
 While new being on her came, 
 
 And a soul of human kind, 
 And her elfin nature passed 
 
 To the dead years left behind — 
 Left behind 
 As the moon left the shadow o'er her cast 
 
 And swept on proudly through the free blue air ; 
 
 And yet the soft deep cloud was very fair, 
 Did the moon not linger at last? 
 
 And yet our elfin life is very sweet, 
 
 Turned she not once and again 
 To look back on us and all she had left, 
 
 While her bare white feet 
 Slowly the waves of the chill brook cleft, • 
 
 As she crossed to the other side; 
 
 And we were calling her back in vain, 
 For she loved him more. 
 
 Turned she not once and again, 
 Even in his caressing? 
 Was there not in her joy a little pain 
 
Fairies' Chatter. 171 
 
 For all, and us, she had left? 
 
 But she crossed to the other shore. 
 Gone ! gone ! our gold-haired valley fay. 
 Gone ! gone ! our fairest whom we loved. 
 Onwards with him, along the homeward way, 
 With a woman grace she moved. 
 Gone, gone, our valley fay ! 
 But the bride of Amys was more than woman 
 
 fair, 
 Pure in heart and happy-minded, whom to love was 
 
 love's best blessing : 
 He would say " My true wife, Lucy, God was for me 
 
 on the day 
 When I heard the clear voice singing through the 
 sweet and summer air." 
 
 What? Are some among us here 
 
 New come from fair Britanny, 
 Or from tending on the King 
 In Avilion's mystic isle 
 
 Where he watches musingly 
 In his mirror's shadowing 
 
 How the things of time go by 
 Day by day, and year by year, 
 Nothing changed for him the while 
 Till the fulfilling of the fate be o'er 
 And he come once more 
 
 To his second destiny — 
 
172 Fairies' Chatter. 
 
 Some new come among us here 
 
 Who have never heard the tale 
 How Sir Amys, on a summer-morn, 
 Riding out a hawking through the vale, 
 Paused to hear the singing 
 Of a sweet voice silver ringing, 
 As it were 
 From the greenness of a thorn, 
 Making music of the air, 
 Making music of his heart? 
 And he said "Since I was born 
 Never heard I song like this, 
 Making me of it a part, 
 Making me as one with bliss." 
 Then he sprang from off his steed, 
 And he hunted, hunted vainly, 
 Though he heard the voice still plainly 
 Trilling out the wondrous song. 
 " Here " he cried " is none indeed ! 
 Yet I hear the wondrous song 
 Still more plainly. 
 I might hear it so for ever, never thinking time 
 
 grew long." 
 So he came there day by day, living almost in the 
 singing 
 Of the sweet voice silver ringing 
 From the arbour of the thorn. 
 
Fairies^ Chatter. 173 
 
 "Oh ! might I see thee !" he would say, "thee won- 
 derful who singest so." 
 
 Then the voice would seem to mock him, trilling 
 out a laughing scorn, 
 
 Else would pass away in sweetness, dying in a ca- 
 dence slow, 
 Dying, dying, sweet and slow. 
 
 Never might he see the singer, though he hunted 
 far and near 
 
 While the summer-weeks passed onwards setting all 
 the flowers aglow, 
 
 Till when August's scorching breath was hot upon 
 the yellowed corn, 
 
 He, leaning 'gainst the sloping thorn-tree, listening, 
 thrilled throughout to feel 
 
 All the strangeness and the sweetness of the lay 
 that rose so clear, 
 
 And, through the exceeding sweetness, sadness waken- 
 ed in his heart, 
 Trembled in a tear. 
 
 "Ah!" he sighed "and this that singeth doubtless 
 hath but its brief part 
 
 In the lifetime of this earth, hath no share in Hea- 
 ven's weal. 
 
 Ah the pity ! Ah the pity !" Then from his mist- 
 clouded eye 
 Dropped the trembling tear. 
 
174 Fairies' Chatter. 
 
 It glistened on a white white hand 
 
 Gleaming suddenly, 
 Where among the grass it lay, 
 Where she lay 
 Who rose suddenly like a dream, 
 Our beautiful, the valley fay. 
 
 "Now" she said "what is this spell 
 I cannot understand? 
 
 Did God teach it thee? 
 That warm dewdrop when it fell 
 
 Laid a charm on me; 
 When it touched me it did seem 
 To sink into my heart and swell — 
 Scarce is there room within my breast, 
 Is thy dewdrop there still ? 
 
 Will it not rest? 
 See thou hast won thy will, 
 I am made manifest, 
 Speak to me now and tell me what this is." 
 
 But he answered, " Nay I know not, it may be 
 My sadness, moving thee who art a thing of bliss, 
 
 Has touched a spring in thee 
 To link thee closer to my human kind and make 
 A power in me new life in thee to wake." 
 
 So she questioned through the summer-day, 
 Till the evening darkened slowly grey 
 
Fairies' Chatter. 175 
 
 And the white stars shone above; 
 So he made replies ; 
 Thinking in his heart the while 
 
 "She is too fair 
 To look on and not love. 
 She is more worthy love than tongue can 
 say, 
 Were the soul but there, 
 She, with her pureness free from guile, 
 Her laughter and her phantasies : 
 And she has St Lucy's eyes 
 
 With their innocent fearless smile; 
 As they look above the shrine 
 
 Set in the minster's southern aisle, 
 So hers gaze in mine 
 With a childishness half divine. 
 She is too innocent 
 To look on and not love." 
 
 And long before he went, 
 
 When the white stars shone above 
 
 And the night spread darkling o'er the sky, 
 
 In his inmost heart he wist 
 That they were thenceforth spirit-nigh, 
 Knit by a mystic sudden tie, 
 
 Some strange tie of heart to heart 
 Between two lives so far apart, 
 He a mortal, she a mist. 
 
176 Fairies' Chatter. 
 
 Lingering homewards with a musing pace 
 
 Through the dusky avenue, 
 Thinking of her pure pale face, 
 Thinking of her heedless grace, 
 
 In the still air Amys knew 
 Voices following him along 
 
 In a far faint song, 
 
 " Choose now thy way ; 
 Love her for ever or leave her to-day, 
 Love her for ever or else let her be 
 
 As nothing to thee." 
 Voices following him along 
 In a far faint answering song, 
 
 " He will not leave her, his love is too new, 
 And the choice is made. 
 
 He will not leave her, and we are afraid 
 For our sister's sake : 
 For the strong love-will of a man can make 
 
 Fairies love as his mortals do, 
 And, loving, they can learn to weep, 
 And, weeping, learn to sleep death's sleep, 
 From which fairies cannot wake. 
 
 Amys, Amys, be thou true. 
 If thou snap the mystic tie 
 
 Of heart to heart between the two, 
 She or thou must die. 
 
 Be true, be true, 
 Lest thine own life should be at stake." 
 
Fairies' Chatter. 177 
 
 And eyes, St Lucy's eyes, her eyes, did seem 
 To look on him as out of some old dream. 
 And it was borne upon his heart 
 
 As though One said 
 " He will not leave her, his love is too high, 
 
 And the choice is made. 
 But oh Amys, do thy part 
 In strength and honour, lest she die 
 And gain no human likeness save to die." 
 
 Fairies will ye hear the rest? 
 
 Hear how Amys day by day 
 
 Wooed the gold-haired valley fay, 
 Till there glimmered in her breast 
 
 That strange human glow 
 We do not know, 
 And her loving was confessed 
 Mid her peals of silver laughter 
 And her moods of merry freaks 
 And her passions of delight 
 And her sudden anger's height 
 Flushing redly through her cheeks, 
 And her seeming cold disdain 
 And the bright smiles blushing after 
 As she laughed love back again. 
 
 " Love " she said " since love is pleasure 
 I must love thee, love, to-day, 
 
 Love perchance a merry morrow ; 
 
 12 
 
178 Fairies' Chatter. 
 
 So many days have passed away, 
 
 And I not weary of my treasure. 
 But he said " Canst love but so ? 
 Ah ! so often love is sorrow ; 
 Canst thou no such loving know? 
 Dear this of thine no loving is, 
 It is but loving loving's bliss — 
 Well, 'tis thy best, love even so." 
 And it vexed his longing much 
 That an unseen bar seemed ever 
 
 Them to sever, 
 And he might not feel her touch, 
 
 And her face 
 Died to air before his kiss, 
 And his arms, stretched to embrace, 
 Closed on only nothingness ; 
 
 While he saw her standing nigh, 
 Mocking him with melody, 
 Laughters for his every sigh, 
 She in all things sorrowless. 
 
 But ever in the twilight falling 
 
 O'er the darkening avenue, 
 Still he heard our voices calling, 
 Calling "Be thou true 
 
 Lest thou die," 
 Saw the deep eyes earnestly 
 Looking " Be thou true 
 Lest she die." 
 
Fairies' Chatter. 179 
 
 Will ye listen a little longer? 
 
 The moon is yet on high. 
 
 Will ye hear how sorrow came, 
 
 When the summer had gone by 
 And love had grown deeper and stronger 
 
 But sad with a fear and a shame? 
 
 For the priest said "Son, this is sin. 
 Wilt thou peril thy soul alive 
 
 The love of this being to win 
 
 Whom God has not thought worthy love 
 But given her part with the Devil? 
 
 What ! and art thou so wroth ! 
 
 Yea now, though thou shouldst prove 
 Her free from the power of evil, 
 
 As thou wilt fondly believe, 
 Still it were sin to wive 
 
 With this elf creature nought akin 
 To Christian people. What but woe 
 
 Were there in the tie for both? 
 She must see thee die, and know 
 Never ye should meet again : 
 
 Dying,. thou must sorely grieve 
 She for ages should remain 
 Leading an existence vain 
 
 To die at last in nothingness, 
 If she 'scape that endless pain 
 
 Thou wilt not hear of for her meed. 
 
 12 — 2 
 
180 Fairies' Chatter. 
 
 My son ! and how should Heaven bless, 
 Or the Church take to her embrace, 
 Thy strange unhallowed elfin race? 
 Living without hope or creed, 
 
 Dying as the brute beast dies, 
 Dread will be their destinies." 
 Then the heart of Amys grew all grief, 
 While he listened daily to the cruel word. 
 
 "Cruel," he said "is thy word, 
 Stabbing me, like a quick-edged sword, 
 
 Deep, deep, into my heart : 
 But never think to make in me belief 
 
 That she is aught of ill." 
 Yet he answered, being sore bested, 
 "Priest and teacher thou art 
 To show us the path to tread ; 
 
 Thou knowest God's will, 
 Therefore to thy rule I bow. 
 God help me now!" 
 
 The moon is low, is sinking low, 
 But she is not paling yet : 
 There is still a while ere she set, 
 And a longer while ere the shrill cock crow 
 For the cold grey winter morn. 
 
 Will ye tarry to hear the end? 
 Hear how Amys wearily must wend 
 To the leaf-stripped thorn 
 
Fairies' Chatter. 181 
 
 In whose greenness they did meet : 
 And the autumn wind moaned his despair 
 Ever and anon 
 
 Back to him in long shrill moans, 
 
 Beat the brook against its stepping stones 
 
 Till it answered too in moans, 
 Shook the shivering boughs more bare 
 
 Till they answered too in moans ; 
 And the dank dead leaves hissed 'neath his feet ; 
 And the rain plashed on 
 
 With a sorrowful sound ; 
 
 And bitter voices in the air 
 Moaned around 
 
 "Can he love unsay? 
 
 Too late, too late to-day. 
 
 He has loved her life away, 
 Now she will die. 
 Let him teach her to die." 
 And Amys bowed his head 
 In shame and sorrow very dread, 
 Yet he went on, remembering 
 The word he spake unto the priest; 
 
 But he gasped, like one dying, for breath. 
 He cried "Oh saints! this is a bitter thing. 
 And I fare forth to a merry tryst ! 
 
 For me much better were death. 
 But I thank God she will suffer least, 
 
 Since by her nature she cannot sorrow. 
 
1 82 Fairies' Chatter. 
 
 Mayhap for the day she will anger and pine, 
 But the eyes that smile into mine 
 And the lips I have never kissed 
 
 Will smile gaily again to-morrow." 
 He cried "And I, am I false? but ye know, 
 Spirits that mock me, my truth 
 By the depth of my woe. 
 Ye know that love from my life cannot go, 
 
 Though I willed it so, 
 Since now the love has become one with me ; 
 
 And I hate my youth 
 That it must give me such terrible might 
 To suffer and yet be strong with life — 
 
 Years, and years, and years, 
 All with this deadly bitterness rife — 
 To suffer and yet be strong with life." 
 And the voices cried "Thou say est right, 
 So will it be. 
 
 Years, and years, and years, 
 All with this deadly bitterness rife, 
 To suffer and yet be strong with life." 
 But he went on wearily; 
 And the wind moaned and moaned more drearily ; 
 And the brook and the boughs moaned more drearily ; 
 And the rain plashed in chiller showers. 
 
 But the pure eyes that watched him oftentimes 
 
 Smiled on him as through tears : 
 And a sweet voice, more sweet than ours. 
 
Fairies' Chatter. 183, 
 
 Fell with a music as of vesper chimes, 
 "Now, through all thy sorrow, be thou strong, 
 Choosing any anguish more than wrong. 
 God judgeth, God giveth aid — 
 Shrink not from the duty on thee laid." 
 So it sighed away in sadness, as he passed 
 Along the vale and saw her near, 
 With her head aside his coming foot to hear, 
 
 Beneath the black bare thorn, 
 With her arm clasped round it fast, 
 With a new look in her eyes, 
 Half sorrow half surprise. 
 "Love" she said "I seemed to be so lorn, 
 Waiting longingly for thee. 
 Wilt thou drive away 
 The spell that is on me to-day? 
 What is it? Is it pain? 
 Long ago I used to laugh to see 
 The wild wind tear the red leaves from the tree 
 
 And whirl them so high, 
 And I chased them as it chased. 
 
 Long ago I laughed to catch the rain 
 With my palms for goblets placed. 
 Now my heart is vexed 
 For the poor leaves that die. 
 Now it irks me to see the stripped earth lie 
 
 So shelterless and waste, 
 Bare to the bleak black sky; 
 
184 Fairies' Chatter. 
 
 And my mind is perplexed 
 With wonder, almost as if I had done 
 
 With this fairy life of mine 
 As bright and as light as spray in the sun, 
 
 And had grown to that strange life of thine, 
 
 The weary life of the weary world. 
 Love, laugh with me, make me merry again." 
 
 But he turned from her, saying no word, 
 
 And in a passionate outburst hurled 
 Him face to earth and wept 
 
 With a man's fierce anger of grief. 
 But she never stirred. 
 Stone-like, with tight hands together pressed, 
 
 In a mute amaze she kept 
 
 Watching still and wonderingly ; 
 
 Till at length she said "Is this grief? 
 It seems more than the pain of things that die ; 
 
 For they grow quiet as if they slept. 
 Now, though I love him best, 
 
 I would he had loved, not me, 
 But a woman; for she would have known 
 
 If any could give him relief. 
 And I would now that I could sorrow as he, 
 That he might not bear it all and alone." 
 Then she crept 
 
 Timidly near to him and more near : 
 
 And there seemed no bar between them now : 
 
 And she stooped and kissed his brow, 
 
Fairies' Chatter. 185 
 
 Saying "Let me mourn as thou." 
 Then she seemed to shiver with a sudden fear 
 And a sudden pang : 
 And we saw how the quick human tears upsprang, 
 And she wept as women weep. 
 Then he started, as if from sleep, 
 And he felt her touch, and he felt her kiss, 
 And he clasped her close to his breast, 
 
 Who never had lain there yet, 
 And her cheeks with his tears and hers were wet ; 
 
 And the tears seemed to sink 
 Down to her heart till it gasped oppressed 
 With a sorrow half like bliss 
 Because it was a part of his; 
 
 And closer and closer the mystic link 
 Seemed knitting to his her being. 
 
 He cried "And how can I think 
 I of a coward fleeing? 
 To leave thee, owning my loving a sin, 
 
 Calling thy loving a moment's and vain, 
 Now when thou hast grown to my being akin, 
 Only through love." 
 But softly from above 
 Rang that strange voice, slow and plain, 
 " Not through love only ; 
 Was there not sorrow?" 
 But we cried ever 
 "Nay why should ye part for one to live lonely 
 
1 86 Fairies' Chatter. 
 
 And one to die? 
 Take heed to thee Amys ; the day ye shall sever 
 One of the two may lie dead on the morrow. 
 
 Take heed to thyself; if her love goes by 
 She cannot die." 
 But the voice rose clear above our song 
 
 " Yet be strong, 
 Choosing any anguish more than wrong." 
 
 Then he rose up, very white, and said 
 " Dearest never think of me again ; 
 
 Let it be as if I were dead, 
 And do not try to learn our human pain, 
 
 Who canst not our human comfort know. 
 Laugh, love, like thyself, and say good bye. 
 Love, I must no more look on thy dear face ; 
 
 Give me one little kiss and let me go." 
 But she made a little startled cry, 
 
 Like a baby child amazed 
 
 At a sudden chiding blow, 
 
 And into his eyes she gazed 
 With a fond beseeching grace, 
 Saying "Love it is not true? 
 
 Thou art mocking me. 
 Let be, let be, with the idle jest, 
 Take back my hands, lay my head on thy breast." 
 
 Saying "Is it because it seems to thee 
 That I cannot love as a woman might do? 
 But teach me then, I shall learn the way 
 
Fairies' Chatter, 187 
 
 Easily, easily, after to-day : 
 
 For have I not wept thy tears?" 
 Saying " Is it because I cannot share 
 Thy grave long thoughts as a woman might 
 
 share ? 
 But, love, I can charm from thee all life's care, 
 And make thee one gladness of all life's years. 
 Oh ! love me a little while longer yet, 
 Oh ! a little little while longer yet." 
 Then his frame with a great trembling shook, 
 
 And his teeth were set, 
 And the words he gasped died away, 
 Like the cries of a dreamer in the night, 
 
 In a stifled moan. 
 Then he looked in her eyes with a weary look, 
 And at last we could hear him say — 
 
 Oh his lips were white, 
 And his eyes were strange with a cold hard light, 
 And his voice was dull and slow — 
 
 " Now it may not be. 
 But kiss me again ere I go, 
 That I may think of thee 
 As even in farewell my own, 
 Even in this farewell." 
 And she clung to him and kissed him, brow, and 
 lip, and cheek, 
 
 And she did not speak, 
 But piteously and pleading looked up into his face : 
 
1 88 Fairies' Chatter. 
 
 But he put her slowly from him, and hurried with 
 
 an angry pace 
 Homeward through the dreary valley, in the ever 
 
 darkening rain: 
 And a shadow fell 
 Over the thorn, and the loud long winds hissed 
 
 through the shivering dell. 
 
 Is the moon there yet? 
 She grows pale and chill 
 
 In a waning gleam ; 
 
 But she has not set, 
 And the house is still. 
 
 Listen while men yet dream. 
 Faint grew his heart, faint with a long distress, 
 
 And like a fevered sleep his days lagged by, 
 And the sad nights passed o'er him slumberless, 
 
 And he was wearier than one like to die. 
 And in the minster's southern aisle 
 
 We watched him daily, how he spent 
 Long hours before St Lucy's shrine, 
 
 His gaze upon those pure eyes bent 
 With their innocent fearless smile 
 And their childishness half divine, 
 
 Eyes that were also hers. 
 And he prayed "Now thou wilt pardon me, 
 Thou dear saint, that I gaze on thee 
 
 Longer for the love of one 
 
Fairies' Chatter. 189 
 
 Who from my chilled life is gone. 
 Ah ! thine eyes that hers are like ! 
 
 Surely they were messengers 
 Of strength to me in need : 
 Thine the voice that seemed to strike 
 Like God's bidding on my heart. 
 
 And I obeyed. 
 I crushed my heart : and now I bleed, 
 Bleed inly hurt to death. 
 
 Hast thou no aid?" 
 And once a voice, like a low breath 
 Of far off music, answering said 
 
 "Well hast thou done thy part: 
 Have hope, God giveth aid." 
 
 But, when the cold white snow was spread 
 
 Far o'er the earth's numbed breast, 
 
 He said "I know not any rest 
 Thinking of her : for do I know 
 Into what change her life might grow, 
 
 She being changed through me? 
 And what if she does not forget? 
 
 Ah ! it may be that she 
 Is weeping wildly for me yet; 
 
 It may be she is dead." 
 And pain-damps stood upon his brow; 
 
 He sat in struggle with himself, 
 His strong hands clenched until the blood 
 
190 Fairies' Chatter. 
 
 Oozed from the nail-clipped flesh. 
 Then at length he rose, the master of his mood; 
 
 He said " I will not sin afresh 
 I will not seek her." Sudden stood, 
 
 Right at his knees, a fire-eyed elf 
 Shrilling " Brave heart ! she must linger alone, 
 
 Dying alone with her misery, 
 Lest the sight of her pain should quicken thine 
 own 
 And a cruel word be broken ! 
 Oh, brave Sir Amys ! But see, and see, 
 By my touch and my spell I have glamoured thee. 
 
 Look up, true lover, and see her die. 
 Look up — Do I keep the word I have spoken?" 
 
 Then Amys wakened by the spell, 
 
 Standing in the shadowed dell 
 Where he stood that summer-morn 
 
 When on his ears the sweet voice fell 
 From out the downward sloping thorn; 
 And he saw her lie 
 
 With her sinking head half propped 
 Against the tree, 
 
 And her lax hands listless dropped, 
 Hands so thin and worn; 
 
 And her cheek and lips were pale 
 As a dying girl's might be 
 
 When the change came nigh. 
 And, one by one, the slow tears crept v 
 
Fairies' Chatter. 
 
 Welling out from her closed eyes, 
 As though she, wearied, only slept 
 Dreaming bitter memories. 
 And she sighed a low weak wail, 
 Like far waves in the sobbing gale 
 Sighing along the shore. 
 And Amys, listening, held his breath, 
 
 Hearing her sigh 
 "Alas! I would be glad in death 
 Might he but come once more, 
 
 Once, only once, before I die." 
 Then with sudden bounds he sprang 
 Upwards, onwards, where she lay; 
 Crying "Let doom fall on me, 
 So I but her doom retrieve, 
 So I save her but one pang." 
 
 But, even as he gained the tree, 
 A whisper through the branches stirred 
 And passed away : 
 And he was wakened from the spell, 
 And, in the thorn-tree's shadow, heard 
 The music of the far church-bell, 
 And knew it was St Lucy's eve. 
 
 Listen again — white grows the moon, 
 And keen is the morning's chill, 
 The life of the toilers will waken soon, 
 And the hurry and din 
 
 191 
 
192 Fairies' Chatter. 
 
 Of the day begin, 
 But now they are wrapped in our dream-webs still. 
 
 Listen then : even that night, 
 While Amys sleepless tossed on his bed, 
 His hot hands pressed to his aching head, 
 
 And his eyes in the darkness burning with sight 
 Of her, her always, now cold and dead 
 
 Alone in the snows 'neath the bare black tree, 
 
 Now laughing upon him happy and bright 
 
 With the old child love and the old child glee, 
 Now as he saw her that day 
 Weeping her life away, 
 Sudden there streamed a light, 
 A silver glory of light, through the gloom, 
 And a stillness was in the room; 
 And his heart grew hushed and at rest. 
 
 Then was a white form there, 
 In the midst of the brightness a brighter ray, 
 
 Like the angels fair, 
 With a pure white star above her brow, 
 And a pure white lily at her breast, 
 And in her hand the martyr's bough. 
 
 She smiled on him, and her clear eyes 
 Were like the eyes he loved the best, 
 
 But deeper, as the depth of skies, 
 
 And solemn with a happy awe 
 As though they saw 
 
 Always Heaven's mysteries : 
 
Fairies' Chatter. 193 
 
 And Amys knew that these were they, 
 
 Watching him ofttimes in his pain, 
 Whereon to look seemed as to pray 
 
 And grow more strong in faith again : 
 And knew the strange sweet voice that spake, 
 Saying " Amys, fall not in despair 
 For her sake. 
 Thou may st give thy life for hers, as was thy 
 
 prayer, 
 But wait in patience and be strong 
 
 Lest it be granted thee in vain, 
 And the past bitterness be also all in vain. 
 To-day I saved thee, but I may not save again 
 
 From the snare. 
 Now listen : as the year wanes she will wane, 
 Die with it to the nothingness of air, 
 Lost like the breath of perfume or of song, 
 
 Except she win another life. 
 Thou, in the death-hour of the year, 
 Stand where the valley brook clips round 
 The thorn-tree copse's fern-fringed bound, 
 Call to her, for she will hear, 
 
 ' Thou, if thou wilt be my wife, 
 Cross the brook to me, and let 
 Thy brow with christening dew be wet, 
 Sained with symbol of our creed, 
 
 Place thy hand for troth in mine, 
 So shalt thou have mortal meed, 
 
 T 3 
 
194 Fairies' Chatter. 
 
 Human life for this of thine 
 With its wild sweet fairy gladness, 
 Hope of second life divine 
 
 For thine endless fairy days : 
 But, if thou dost loath the sadness 
 
 And the darkness of our ways, 
 And wilt have thy shadeless glee 
 
 Once again among thy fays, 
 
 Choose ; it shall be given thee.' 
 Yet, oh Amys, know the danger on thy head : 
 If she choose once more her elfin life to live, 
 
 There is a price to give; 
 And when the fated hour is sped 
 
 She will look on thee in her careless mood, 
 Thee lying dead, 
 
 With the ignorance of love 
 
 Of her fairy sisterhood 
 
 And light to her old joys will go 
 Thinking nothing of the dead. 
 Canst thou do this?" 
 And Amys, in a low voice reverent, 
 
 And sudden with his yearning, spoke 
 "This I will do as Heaven is." 
 And from him in a breath the vision went, 
 
 And he knelt praying till the morning broke. 
 
 Did there one stir, 
 Awake in the house? No all is hushed. 
 
Fairies' Chatter. 195 
 
 'Twas a gust of wind through the chambers 
 rushed. 
 The day will be rude. 
 Yes all is hushed : hear now the last. 
 And Amys waited in his restless mood, 
 
 And weary at the heart for her : 
 And slow, and slow, the grey days passed, 
 And ever fear would come to him 
 "What and if she die before 1" 
 And his breath came quick, and his sight grew dim, 
 And a shudder thrilled him from limb to limb, 
 And he longed to seek her but yet forbore. 
 And ever the elf was urging him sore — 
 (For the riddle from us was hidden 
 Of what was granted and what forbidden, 
 And we watched in wonder and fear) — 
 And ever we were crying 
 
 "Haste she is dying: 
 Haste, she prays only to see thee once more." 
 And he panted to seek her, but yet forbore. 
 But, when the fateful night was come, 
 
 The cold drear death-night of the year, 
 He hasted darkling from his home 
 
 Long ere the midnight hour was near, 
 And waited by the brook's swelled tide, 
 And called, and called, but none replied, 
 Till all the clear stars specked the sky 
 And the wakened moon was high. 
 
 13—2 
 
196 Fairies' Chatter. 
 
 Then he heard 
 A faint faint voice reply- 
 One low word 
 "Love I die." 
 Then he called again "Oh, sweet faint voice, 
 "Come nearer, answer me." 
 And he spoke and gave her choice 
 In the words She bade him say, 
 Who taught him on St. Lucy's eve. 
 Then she answered from afar "Love, must it be? 
 Must I choose between my old glad life and thee? 
 Alas! in that sad higher world of thine men 
 grieve, 
 And I am all aweary of the tears." 
 
 And we cried " Stay with us, oh ! stay. 
 Life like ours is far too sweet to leave. 
 Laughters and music ring through all our merry 
 endless year, 
 But sorrow darkens o'er the world's vexed way 
 And all its love and life are but a day." 
 "Yet" she said "that love, his love, is more than 
 
 ours; 
 And that life, his life, is more than ours, 
 Although our length of days out-tell its length of 
 hours." 
 
 She sighed "And yet how shall it be? 
 For in his weeping world, I think, 
 My love has need of me." 
 
Fairies' Chatter. 197 
 
 And, while she wavered, rose once more 
 His voice towards us from the brink 
 "Love hast thou chosen? for the night 
 
 Is close upon its midmost hour : 
 And, when the sudden bell shall wake 
 The younger year, thou hast no choice to make. 
 Thou wilt be as thou wast of yore, 
 
 Thine again thy fairy dower 
 Of all things beautiful save love, 
 
 Save love that will have passed away." 
 Then she rose — 
 What was that stirred in the house above? 
 
 High over head 
 Is a sound of wakers that move, 
 
 Beginning the business of day 
 Before the long night has fled, 
 And the dawning glows 
 Redden faintly the winter skies. 
 Hark ! nearer it grows. 
 The house is astir. 
 Hence ! hence ! ere mortal witnesser 
 Unbidden on our secret pries. 
 Hence ! hence ! our talk is vexed with wakening 
 eyes. 
 

fnta. 
 
 Born owner of old acres, an old hall, 
 
 And wide old woods that made the slopes like hills, 
 
 Was Gervase Lester, whom his mother taught 
 
 To strut among them masterwise ere yet 
 
 His unbreeched limbs were strong enough to take 
 
 The lithesomeness of schoolboys. In the grey 
 
 Of evening hours till bedtime, when she spent 
 
 Her sweet caresses on him and her talk 
 
 Was mother-like and childish by the fire, 
 
 Instead of fairy tales she'd pleasure him 
 
 With vague quaint legends of his ancestors 
 
 Scowling or simpering at them from their frames. 
 
 It did not harm him — likelier did good : 
 
 For afterwards, if Gervase Lester mused 
 
 A trifle arrogantly on his grace 
 
 Of being born in the appendix to the list 
 
 Of these historic Lesters, he recalled 
 
 Unconsciously the chime of the dear voice 
 
200 Lota. 
 
 That told their stories, and of some grave notes 
 
 Mixed with the prattle, and he took to heart 
 
 How proud his mother meant to be of him 
 
 If she had lived to see him ripen out 
 
 To the fullblown Lester, and so tried to keep 
 
 A something of his likeness to her hopes. 
 
 Although, among an eager college clique 
 
 Of crude philosophers apt to forget 
 
 The answers to the questions in the schools, 
 
 Not valuing like the examiners 
 
 Mere musty grammar and strait sciences, 
 
 But who, to make amends, would show by the hour 
 
 How different and wide the scope should be 
 
 Of their teachers' teaching,- and were overbrimmed 
 
 With universal thoughts, he learned to boast 
 
 Some creeds and principles which would have made 
 
 That mild upholder of despotic rules 
 
 And ancient stricl; observances turn pale 
 
 With fear and sorrow for him and look up 
 
 To see if each right Lester did not stir 
 
 And shudder in his frame. 
 
 The young men talked 
 Much noble nonsense; many generous schemes 
 Icarian, whose wings must needs melt off 
 At the first exposure to the garish sun 
 Of the world's every day; many beliefs 
 Most beautiful and rounded every way 
 
Lota. 201 
 
 To a nice perfectness, as bubbles are ; 
 
 And many unbeliefs as beautiful 
 
 And just as brittle to the first rough proof; 
 
 Many true-based delusions; many truths 
 
 Bottomed on dreams, as the moon seems to rest 
 
 On clouds.... that fade and still the moon is there. 
 
 They hoped, they argued, they denounced, they 
 
 planned — 
 And all. their talk was to their great concern 
 Of how the world should wag of as much use 
 As a school-boy's shouts at play. Yet the lad's noise 
 Inures his throat for speeches bye and bye 
 When he's a statesman or a barrister 
 Or has to try if weary pews will hear 
 Another sermon yet and keep awake : 
 And the outbursts of these ardent half-fledged minds 
 Prepare them, possibly, for well poised flight, 
 For some flight anyhow, and that is more 
 Than skilful gropings in the mud for food, 
 Like farmyard webfoots, fat, yet eating more. 
 
 Yet, " Let them learn" you'll say, "what learning is 
 Ere they confute it with their phantasies." 
 And you'll say wisely. And in truth they'd find 
 Their teachers something deeper than they know, 
 If they had lead and line to sound with. Yet 
 I'll tell you this my thought: a shallow brook 
 That frets and brattles on and takes some miles 
 
202 Lota. 
 
 A little helping moisture for green growths 
 Is better worth than an opaque still pool, 
 Quite deep, you're told, below, if you could see, 
 That feeds a slime of chickweed and a marge 
 Of mud-weeds round about the hole it fills, 
 And does no more and keeps its stagnant peace. 
 I will not thank your dull sage, day by day 
 Growing denser with new learning, while he sees 
 The wide world stretched outside the little round 
 Of his small special science as its rim 
 To hold it in, measures the proper stretch 
 Of aspirations as to learn or teach 
 That same small special science, takes the heights 
 Of lives by how much they have learned or taught 
 Of the special science. Let him learn and teach : 
 He has his sort of use, but I will praise 
 No sleepy wisdom at whose door life cries 
 "Awake and let me in," and cries unheard. 
 
 Gervase became a great man in his clique. 
 They told the world so most vociferously ; 
 But the world did not listen much at first. 
 In after years, when they explained to it 
 How much he could have done if he had cared, 
 And would have done if things had happened right, 
 And partly did and partly planned to do, 
 The world was more impressed and spoke his name 
 Complacently, as a proud father boasts 
 
Lota. 203 
 
 "My youngest son, Sir, a wild selfwilled dog, 
 Would study or would not just when he chose 
 And how he chose, or else he would have been 
 First of his year, prizeman in everything — 
 Too sharp in fact, ('twixt you and me), to pin 
 His mind to pedant rules; and so he failed." 
 And that's as sweet as any kind of fame, 
 For it awakes no jealousies, and each 
 Who praises shows his own rare competence 
 To catch the sparkle in the uncut gem, 
 Hints too that he himself wears in his sleeve 
 An uncut gem of genius very like 
 By which he recognized it; and so praise 
 Rings roundly out and every one is pleased. 
 
 Such honour Gervase had, and, had he died 
 In the young spring of saptime, would have been 
 Immortal for at least a score of years. 
 But he, as if a bulb which you have nursed 
 For some rare tulip should put forth its spikes 
 A common useful onion, growing ripe 
 Betrayed his serviceable worth and kind, 
 And was, nor poet nor philosopher. 
 But just a clever eager-hearted man, 
 With work in him if the world wanted work, 
 And pleasant music if Jris friends asked songs. 
 And so he shed his glory while he passed 
 What he had been when he was clothed in it : 
 
2 04 Lota. 
 
 As lime-buds lose their little rosy wings 
 By opening out in leafage. 
 
 But not yet 
 Was Gervase Lester sobered from the draught 
 Of heady praises which his friends frothed out 
 With their young generous measure, when he came 
 From doing pilgrimage Childe-Harold-wise — 
 Carrying albeit no more, luscious vice 
 To help him moralize than vanity : 
 For he was one who never could believe 
 In ^Esop's midden-cock that scraped up pearls 
 From the rank filth, and who disdained the smutch 
 Of all ignoble wallowings. He came 
 To take his natural place among the squires, 
 Full to the lips of theories and schemes, 
 Art aspirations, steam appliances, 
 The poor made rich by schooling, the rich wise 
 By unlearning what they've learned and going back 
 To nature's simpler lessons, the tight straps 
 Of form and custom loosed from each man's girth, 
 The landlords governing paternally 
 And seeing that the girls were taught to sew — 
 Hopes views and facts, all jumbled contra-wise, 
 Like the housewife's touzle-bag of sewing silks, 
 From which each several thread may be drawn out 
 Perfect and put to use, but which, in the whole, 
 Seems an unpurposed tangle of clipped shreds. 
 
Lota. 205 
 
 But the squires would not work with him, did good 
 In a plain charitable ' way, or else 
 Let well alone, or maybe ill alone; 
 And wondered how a man who rode to hounds 
 So pluckily as Lester, got that craze 
 For newfangled social problems, reasoning 
 By system like a shallow foreigner; 
 And baited him with friendly dinner-wit 
 He thought as solid and as savourless 
 As their traditionary en trees... or, 
 (As he irreverently dared to think), 
 Their proper-mannered comely wives and girls. 
 
 At last he grew too weary of the squires, 
 Jokes, dinners, wives, and comely girls; perhaps 
 Of the reforms and works on his estate, ' 
 Which always somewhere crooked from his design. 
 He'd live awhile in town. And, half ashamed, 
 He thought of friends there : one he called his aunt, 
 His mother's distant cousin, had half made 
 A son of him by kindness. Sooth to say 
 He feared she planned a nearer motherhood : 
 She had daughters, and one of them, Evelyn, 
 Stately and simple, with deep quiet eyes 
 Like sky, blue sky seen through a thin grey cloud, 
 And a fairness which made beauty of itself, 
 Had seemed so loveable that still he mused 
 
206 Lota. 
 
 How strange he had not loved her, and in truth 
 Had found it hard to keep from telling her 
 He loved her though he did not. And his aunt 
 (I'll call her so as he did) had been prompt 
 To help him past his wish, and Evelyn 
 Had learned to drop her eyes so suddenly 
 When he looked at her that he could not help 
 A pleasure and a shame at once. No blame 
 That could be shaped lay with him ; not a word 
 Nor sign of suitorship had perjured him; 
 But yet he felt that there had somewhere lurked 
 A touch of falseness in him to the girl, 
 And gladly would have heard that she was wed 
 And happy. 
 
 For she was to him more dear 
 Than any woman of the whole wide world : 
 Only he said "Now I could never love her:" 
 Since he had felt those pleasant woman wiles 
 Of which most Englishwomen fail, the charm 
 Of bright caprice, subtle simplicities, 
 Pert bird-like confidence, and kitten ease, 
 And changing fluent speech of word and look 
 And pretty sudden gestures, or the charm 
 Of southern languorous quiet waking up 
 Into a flash of fire. Then too, because 
 The foreign women's manners, trimmed to rules 
 Different from those which wearied him at home, 
 
Lota. 207 
 
 Had the sweet of strangeness for him, he, who loathed 
 
 Our social bugbear that makes wild birds tame 
 
 By clipping wings that were designed to fly, 
 
 Conventionality, took them to be 
 
 More frankly living, less conventional 
 
 Than the women drudging on at morning calls 
 
 And being civil placidly by rote 
 
 In England, where he had seen enough to know 
 
 What necessary clockwork fills the place 
 
 Of the pith of nature scooped out of their lives 
 
 By careful teachers. "I would liefer set" 
 
 He thought, "some rare white statue in my house 
 
 And talk my heart to it, than one of these 
 
 Our proper well-trained damsels, same and good, 
 
 Who would not even look as if she'd life 
 
 Enough to long to live. My statue would, 
 
 And would change her beauty with each changing light, 
 
 Instead of varying, as my wife would do, 
 
 Her ribbons and her roses to one face." 
 
 So he still thought "Not Evelyn, she is good, 
 
 And very fair, and very lofty souled, 
 
 But she is spoiled with training, as we spoil 
 
 All sweet frank natures of our English girls. 
 
 Let me have innocent wild carelessness, 
 
 And the fresh freedom of a natural growth." 
 
 And yet did he say wisely ? The vine boughs 
 Which, pruned and trimmed, are stripped of half 
 their grace 
 
208 Lota. 
 
 Are those that bear rich grapes, not the wild sprays 
 That droop and twine and wander with the winds, 
 Growing towards the sunlight as they will. 
 
 The home in London chosen, himself installed, 
 Gervase half eager, half reluctant, went 
 To greet the Westlands. Scoldingly the aunt, 
 And cordially, gave welcome; as one scolds 
 A truant favourite and praises him 
 For coming, back at last. The daughters teased, 
 Evelyn among them, with a playful show 
 Of making him a stranger, and were kind 
 
 With a benevolent modest courtesy 
 
 Which Gervase quite forgot to think by rule, 
 Although, in sooth, they would have been the same 
 To one less liked. But he discerned in them 
 A frank goodwill, and was at ease, assured 
 Of his familiar place with them again. 
 And if sweet Evelyn flushed a little more 
 Than her sisters when she spoke, it might be chance, 
 Or else her fairer skin which showed the glow 
 Sooner than theirs; for she betrayed no sign 
 Of flutter or of coyness. 
 
 She had passed 
 From girl to woman, and was lovelier, 
 As the evening star grows lovelier, that glows 
 With its full light, than when it first awoke, 
 
Lota. 209 
 
 White and uncertain, in its younger gleam. 
 
 But she was yet a girl in years, and kept 
 
 A something of the child in her grave eyes, 
 
 And the child's questioning look. He could not keep 
 
 From watching her, she was so rare a thing : 
 
 And presently it seemed as if his talk 
 
 Was all for her, whoever questioned him 
 
 Or answered. And she, by degrees, became 
 
 More silent than her share, checked by the sense 
 
 Of a half-sweet constraint, and blushed confused 
 
 Because he made her beauty present to her. 
 
 So Gervase sat and told his travel tales, 
 Not ill content to be a hero, pleased 
 With the girls' eager questions and the praise 
 And half-approving blames of his good aunt, 
 And Evelyn's quiet smiles. He took amiss 
 The break, when suddenly a gipsy face, 
 A quaint face, olive, but with hair all glow, 
 Like sunshine on brown rivers, crowning it, 
 Peeped in behind the door, and Constance called 
 "Lota come in," and, giving sudden chase, 
 Brought her among them, ruffled and half-cross — 
 A lithe slight creature, looking scarcely more 
 Than a girl -grown child ; with a rebellious pout, 
 And a sort of sudden fitful prettiness 
 Which flickered and died out by moments. "This" 
 Said Mrs Westland, "is my ward and niece, 
 
 14 
 
210 Lota. 
 
 Whose name is Lota." Gervase, having made 
 His reverence and noticed the quick grace 
 Of Lota's answering movement, asked "But I? 
 Am I to call her Lota? for you give 
 No other name." But Lota, with her cheeks 
 A vivid painful crimson, answered him 
 In lofty fashion, slowly. "I am called 
 Miss Deveril." He bowed and let her be : 
 She did not please him ; though she instantly 
 Spoke with a kindness in her voice and eyes 
 " I would not have attempted that vain flight 
 If I had known 'twas you. My cousins speak 
 As if you were a friend." And Ethel laughed, 
 And said "Moreover Lota knows, alas! 
 That she cannot, with all her hennit ways, 
 Escape from meeting you at last, and so 
 She plucks her nettle boldly." Gervase smiled 
 "Miss Deveril is kind then to forgive 
 The nettle for upspringing in her path," 
 And that was all. At night, when he sat still 
 Beside his dying fire, his dreaming sense 
 Was filled with Evelyn, whose fair sweet face 
 Would come uncalled ; and, if he thought at all 
 Of Lota, it was as a cross-grained sprite 
 Unsociable perversely, but not shy, 
 Who seemed beside calm gracious Evelyn 
 The olive that gives zest to generous wine. 
 
Lota. 211 
 
 But he saw Lota more — a score of times — 
 And then she seemed to him the veriest witch 
 That ever glamoured men against their wills. 
 He could not read her. She seemed made to sit 
 Out of the wind and sing, to play with life, 
 And think in treble laughters; yet at times, 
 Rarely indeed, she'd sit in languid rest, 
 Drooping and limp, and answer with a voice 
 That seemed asleep and sad; and often too 
 Stole through her mirth a tremulous bitterness 
 That jarred unnatural in such an elf 
 Of freak and sportiveness ; and most of all 
 When she was bitter she was tender too, 
 Yet hard when she was simply gay. She fled 
 From strangers' presence, yet, if she was forced 
 To front it, bore herself, first queenly, then 
 With a flash and glitter of quick wit and glow 
 Of almost joy that proved how far she was 
 From the sad love of solitary calm, 
 And how far from uncouth sly bashfulness 
 Of conscious silly schoolgirls. Then her face, 
 Which changed its meaning at a word, would change 
 Sometimes another way, and sudden show 
 On its round girlishness a worn waned look, 
 As of a woman growing older. So 
 She angered him with changes, as you're vexed 
 With the symphony that hurries you away 
 From the sweet strain you liked to one more wild 
 
 14 — 2 
 
212 Lota. 
 
 And then, ere you are sated with the new, 
 Takes you at unawares back to the first. 
 Changed music does not tire though it may chafe, 
 And Lota's fitfulness was never dull. 
 
 And Gervase quarrelled with her day by day, 
 Till Evelyn knew he loved her; though at first 
 Himself he hardly knew it. Evelyn watched 
 With a sick heart, and trembled: once she said 
 "Nay, Lota, tell him." Lota but said "Why?" 
 And then, when Evelyn spoke, " It seems to me 
 He loves you," kissed her fondlingly and laughed 
 " Dear love, if he loves either it is you." 
 
 But she was sadder after that, at times 
 Half querulous, and bitterer when she laughed ; 
 And Gervase never said nor did the thing 
 That pleased her. And yet once, and twice, he saw, 
 When she had pained him sharpest, that her eyes 
 Were heavy with big tears and her paled lips 
 Were quivering piteous. And the passion rose 
 Into his heart " She loves me, and shall love." 
 
 He waited. Lota was so strange; a word 
 At the wrong moment, a too happy look, 
 Too loving, a too confident clasp of hands, 
 Might startle her away from him. She seemed 
 A timorous wild thing, liking to be stroked, 
 
Lota. 213 
 
 Yet shrinking from his hand lest it should hold 
 
 Too firm for flight, and, suddenly alarmed, 
 
 Butting for very fear. " I dare not stir," 
 
 He said, "lest I should lose her." And it was 
 
 As if, in losing Lota, he should lose 
 
 All fire of loving in him, all delight 
 
 In womanly sweet charms, in ruddy lips 
 
 That seem grown ripe for kisses, white warm arms 
 
 Waiting to cling about a husband's neck, 
 
 Clear eyes meant to look large with love, the play 
 
 Of glorious blushes flashing at a look, 
 
 The subtle stir of life in every limb 
 
 And the round grace of form — all Lota had 
 
 Less than a many women Gervase knew, 
 
 Than any of her cousins, but of which 
 
 She was to him the bodied perfect all. 
 
 He waited, meant to wait. But on a day 
 He brought her, simply, as he would have brought 
 To Evelyn or Constance, a choice spray 
 Of pearly hot-house roses amber-touched 
 Towards the core, because he heard her wish 
 For such a rose to draw into her group : 
 And Lota mocked him for the pains he took 
 To be a squire of dames; and first the flowers 
 Were over yellow for her, then too pale ; 
 And then she tossed them into Ethel's lap, 
 As just the tint to suit her that night's dress. 
 
214 Lota. 
 
 Till Mrs Westland, vexed, cried out at her 
 For such a wayward thanklessness " Indeed 
 Gervase is far too good to have so long 
 Taken your snappish ways indifferently, 
 And still have wished to pleasure you to-day." 
 Then Lota tried to laugh, but suddenly 
 Broke into tears and hurried from the room; 
 And Gervase on the moment followed, snatched 
 Her trembling hand, and drew her suddenly 
 Into the balmy quiet, where sweet flowers 
 And greenness and white placid statues were, 
 Into the balmy quiet, they alone. 
 
 " My darling !" that was all he said, and drew 
 Her close to him, and close, and filled her face 
 With hot long kisses; while she bent and shook 
 Between his arms like a frail harebell tossed 
 By summer tempests. But a moment more 
 And she broke from him. " No, Gervase ; go from me — 
 No, not your darling. Nothing, nothing to you." 
 " My wife," he answered, but she would not speak : 
 "My wife," he said again, "Speak. Not my wife?" 
 But she gasped " Go. Oh out of pity go. 
 To-morrow I will tell you." 
 
 As she spoke 
 The aunt flapped in, rustling against the plants 
 With stormy silks, and panting in her wrath. 
 
Lota. 215 
 
 But Gervase did not wait to learn her mood, 
 "To-morrow Lota!" and he hastened forth, 
 Hating the sound of voices till her voice 
 Should say the sweet shamed Yes of the sweet morrow. 
 
 And he fled homeward, laden with a hope 
 Which seemed too restless and too great to hold, 
 So that he longed for night and mindless sleep, 
 As if it had been pain, to keep it drowsed. 
 And, for some lullaby and present slack 
 To the strong heart-beats of expectancy, 
 He wove and watched the dreamer's cloudy coil 
 Of sweet self-histories, part shaped of hopes, 
 And part of things that are, and more than all 
 Of bright impossible grave phantasies. 
 He made the wedding over, and his wife 
 Turning to him, Undine-like, " Now, love, 
 My true great life begins;" and he replied 
 "And mine too Lota," while he took the hand 
 That wore his ring and kissed it; and she looked — 
 But the look was not forthcoming, he had seen 
 No such grave radiant love in Lota's eyes 
 As would be then, and could not picture it. 
 He made her cantering on his favourite Ralph, 
 A little awkward gracefully, and pleased 
 To need his teaching, while he scolded her 
 By way of praising, riding close beside. 
 He made her wandering with him in his woods, 
 
2 1 6 Lota. 
 
 Bidding him drag down boughs beyond her reach 
 Where she was greedy of the bloom, and break 
 The hawthorn stems that were too strong, or climb 
 To spoil some rugged bank down in the copse 
 Of its sweetest primroses; she laughing proud 
 To be the lady of such pleasant lands; 
 He, acting, "So! 'tis not your only joy 
 To be the lady of me ; you love me not;" 
 And she with merry onslaught pelting him 
 With flowers that cost him so much pains to get. 
 He made her sitting, busy by his side 
 With some light stitchery or book of rhymes 
 That would not too much keep her thoughts from 
 
 him, 
 In his favourite cosy study, while he worked 
 With pen and papers, changing time by time 
 A smile or playful word lest she grew tired. 
 He made her mistress of his house, or child 
 To play with and to tease; queen whom he served, 
 Or love's sweet handmaid fondly tending him; 
 Sudden as now, or calm for happiness; 
 Eager or gentle ; frolicsome or grave ; 
 But made her always his, her whole thought his. 
 She had told it him that day, if not in words 
 Nor even looks, if not by meeting hand 
 Nor answering lips to kisses, nor coy turn 
 Of head, nor subtle speaking silence, not 
 By any note that memory could keep, 
 
Lota. 2 1 7 
 
 Yet she had told him. Lota loved him, loved 
 As if she dared not love him, yet she loved. 
 And why she was afraid scarce troubled him — 
 He was a Lester, had the Lester lands, 
 And Lota Deveril, whose father died 
 A half-pay major, was left penniless, 
 And did a little drudgework for her keep, 
 Making the children practise and read French 
 And keeping count of tablecloths and spoons: 
 So Gervase read her that she was so proud 
 She'd have no husband seem to stoop to her, 
 And wilfully was trampling down the flower 
 Of love that grew towards him as its sun, 
 Her flower of love that would not so be crushed. 
 What then? To-morrow she would talk, but he 
 With just "You love me, what is all the rest?" 
 Would put it by. To-morrow! 
 
 And the night 
 Which he had longed for came before he knew, 
 While he thought of to-morrow, came and went, 
 And the to-morrow broke on him asleep, 
 And startled him with sunlight. 
 
 At the aunt's 
 There was a fluster and the after-breath 
 Of household gales still fretting in the air : 
 Constance had wept; and Ethel's cheeks were hot 
 
2i8 Lota. 
 
 And scornful; and, with drooping curves of pain 
 
 On her set face, with heavy patient eyes 
 
 Of one who waits a better time to weep, 
 
 Silent and pallid, Evelyn sat and sewed 
 
 As if a life hung on her every stitch : 
 
 And the aunt was all a-tremble, with some speech 
 
 Quivering upon her lips that would not come; 
 
 And every now and then she gave a cough, 
 
 Grew red, and puckered up a solemn face, 
 
 Then looked at one or other of her girls, 
 
 Then coughed again, and changed her mind, and said 
 
 The day was very warm — no, she meant cold. 
 
 Till Gervase, chafed, resolved to raise the storm 
 
 That he might sooner lull it. "For," thought he, 
 
 "She plainly thinks she caught me yesterday 
 
 Cheating her niece with lying fooleries." 
 
 He looked her in the face no whit abashed, 
 
 Asked "Where is Lota?" 
 
 There was such a hush 
 As comes in summer when the sky grows close 
 Against the trees before the first gust bursts 
 Of the oncoming tempest, and the click 
 Of Evelyn's needle sounded noisily — 
 Evelyn who neither paused nor drew long breath, 
 After a moment's pause, as the others did, 
 But stitched on faster. 
 
 
Lota. 219 
 
 "Lota!" gasped the aunt, 
 "Are you so shameless?" 
 
 Gervase, ill content 
 Because he thought " What ! dares she count the girl 
 So far below my marrying she'll scold 
 As if our love were wicked?" yet forbore, 
 Choosing to seem as if there could no slight 
 Be meant against his darling. He but asked 
 "Where is my Lota?" with a firmer stress: 
 Then Mrs Westland shook and stammered, half 
 As if she'd storm and half as if she'd cry: 
 "Now Gervase, tell me — it is hard to ask; 
 I cannot think it of my brother's child — 
 Has she not told you how she stands? You know 
 Her history?" Now he knew no history, 
 But thought that he knew Lota. "All," he said 
 Indignantly, "that I need know, I know, 
 And will hear no more but from Lota's self: 
 Now let me see her." 
 
 Ethel at the word 
 Broke in with passion "Dare you flout us so?" 
 And Constance's swelled eyes brimmed with new 
 
 tears ; 
 But Evelyn spoke up quietly and strong, 
 " Ethel you cannot know what Gervase means ; 
 There is some secret which we do not know; 
 
220 Lota. 
 
 I trust in him and Lota." Gervase cried 
 " You have spoken safely, Evelyn, in that : 
 But there's no secret, and I ask to see 
 My Lota." 
 
 In this while the flurried aunt 
 Had sat uneasy, having more to say, 
 And yet not knowing what. With nervous stir 
 She rose "Nay Gervase, come and talk with me." 
 He followed; but his anger was white hot, 
 Ready to scorch a finger laid on it. 
 
 Then in her pink boudoir the scared dame threw 
 Her throbbing plumpness on a velvet throne, 
 And sat to preach at him : " You say you know 
 My niece's history?" 
 
 "I know your niece," 
 He broke in on her, "Let me hear no more 
 Of histories. Let Lota tell as much 
 As suits her and as little as she likes. 
 Where is she? Call her." 
 
 She in panic shook, 
 And scarcely could reply; yet made a show 
 Of boldness. " Lota ? Lota is not here. 
 Has she not let you know so much by now?" 
 
Lota. 
 
 221 
 
 "Not here!" he answered slowly, drawing breath 
 With the desperate calm of passion, " Lota gone ! 
 Where shall I find her?" 
 
 "Nay, how should I know? 
 She would not be reproved, she would not give 
 One promise to her good, she'd be left free 
 To go her lawless way... or leave my house. 
 Was I to ask her pardon, bid her stay 
 And have as many lovers as she pleased, 
 With my girls under the same roof?" 
 
 He stopped 
 Her breathless clamour, "Tell me where she is." 
 
 "How can I? Not a hint she deigned to give. 
 Evelyn was weak enough to ask her; she, 
 So artful, was not weak enough to tell. 
 I fear she'll let you know." 
 
 "Be still," he cried, 
 "With your unholy taunts, your lying taunts. 
 Oh shameful woman, cruel, foul in thought, 
 How dare you spatter mud on the pure snow 
 Of a girl's innocence ? Your brother's child ! 
 How dared you with your stabbing poisonous tongue 
 Harry her out in the world you know not where — 
 A helpless girl." 
 
222 Lota. 
 
 "Girl! girls of twenty- six 
 Are so far on as to know wrong from right." 
 So she broke in. 
 
 But Gervase cried out still 
 " How could you do it ? Women have such heart ! 
 Show them another woman in a fault, 
 It is to show your terrier dog a rat — 
 Harry and tear and kill... 'tis their good luck! 
 A rare day's sport, and all in duty's way ! 
 But you, you made the fault. What fault was there 
 In love like ours?" She said "There was no harm 
 If you had been the first, but since" — He took 
 No heed, seemed not to know she spoke. "Aye so 
 You've hounded her into the streets to beg, 
 Or starve for what you care. I'll never breathe 
 The air that you breathe, seem to know your name, 
 I'll never hear a word of you or yours, 
 Till I have my own Lota. You shall ask 
 Forgiveness of her yet." 
 
 And so he went 
 In haste and heat, while she cried after him 
 "Oh you are mad or cheated." 
 
 Evelyn stood 
 To speak a little word to promise him 
 
Lota. 223 
 
 That she was Lota's friend, but he dashed past 
 And could not see her with his angry eyes. 
 
 So friendship snapped; and Gervase turned his back 
 On that familiar house, and left behind 
 Uneasy sorrow. But the aunt made show 
 Of only anger — Lota was henceforth 
 No care of hers ; let her go where she would ; 
 She never could be one with them again : 
 And Gervase, wilful, wicked as it seemed, 
 Was such a man as must be kept aloof. 
 
 And Ethel chimed in so; and Constance sighed 
 And hoped and wondered and condemned by turns; 
 But Evelyn always said "There is no harm," 
 Chafing her mother who, kind at the core 
 But of harsh judgment, easily accused, 
 And, loving justice, hated to be taxed 
 With a rash verdict, and would score up proofs 
 From every trifle said or done or dreamed 
 To keep herself convinced of what she urged. 
 And then too Gervase had given some hard words 
 Which rankled, and it was a present balm 
 To think the worst of him... a leper left 
 To his shunned way, apart from her and hers. 
 
II. 
 
 And Gervase only thought of Lota, lived 
 
 In a long search for her. At morn he thought 
 
 "Will she not let me know to-day?" at night, 
 
 "Well, it will be to-morrow:" till at last, 
 
 Like some sad watcher by a sick man's bed, 
 
 Who, having hoped too much, droops suddenly 
 
 Into a blind despair and turns averse 
 
 From any comfort, he, at one new touch 
 
 Of disappointment, instantly fell numb 
 
 And sullen in his heart. "Vain, vain, and vain! 
 
 Why do I seek her ? She has found some home 
 
 Dearer to her than mine would be." And yet 
 
 He did not cease to seek her. But it was 
 
 The weary task of him who will still seek 
 
 Along a great sea-shore for one he saw 
 
 Drift out upon the tide a week ago. 
 
 ' ; Not mine, if I should find her — no not mine ! 
 
Lota. 225 
 
 Or else no bitterest pride could make her kill 
 My life and hers with silence for some taunts 
 Which are no guilt of mine. Yet I must seek, 
 Lest she should be at buffets with the world; 
 Too rough a game, poor darling, for your strength, 
 Whatever fault the woman knows of you, 
 Who talked of histories." And sometimes he 
 Would ask " Had she been fettered in her youth 
 By some rash troth, made at her father's will, 
 Obeyed now, for his sake, too faithfully?" 
 And ofttimes he would dream her fervid mind, 
 That kept a subtle breath from foreign lands 
 Of faith unprotestant, as garments keep 
 A clinging sense of the rich incense mist, 
 Had hurried her to some wild saintly vow 
 Of maiden-living or, (so rash she was 
 To any impulse), even of convent bonds. 
 But never could he picture any chance 
 Upon her life, nor purpose set in view, 
 Nor bait, nor bugbear, hurrying her flight, 
 Which could show baseness in her. She remained 
 To him the same sweet April blossom, touched 
 With sun and rain by turns, danced in the wind 
 Of a gusty springtime ; but in sun or rain 
 Or flickering shadows of the windy days, 
 Glowing in light or glimmering in shade, 
 Still perfect to its natural pure tints, 
 White at the core and rosy in the blush. 
 
 15 
 
226 Lota. 
 
 Dull days, dull weeks, dull months dragged on, to him 
 Seeming all void because made void of her. 
 The summer came and wooed him to the hush 
 Of woodlands, or to the wide breezy shores 
 Where the waves make swaying music for the dreams 
 Of waking sleepers gazing out to sea, 
 Or to the keen strong joy of eager steps 
 Toiling upon the scarps of siiowy peaks. 
 But Gervase watched the stir and moil of streets, 
 And the great daily eddies to and fro 
 Of busy brattling human lives, and thought 
 " Lota is somewhere in the crowd." Then once 
 He, wearying slowly through his dusty walk 
 On the baked flagstones, saw a face glimpse out 
 From a dingy cab, and thought " Could it be she?" 
 And in a moment smiled to think what cheats 
 Fancy can put on over anxious eyes. 
 And yet, that nothing might be left undone, 
 Took hastily a fellow dingy cab, 
 And followed closely. 
 
 So he shortly came 
 Into a railway Babel, echoing 
 With thuds of packages, and clattering trucks, 
 And runnings to and fro, and shouts, and bells, 
 And shrieks of sputtering engines. In the press 
 The face flashed out again, — not long enough — 
 
Lota. 227 
 
 And still flashed out like Lota's, and he caught 
 The colour of a ribbon and the flow 
 Of a loose mantle, and so pushed his way 
 In the wake, with them for pilots of his chase. 
 And yet he could not see which seat she took 
 In the train that throbbed already with the start 
 When he sprang into it. A minute — less — 
 And she and he were on their whizzing way 
 To where he knew not, though his ticket said 
 A far enough long road. 
 
 He watched and watched 
 At every halt for a good hour : the cloak 
 And lilac ribbon never came in sight. 
 Then, on the left, there showed a spire or two 
 Above a sprinkling of grey houses stretched 
 In straggling streets along a gradual slope, 
 And the train stopped again where the white board 
 Said " Woodley." And while the uncouth blurred shout 
 That should have been the place's name still rang 
 Along the platform, he saw suddenly 
 That Woodley was his journey's end. He saw 
 Just not too late, and so the train hissed past, 
 Clanging and rattling on towards the north, 
 And left him in the quiet. 
 
 Now his way, 
 The ribbon guiding still, was through the lanes 
 
 15—2 
 
228 Lota. 
 
 And leisurely spruce streets, with here a step, 
 
 Here a front garden or the doctor's porch, 
 
 Of rural comfortable Woodley where 
 
 There seemed no hurry, as if every one 
 
 Had thriven long ago and, now content, 
 
 Took business cosily, as a good way 
 
 Of killing time and happening on one's friends. 
 
 Gervase kept well aloof, for he had seen 
 This Lota's likeness was not by herself, 
 But with a broad short woman, elderly, 
 With something of the peacock in her gait, 
 A homely matron in a changing silk 
 Bulged out with flounces, and an azure tuft 
 Of roses or of dahlias quivering 
 On the satin thing a Madame milliner 
 Would shriek to hear called bonnet. Gervase said 
 " Not Lota, no. That dame of Valentines 
 Proves the younger one not Lota." Yet a cry 
 "Oh Lota, Lota, turn and speak to me" 
 Rose in his heart. Then too a subtle grace 
 Of rippling equal movement, a swan curve 
 Of the slight neck, a rapid easy turn, 
 This way or that, to look or speak, seemed strange 
 With the strangeness of a once familiar thing. 
 
 Six small squat houses, each with its three feet 
 Of garden walk and cheesecake centre bed 
 
Lota. 229 
 
 Fragrant with stocks and wallflowers and sweet pinks, 
 Each with its bright green palings, bright green door, 
 And bright green trellis — this was Berkeley Place. 
 And at the last green gate the women stopped, 
 But the dame of Valentines went on again, 
 Rustling all over with her goodbye nods; 
 And the other lightly ran into the house. 
 So Gervase sauntered past. A small brass plate, 
 "Madame Guarini" on the door, a bill 
 Of lodgings in one parlour-window — so 
 Entrance seemed easy. Could it be ill-viewed 
 If he should ask what lodgings there might be? 
 Madame Guarini might perchance reveal, 
 Unconsciously, the answer which he sought 
 To a far other question. 
 
 At a word 
 The little flurried maid unclosed the door 
 Of a small grey-green room. "In here, sir, please." 
 No one was there, and no one came. He learned 
 The patterns on the drugget and the walls, 
 The different tints of fading on the chairs, 
 The names of the few books, the oftenest note 
 In the twitter of the two brqwn bright-eyed birds, 
 The number of the blossoms on the plants 
 In the square narrow window ; unawares 
 He learned them, then there was no more to 
 learn, 
 
230 Lota. 
 
 And he perceived he was forgotten there, 
 And tried the broken bell a dozen times, 
 And then for patience sake took up a book, 
 A little foolish novel. 
 
 Thus it chanced 
 That she was in the room before he knew. 
 She, Lota! "Gervase! Gervase here!" she gasped 
 And seemed struck helpless. Then, her face aglow 
 With a delirious triumph, her eyes bright 
 With sudden tears, she sprang to give her hand. 
 "To think I did not feel that you were here!" 
 
 But Gervase looked at her unthankfully, 
 "Am I so welcome? Yet you left me Lota." 
 Then her face changed, as, in clear sunset eves, 
 The snowy hill-tops change when the last flush 
 Wanes silently into a mournful grey : 
 She said "I had forgotten," and her voice 
 Was weary and asleep : she said but that, 
 "I had forgotten," and she turned from him 
 And threw herself into a listless ease, 
 Sitting apart. 
 
 "Forgotten what" he said 
 "That should have been remembered? Lota, speak; 
 What is your secret? Why do you hide here? 
 Or tell me first but this, are you alone?" 
 
Lota. 23 t 
 
 "Hide, do I? Nay it was before I hid," 
 She answered with an angry carelessness, 
 "And, for my secret, I have none left now : 
 And, for alone, I have my little rooms, 
 And pay my little rent, and earn it first — 
 And so far am alone. But I have friends — 
 If that's your question — two kind honest friends 
 Who helped me to my independence here, 
 Good friends who never taunt me." 
 
 Then she broke 
 Into her passion : " Gervase, do you think 
 I should have tamely waited — what ! with her ? 
 
 If she had been a stranger, yes, perhaps 
 
 Till the morrow. But my father's sister ! she 
 
 To preach of dangers, shame, I know not what; 
 
 To warn me, set me up a bugaboo 
 
 Of what the world would say, to sob and rave 
 
 And taunt and sneer and rate me for light ways 
 
 As if — as if I were not who I am. 
 
 See, I am not patient yet : I do not care 
 
 To be patient at some wrongs." 
 
 "But I"— he said. 
 
 "But you," she broke in eagerly, "I know 
 What you will say; you never did me wrong. 
 
232 Lola. 
 
 Ah ! no ; it is for you to pardon me, 
 
 If you can pardon. Gervase, never think 
 
 That I forgot you loved me, did not care. 
 
 Oh ! I was base towards you, keeping so 
 
 My cold disloyal silence, I was base : 
 
 No hottest crudest long pain of pride 
 
 Stung by her dreadful blame should have prevailed 
 
 Against my yearning once to speak to you, 
 
 Once, if by no more than dull written words, 
 
 To— 
 
 "Gervase, Gervase let me say it now, 
 All I may say. Forgive me, oh forgive !" 
 
 And with that cry she slid down to the floor, 
 And so, half lying with her face hid close 
 Against the cushion of her chair, sobbed out 
 With quick convulsive weeping, "Let me be" 
 She cried "Oh let me be." 
 
 But Gervase still 
 Would soothe her, lifted her in his strong arms, 
 Smiled in her face and kissed her. "My own love" 
 He said "Do you love me? Tell me only that." 
 
 But she was silent. 
 
 "Well," he said, "still keep 
 
Lota. 233 
 
 Sweet silence, I will think it is a yes." 
 Then she cried weeping " Oh ! I love you well, 
 Too well, but never talk of love again : 
 Be pitiful." 
 
 He said "My foolish love, 
 I know you have some vexing tale to tell, 
 Which for your comfort you shall tell : but first 
 Promise me this much trust — if I shall say, 
 When I have heard it, that I hold you free, 
 By justice and by truth to yes or no 
 At your own will, you'll say my asked for yes." 
 
 She looked at him as though she heard him speak 
 Some unfamiliar tongue reaching her ears 
 Without a meaning. Then she hid her face 
 In her trembling hands, "You do not know it then? 
 They did not tell you! Gervase do you not know?" 
 He said, "Nay, I know nothing... only this 
 That I trust you, knowing nothing, and I love.*' 
 
 Then she uplifted to him a wanned face, 
 And told him slowly out of trembling lips, 
 "I have been married; and he was not dead." 
 And he was still as if she had struck a blow 
 That dazed him into stupor, and they sat 
 In a numb helpless silence, face to face, 
 And did not see each other. 
 
:234 Lota. 
 
 Then at last 
 He rose and paced the small room to and fro 
 Like the impotent chafed lion in his cage, 
 Resting himself with fretful restlessness. 
 Till suddenly he stopped, "Tell me," he said, 
 And said it patiently, so that she thought, 
 "How great he is, he has forgiven me." 
 And longed the more to tell him her whole heart. 
 
 She said, " But only do not look at me 
 And I will tell you, tell you with the truth 
 Of deathbeds. I would have you to the most 
 Know me as I have lived, as I have borne, 
 And been made desolate of every hope, 
 Of every love-sweet womanly dear hope, 
 For all my life. You'll judge me tenderly? 
 I did not feel how we were drifting on, 
 You and I ignorantly drifting on, 
 Along a treacherous stream that presently 
 Would whirl its eddies round us, suck us in. 
 Gervase, I did not think you loved me; no, 
 Not till it was already half too late. 
 You will not think I kept you in the dark 
 That you might darkling love me, will not think 
 I lured you, I the wicked siren, proud 
 To whelm so strong a life into my waves, 
 I the fond selfish elf-thing caring not 
 What weary weird I brought upon your life 
 
Lota. 235 
 
 If mine might be a little while made rich 
 By you, by your love, by my loving you. 
 Oh Gervase, judge me tenderly; my sin 
 Of silence was a great one, but not that. 
 I did not think to wrong you, no not that." 
 
 "I know it, Lota," Gervase answered her, 
 "I know — I'll no more blame you than I'd blame 
 The cloud from which a fork of lightning shot 
 And struck me blind and palsied. Let my wrongs, 
 If wrong there be, go by, and make me know 
 Your own sad story only." 
 
 "Ah!" she sighed, 
 "It means no more than what the door can tell — 
 Madame Guarini — Did you see it there ?" 
 " But not as your name ?" he replied, " I thought 
 It was the woman of the house." 
 
 "My name," 
 She said, " My name which I bear frankly now, 
 And know no risk, not even the risk it brings, 
 Is worse than an hypocrisy. When you 
 Knew Lota Deveril you knew a liar ; 
 I left that name behind me nine years back, 
 With my free foolish girlhood. Nine years back ! 
 It seems as if some other lived, not I, 
 In those far days, and was a frightened bride, 
 
236 Lota. 
 
 But not unwilling, hardly quite unwilling. 
 
 "We were in Venice then — my father liked 
 The life there, and we always lived abroad 
 Because he said he would be poor in peace 
 And have a poor man's pleasure when he liked, 
 And that, in England, all his neighbourhood 
 Would play the sentinel upon his ways, 
 And keep accounts for him with shaken heads 
 At this too spendthrift, that too miserly. 
 And I too loved the freedom; no strait walls 
 Of meaningless dull custom prisoning us 
 Into the limits of our neighbours' lives; 
 No fashion stricter on us than we chose, 
 No laws forced on us, to look grave or laugh, 
 To be alone and quiet, or to talk 
 And simper friendliness, to walk or rest 
 At due fixed times. It was an easy life. 
 But we had friends, and made no sullen choice 
 Of loneliness ; I laughed and danced and sang, 
 Like other girls, on many a merry night, 
 In many a great quaint palace where the ghosts 
 Of its old-world lords flit by in quiet hours 
 And know their way, there is so little changed. 
 And so he met me, and he would not rest 
 Until he knew my father. And he tasked 
 His whole great skill of gracious courtesies 
 And flowing talk made rich with noble thoughts 
 
Lota. 237 
 
 And subtle reverent flatteries, to win 
 His easily won trust. My father was, 
 As the bravest men are oftenest, a man 
 Most like a woman in his heart... and that 
 Means that he could be duped by any mask 
 Of honour or of kindness. So he learned 
 To love Emilio blindly. 
 
 "Very soon 
 We knew I had a lover. I was scared. 
 The thrill was strange to feel his deep fierce eyes 
 Burning upon me, not to be escaped 
 Shrink in what nook I would. His changeful voice, 
 Now passionate with praise, now low and sad 
 Like the murmur of the pine-woods from far off, 
 Pained me as sweetest music pains the ear 
 That longs for stillness. Then the rush and stir 
 Of angers in his talk, when he cried out 
 On wrongs of Italy, on this man's fraud, 
 That other's cowardice or callous sloth, 
 Jarred on me like a madman's eloquence 
 Until I almost feared him, though they made 
 A hero of him to my childish mind. 
 I was scared and wished he had not loved me, yet 
 Was proud so to have pleased him, and I thought 
 'Nay, since he loves me, such a one as he, 
 It is my fate to love him. I have lived 
 With a child's carelessness, and am not ripe 
 
238 Lota. 
 
 To love with woman's love ; but doubtless he 
 Is the strong sun that shines, and bye and bye 
 The flower breaks from its sheath and is ablow 
 And gives its richest perfumes.' And I'd muse, 
 In the sweet trance of daydreams, on the joy, 
 The perfect earnest joy, that would be mine 
 Of loving. I should be, I thought, like one 
 Who, wandering down a leafy dim ravine, 
 Comes suddenly in sight of the great sea 
 Which he has dreamed of, but has never known, 
 And presently is standing on the shore, 
 Gazing on the unbroken boundlessness, 
 Gazing upon an infinite new world. 
 
 " Then once — and even then Emilio was 
 But a new friend — my father sat with me 
 One summer evening. Ah ! I feel it now ! 
 The dim sweet greyness coming tenderly 
 Over the cloudless sky, the gurgling dip 
 Of passing oars below, the hushlike sound 
 Of voices breaking through the stillness when 
 The day gives slow goodbye and falls asleep, 
 The scent of roses and of orange-bloom 
 About our windows ! We sat quietly, 
 Thinking our twilight thoughts ; but all at once 
 He said ' Child you have won a noble heart. 
 I am thankful for it; I have given consent' 
 I cried 'Oh no ! Too soon ! I did not know ! ' 
 
Lota. 239 
 
 And he, all troubled, took my hands in his. 
 
 ' How 's this my child ? You love him, do you not ?' 
 
 ' I do not know,' I said, ' I cannot know, 
 
 I am afraid.' 'Ah well,' he said, and smiled, 
 
 ' I know : I am not blind. And now to-day 
 
 Your Emilio spoke, and I said Yes to him, 
 
 Most cheerfully said Yes. My little girl, 
 
 I am not young in years, and in my health 
 
 Am older than my years, and I am kept 
 
 In dread of death because of you : my heart 
 
 Will have a sore weight off it when I know 
 
 You are in as safe keeping as my own, 
 
 And one more happy for you. And I'm proud, 
 
 Yes proud, you puss, of my fine son-in-law. 
 
 I'm as happy, I believe, as you can be.' 
 
 He kissed me, and I kissed him back again, 
 
 And loved him more than ever and was glad 
 
 Because he was so glad. But yet I said, 
 
 ' Am I happy do you think ? I scarcely know, 
 
 It is all dreamlike. Did you tell him then 
 
 I was to marry him?' He laughed. 'I said 
 
 All I could say. He's coming presently 
 
 And you shall tell him what you like. But yet 
 
 I'll own he is prepared to be made wild 
 
 With happiness — such joy I never saw.' 
 
 "And almost as he spoke Emilio came 
 And asked no question, but said instantly, 
 
240 Lota. 
 
 ' My Lota, my pledged wife, soul of my life,' 
 .And took my hand, and bade my father bless us. 
 
 "Ah me ! he seemed so happy, and I felt 
 A joy swell up in me because I was 
 So much to him, and, looking in his face, 
 I thought I loved him, and I let him put 
 His ruby snake upon my finger — Look 
 I wear it now again, it is best so. 
 And after he was gone I could not tell 
 If I was glad or sorry to be his, 
 But felt that I was his. I did not wish 
 To take my promise back. I was afraid 
 And I was hopeful; and which most I was 
 I know no more to-day than I knew then. 
 
 "We married. And the shadows came at once. 
 He seemed to love me — one might almost say 
 He must have loved me, he so seemed to love — 
 But his love was like the heated desert wind 
 That scorches and that stifles, like the breath 
 Of lush magnolias when the air is close ; 
 I fainted in it, longed to fly away 
 To the cool freshness of my former days, 
 To the mild restful love my father gave. 
 My husband felt my shrinking and would swerve 
 Sudden in his hot love-gusts, darkening down 
 Into a sullen or a stormy grief, 
 
Lota. 241 
 
 Or flashing into some strange jealousy; 
 
 Until I shrank the more and only longed 
 
 To be away, out of his reach; as birds 
 
 Just caught and wild must try to burst the hold 
 
 Of hot strong hands that pet them. And I beat 
 
 My helpless wings and battled, as birds will, 
 
 For freedom, with a feeble wilfulness 
 
 That makes the captor angry. 
 
 "But he seemed 
 Angry because he loved me, not because 
 He changed against me. I might yet have learned 
 My new life, have been tuned to that loud love 
 That hurt me. But, before I could begin 
 To love him, I was taught to scorn. 
 
 ."There came 
 A dreadful woman, with bloomed artful cheeks, 
 And deep great glittering eyes, and a false voice 
 That purred and coaxed, and cruel bland slow 
 
 smiles 
 Quivering with hatred — a great countess she. 
 I knew her name and would have been well pleased 
 To be among the guests who weekly flocked 
 To see her splendours : but Emilio said 
 * Let the great ladies go, who smile and kiss 
 And then turn round and whisper to some man 
 New lies about her; and we men may go — 
 
 16 
 
242 Lota. 
 
 There's a fine nature in her and she's keen 
 
 And beautiful and loves our Italy — 
 
 But my wife who is a little spotless dove 
 
 Flies with no glorious prey-birds such as she.' 
 
 But the great lady came to me and said 
 
 'Your husband hides you, Sweet. He is afraid 
 
 Some bold man's eye should see you and observe 
 
 What a new rare rose you are for lovers. Well, 
 
 He will not bring you to me, so I come 
 
 To you.' And then, when I had spoken her 
 
 Some faint few words of welcome, she laughed out 
 
 A hard unnatural melodious laugh; 
 
 e We will be friends,' she said, ' some women now 
 
 Would hate you, little girl, for laying hands 
 
 On a jewel like Emilio. I forgive... 
 
 And I have forgiven him too.' 
 
 "And I said, 
 In anger, for she mocked me openly, 
 1 1 know not, Madam, what you will forgive. 
 You being married, what is it to you 
 What wife my husband chose?' 
 
 " She laughed l Well played ! 
 How well you drew your head up, little queen, 
 And threw that " husband " at me ! Aye, you think 
 He's yours — indeed 'tis not a many weeks 
 Since you gained him, as you thought, all to yourself. 
 
Lota. 243 
 
 You foolish child, did you not comprehend 
 That marriage frees a man from faith to you? 
 There's nothing gained by faith; for you are his 
 However. Lover, he had been all yours : 
 Husband, why he is yours or any one's. 
 I have forgiven him — I told you so — • 
 And that means he is mine as much as yours. 
 "My husband" how you flung it at me, Sweet!' 
 
 "I turned from her 'Go, I'll not answer you. 
 'Tis shame* enough that I have changed a word 
 With such a woman.' 
 
 "Still she answered sweet 
 And soothingly 'Nay, pretty petulance, 
 Why are you bitter at me? Blame yourself. 
 If a woman weds the man she loves, whose fault 
 But hers is his lost lover constancy? 
 He takes to husband ways . . . 'tis natural : 
 You should have thought of it in time, that's all. 
 Why, look at me who love him, as such babes 
 Fed on sweet pap and comfits cannot love... 
 No more, dear fools, than you can hate or sin, 
 Me, whom your husband loves — I am content 
 To lend him to you or to Melanie, 
 The blonde French dancer, to, as scandal tells, 
 La Stella, the inspired... who in her songs 
 Puts Italy and means your husband, child. 
 
 16 — 2 
 
244 Lota. 
 
 Be patient and be happy as I am.' 
 
 "And then she suddenly threw off her glib 
 And cloking blandness 'Girl, I hate you — hate! 
 I came to look at my Emilio's wife, 
 And hate her. Aye, I'll make him trample you 
 Beneath his feet. If I'm not all to him, 
 At least I'm more to him than you could be, 
 And you shall feel it, you who cheated him 
 With silly simpers, innocent fond dove, 
 Who cannot coo so sweetly but he knows 
 There's better music and goes after it. 
 Do you hear? I hate you, girl. Do you hear it well? 7 
 
 "At this I gathered all my pride, and looked 
 Full in her face, and coldly. 'Madam, yes; 
 I heard. It was a matter scarcely worth 
 Your trouble in the telling. Will you sit 
 And rest before you go? I say farewell, 
 Since you have done your errand to me here.' 
 And so I left her. 
 
 "You might think I sat 
 Brooding upon her wicked news, and wrung 
 With a wife's agony of doubt and hope, 
 With a wife's desperate disbelief. But no — 
 Perhaps it means that I did never love 
 This husband whom yet other women loved 
 
Lota. 245 
 
 With the whole heart in them good or bad — I felt 
 
 Only an anger hot and cold by turns, 
 
 But always anger, never simple grief, 
 
 And never, not one moment, with a touch 
 
 Of sad forgiveness. She had said of me, 
 
 That woman, that I could not hate ; and that 
 
 Was true perhaps, for I scarce hated him: 
 
 But it was truer that I could not, nay 
 
 I cannot, smile away a wrong ; it burns 
 
 New in my heart for always. I might give, 
 
 If it seemed due, my life to save or serve 
 
 A traitor to me, but I could not play 
 
 At meek forgetting. Gervase, it is strange 
 
 You can forgive me, me who cheated you." 
 
 He turned and looked at her for the first time. 
 "I love you Lota." Then he spoke again 
 Before her answer "Nay, yet after all 
 It should not be but that. If I am wronged, 
 (And, till I have heard more, I do not own it), 
 And if I loved you less, yet there would be 
 Pity for you, and — Well I will not preach: 
 But, Lota, not to pardon is to be 
 Unlikest God of any human way 
 In which we might be like him." 
 
 "Yes," she said, 
 " You are like Evelyn, who, while she talks 
 
246 Lota. 
 
 So scornfully and eager against wrong, 
 
 Yet seems to think that who does wrong to her 
 
 Has earned some special due of charity. 
 
 But I am bitterer and weaker." 
 
 "Well, 
 I pass to what went next. Emilio came 
 Soon, but I was prepared. I said to him 
 No word of who had been with me, I kept 
 A heavy silence : but, when he cried out 
 'Oh Lota, will you never give me back 
 Some little of my love?' I answered him 
 'La Stella loves you, is not that enough?' 
 
 "He gazed upon me, startled: 'What!' he cried, 
 'The proud brave soul that will not be afraid 
 Of their fools' malice, though she writhes and bleeds 
 Under their petty stabs, could they not leave 
 Her name alone with you? Who spoke of her?' 
 
 "'Her songs, perhaps,' I said, 'but you do well 
 To boast her so to me — to me your wife.' 
 
 "He thought a moment then he spoke, 'It seems 
 I shall do well to tell you more of her. 
 She is a noble creature, one I'd choose 
 As friend for you, if it might be: I look 
 To have you know her. If she loved me once, 
 
Lota. 247 
 
 Or loves me, 'tis with such a lofty love 
 As she may take to heaven with her. Yes 
 It shames me, for I am not worthy it, 
 It does not shame her.' 
 
 "'Yet,' I said, 'you hid 
 That noble friendship from me.' 
 
 " He looked down. 
 'Hear my confession, love. I have done ill, 
 But not to you. I have a foolish fault, 
 I am greedy of all love, of any love 
 That comes to me, I take it as one takes 
 A flower from any hand for its own sweet 
 And not as caring for the hand that gives, 
 I take it womanlike. And, as for her, 
 I honour her and could not but be proud 
 To have her see me with a different smile 
 From that she turns upon so many pleased 
 With her least notice. So, forgive me, love, 
 I found it hard to tell her of a smile 
 That made me happier. But we'll go to her 
 You and I, dearest, and, she has a heart 
 So great and tender, she will love you more 
 Than if her brother brought you and required 
 A sister's love for you.' 
 
 "'She has a heart 
 
248 Lota. 
 
 That finds a use for any kind of love, 
 As yours does,' I replied, 'if she will take 
 My love in pay for hers instead of yours.' 
 
 " ' Nay Lota,' he said earnestly, ' I swear 
 I have not wronged her once with one fond word, 
 I do not say for your sake, but for hers, 
 I have not wronged her once with one fond word. 
 And now forgive me, Lota — love me more. 
 Love me, my own, I shall ask no more love.' 
 
 '"Not Melanie's?' I answered quietly: 
 He sprang as if a wasp had stung him, stamped, 
 Hissed through his teeth. ' Gossips and fools ' he 
 
 breathed. 
 ' Not Melanie's ?' I said again. ' Perhaps 
 She too has a great heart with room for me.' 
 
 " ' Lota,' he cried, ' I will not bear your taunts. 
 I am wrong, wrong here again, but do you think 
 You are to twit me with my least escape 
 From the chill misery you make me here, 
 Where you'll not love me, no, where you so smile 
 As you may upon your priest, or else so shrink 
 As from a lackey's touch, look bland and smile, 
 And yield, as if I were some visitor, 
 Or droop in silence like a weary slave? 
 Are you to twit me as if it were a crime 
 
Lota. 249 
 
 To try to seem a moment my old self? 
 What's Melanie? Should I seek Melanie, 
 And Melanie's light friends and noisy routs, 
 If you would sit with a kind hand in mine 
 And look as if you loved me?' 
 
 "' Proved,' I said, 
 ' Your outburst shows you have no answer here : 
 And I could hate you. Will you teach me love 
 On the pattern of this dancer? I, your wife, 
 You tell me you, perforce, must woo this thing 
 Of gauze and paint until I love you more ? ' 
 
 "'I do not woo her, child,' he said, 'she has 
 Wooers to suit her better : she and I 
 Know that our ways go separate through the world, 
 I prize her lightly, pleasantly; she laughs, 
 And likes me but too well, poor butterfly; 
 But talk of love to her! I could as soon 
 Play lover to your kitten frisking there.' 
 
 "I said, 'For me, I never shall care more 
 To whom you play the lover, you who put 
 Your open slight upon me, you who go 
 In the eyes of all the world the daily page 
 Of a light actress.' 
 
 "'Lota no,' he urged, 
 
250 Lota. 
 
 'They lied who told you so. I can count up 
 How often I have seen her since she came 
 This year to Venice, on one hand — four times 
 Or five in nearly twice the weeks. But yet 
 I blush before your anger; I did put 
 A slight on you for which I hate myself. 
 But you, you must not hate me. Oh ! my wife, 
 Bear with me, I have little earned your love 
 But I will put my whole life in your hands 
 And you shall rule it for me.' 
 
 "'Nay,' I said, 
 ' I leave that to the woman who came here 
 And told me she was more to you than I, 
 And she would teach you how to trample me ; 
 I leave you to her, she is glorious 
 In wicked beauty, I am but a girl 
 With everyday girl's brightness, and she says 
 I have not mind enough to sin... like her.' 
 
 "He. looked at me with a white awful face, 
 As if a horror took him. ' Do you mean 
 She came to you? Olympia?' 
 
 "'Yes,' I said, 
 'The countess came to me, forgave me. I 
 Forgive not her, nor you.' 
 
Lota. 251 
 
 "'She is,' he cried, 
 'A fiend, a beautiful fierce deadly fiend.' 
 I said 'She is your love.' And then he bowed 
 His head into his hands, and presently 
 He almost sobbed and when he looked at me 
 I saw he had been weeping... like a child 
 Whose cunning has been just enough to find 
 The way to some pet mischief, not enough 
 To gloze it at the need. And yet I felt 
 A sadness for him when I saw him thus. 
 
 "'Lota,' he gasped 'what shall I say to you? 
 That woman is my demon : day by day 
 I grow to hate her, as the drunkard hates 
 The draught he cannot part from; day by day 
 She drugs me with the passion of her love, 
 And makes me weak before her. I had thought 
 Our parting was for ever, when I learned 
 My one true lesson of full perfect love — 
 When I loved you and knew I never loved 
 Another woman. But I have not known 
 How to make your heart beat with mine, not found 
 The way to make you rich with happiness 
 So that some drops might overbrim and feed 
 My thirsty love. I have but wearied you 
 With my poor feverish cravings after love; 
 Some fine grave instinc"l in you doubtless spoke 
 To make you shut me out into the cold, 
 
252 Lota. 
 
 Because I had sat down by other fires 
 
 Seeking for warmth and being charred and scorched 
 
 And was not worthy to sit in your sun — 
 
 You could not love me. And, when once we met 
 
 By chance, she guessed it in my silent face, 
 
 Which looked, she said, as if it were a frost 
 
 For want of smiles to thaw it: and she made 
 
 The old spell of her fervour strong again, 
 
 And drew me to her. And at first it was 
 
 Like the door thrown open of a pleasant hut, 
 
 Where light and food and a blaze upon the hearth 
 
 Make comfort to a worn out shipwrecked man, 
 
 Who looked to be, if gales had not sprung up, 
 
 Welcomed that night in his luxurious home. 
 
 But afterwards it was the cabin grown 
 
 A Stirling prison while the outside snows 
 
 Bank round and keep the door. Lota, my love, 
 
 I do not love her, I would fly from her, 
 
 I would be out of reach of her wild will, 
 
 Her ecstasies and anguish. I am weak, 
 
 I cannot spurn a woman at my feet, 
 
 But you might make me stronger if you would : 
 
 Help me, my own one.' 
 
 " Bat I was aflame 
 With thrice fanned wrath, because he spattered me 
 With his own mud-blots, flung his sin at me, 
 Making it my sin: and I started back, 
 
Lota. 253 
 
 Out of the reach of his hand seeking mine, 
 As though her touch were on it like a slime. 
 
 " But he cried on me for forgiveness, talked 
 Of loving me, 'Why have I been/ he urged, 
 'Impatient so of exile, fretting so 
 To take you to my Naples, but for thought 
 Of flying her?' 
 
 "Then his word 'exile' struck 
 A doubt and made it ring : for I had mused 
 Why, time by time, he said 'We must go soon, 
 My father soon must know you,' yet the day 
 Of going came no nearer. For in truth 
 Though I had told him that it made me glad 
 Still to be near my father, I had made 
 No pleading for delay to hinder him... 
 Since he too had a father. On that day 
 I thought I had discerned the secret bar, 
 The witchful knotgrass thrown across his path 
 By that abhorrent woman. Now, he spoke 
 A riddle not so answered. So I drove 
 My questions at him, ' Do not ask ' he said, 
 And then I pressed the more. And so I learned 
 The lie put on my father, dear old man, 
 Who stood so proud and honest — 'Nay, my girl 
 Is worthy of the noblest of your names 
 In all your Italy from north to south, 
 
254 Lota. 
 
 But yet I'll have your father's word on it 
 That she is welcome, or the matter ends. 
 Write to him, tell him she is very poor 
 In purse and friends, can neither make nor mar; 
 Tell him what else you like, but tell him that : 
 Then we go by the answer.' 
 
 "It seems that then 
 Emilio wrote and pleaded anxiously 
 With an ungenerous father, who, half dead 
 For years in body, was all dead in soul, 
 A man who wrote, 'Why marry her, if poor 
 And so obscure? she might be easier had. 
 But, if you think of marriage, find a dower, 
 And, if you can, some interest at court, 
 Here or elsewhere. And, if you've looked in vain, 
 I've the right woman for you here at hand; 
 Not ugly either, for a wife.' I think 
 It was in that same letter that he said, 
 1 But, if you play this folly out, take note 
 You'll have my blessing, Carlo every doit 
 The law will let me strip you of, and that 
 Is nearly all my having.' I believe 
 Emilio wrote and wrote to him again, 
 And then, still answered thus, defied him. Then 
 The old man wrote, 'Thou hast my blessing son. 
 Be happy to thy liking. May thy wife 
 Repay thee fitly for thine ardent love.' 
 
Lota. 255 
 
 And that Emilio brought, and said 'Now read, 
 And give me Lota.' And my father knew 
 The old man was infirm and seldom took 
 The pen in his frail fingers, so he thought, 
 'This, written by his own unsteady hand 
 Shows willingness enough,' and was content. 
 
 "My husband put the letters in my hand — 
 They told the story, I asked nought of him. 
 But he was voluble with argument 
 How love excused him. And he dared to think 
 I still might love him ! But I answered him 
 With weariness and loathing, for I thought 
 Of my father who would nearly break his heart 
 To know what husband he had given me, 
 My father who wore truth so near his soul 
 He almost lost the sense that men could lie. 
 And the man who said he loved me lied to him ! 
 Lied to his shaming and to mine, that I, 
 His daughter, should be shown, like some poor drudge 
 From the kitchen or the farmyard, half abashed 
 And half puffed-up to be her master's mate, 
 Creeping by marriage up a backstairs way 
 Into a scornful household. 
 
 "For I was 
 A secret. I was hidden like a shame. 
 Emilio wrote some vague submission, then 
 
256 Lota. 
 
 Married me. And the old man took it, duped, 
 That, loved or left, I was to be no wife, 
 And chuckled at his power. 
 
 "'Forgive' he said: 
 The man who was my husband, paled and shook, 
 And wept to me 'Forgive.' But do you think 
 A woman can be patient of such wrongs 
 And not polluted by them? Should she smile, 
 Speak softly, play the sympathetic wife, 
 Pick her steps among the garbage, hand in hand 
 With a liar and a libertine? Forgive, 
 From wife to husband, means so much or nought. 
 Answer me, Gervase, you who can be true 
 Against yourself or for yourself alike, 
 Afraid of neither, could I have forgiven?" 
 
 "You could not" Gervase answered heavily 
 Out of his listening. 
 
 Lota said "So long 
 He made a tempest round me that I seemed 
 Numbed and bewildered by my weariness, 
 And prayed him for mere mercy to forbear 
 And let me have the rest of lonely thought. 
 And then he let me pass. But while I lay 
 In a half trance of stupor on my bed 
 I heard him come and shade away the light 
 
Lota. 257 
 
 Where the sunset broke in on me, and I felt 
 That he stood watching me some minutes long : 
 And then he went. 
 
 "At night, when I awoke 
 From a dense painful sleep, there was a face, 
 Whose smiles I could believe in, watching me. 
 My father said Emilio summoned him, 
 With two wild blotted lines, to care for me 
 While he was gone. And presently we found 
 A little sealed up paper near my hand 
 ' Thou hast willed it. Dear one, I am gone to force 
 Thy welcome from my father. Then perhaps 
 Thou wilt begin to pardon. If I fail 
 I am a beggar and I shall not dare 
 Stand in thy sight again.' 
 
 "I sent no word 
 Of answer. What had I to write ? My hope 
 Was but to be forgotten from his life, 
 His way and mine for evermore apart. 
 I sent no word. And many days went by 
 As silent of him to me as if death 
 Had crept between us. Then at length the news 
 Was blared out of loud rumour's brassy throat, 
 Of his new latest shame. 
 
 "By night and day, 
 i7 
 
258 Lota. 
 
 In mad repentance, he had hurried on : 
 
 Then, entering his father's house, was met 
 
 By news that the old man had yesterday 
 
 Been struck down sudden, as it seemed, with death. 
 
 But, so the servants said, as if possessed 
 
 By frenzy, he made answer in a cry 
 
 Of ' Lota ! Lota ! Am I then too late ?' 
 
 And the next moment, by his father's bed, 
 
 Was blurting out in one great gush of words 
 
 The story of his marriage. But, they said. 
 
 The old man, keen in mind as ever, yet 
 
 Seemed to have put off every interest 
 
 Save for the one great matter of his own, 
 
 The saving of his soul. ' Oh fool ! ' he said, 
 
 'And twice a fool to tell thy folly now. 
 
 Well, well, I've but a little time to live, 
 
 We'll let it be as if I had not heard. 
 
 Keep thine own counsel, thou.... Thy cousin makes 
 
 A very son-like nurse. Hast seen him yet?' 
 
 And then he bade Emilio read to him, 
 
 Smooth down his pillows, give him cooling drink ; 
 
 And once he murmured 'Aye 'tis pleasanter 
 
 To have one's son beside one at the last' 
 
 And the old dame, Emilio's foster-mother, 
 
 Who kept the sick man's room by day and night, 
 
 Declared it comforted and made her cry 
 
 To see the two seem drawn so much more near 
 
 Than ever they were yet since baby-days. 
 
Lota. 259 
 
 " But Emilio left the old man when he slept, 
 And met his cousin Carlo, and told him 
 What errand he had come on. And there was 
 A will, made ready weeks ago, not signed, 
 Made ready to be signed, the old man said, 
 In honour of the marriage, if he heard 
 His son had married the sweet beggar wench. 
 And Carlo went in late at night to see 
 How- soft his uncle slept, and sent the nurse 
 Old Barbara to fill a lamp with oil. 
 And the old man slipt off before the dawn, 
 And underneath his pillow was the will — 
 Signed in a quavering zigzag, as if eyes 
 And hand were past the work, but duly signed 
 And duly witnessed by the wondering maids 
 Carlo had summoned with a stealthy haste. 
 And the will answered to the former threat.... 
 His blessing to Emilio, his one son, 
 And to the huzzy he had wed : all else 
 To be for Carlo. 
 
 "Emilio, it was said 
 In witness at the trial, laughed aloud, 
 And struck his cousin ' That for the huzzy's sake !' 
 And there was broil and scuffle; and the son 
 Was driven from his father's house while still 
 The father lay there. 
 
 17—2 
 
260 Lota. 
 
 "Then, I guess not how, 
 He found wild followers — some said they were 
 Hired brigands from the hills — and one dark night 
 The old Guarini house, outside the town 
 In lonely quiet, suddenly was roused 
 With long unwonted echos ; trampling feet 
 Loud in the corridors, then threats and shouts 
 And the ominous clang of weapons. It was thus 
 My husband came back to his forfeit home. 
 
 "The servants shrank, all scared, and not too fain 
 To do their new lord's battle ; Carlo hid : 
 But a servant pointed — more than one 'twas said — 
 And then his cousin knew the house too well. 
 He was haled out; Emilio made him bring 
 All monies he had by him — a round sum, 
 'Twas said, because he had been gathering in 
 Rentals and debts and so forth. ' Half for me,' 
 Emilio said ' for present urgent needs : 
 The rest for my good friends :' and parted it 
 Among his grinning men. And then perforce 
 Must Carlo sign him papers and a deed 
 That yielded up the heritage and owned 
 'Twas taken by injustice and by fraud. 
 And trembling Carlo signed, and still cried out 
 ' Oh generous cousin do not murder me ! ' 
 
Lota. 261 
 
 "And, when he had signed all, Emilio said 
 ' Now thou art purged we '11 call thee not a thief, 
 And let thee answer me in proper sort 
 For slight upon the lady of this house, 
 My wife. We'll try it now, in this same room; 
 Now, choose thy weapon. And these friends of mine 
 Will bear no malice if I come to harm 
 In a fair fight !' 
 
 "They said that Carlo's eyes 
 Gleamed red with greed of blood, and that his aim, 
 Most nicely taken for his cousin's heart, 
 Missed only by the quivering of his frame 
 For eagerness. Emilio wounded him, 
 And, when he saw him dabbled in his blood 
 Lie on the ground called out for Barbara 
 To play the surgeon. ' My wife's name' he said 
 'Is safe, the smirch has been washed off in blood 
 Of this poor sordid Judas. Help him now : 
 I would not have him die !' 
 
 "And so he went, 
 Triumphant, with his bandits after him. 
 And why he sought not shelter where they sought, 
 But frankly in the next day's noon began 
 
 His journey back to Venice, I know not 
 
 Excepting it were madness. 
 
262 Lota. 
 
 " Soon pursued, 
 Brought back to Naples, thrown in prison, tried, 
 He named his crime a justice, shewed in proof 
 The paper Carlo signed. 'We take no count 
 Of cessions or avowals under force' 
 The judge rebuked him. 'Nay,' Emilio cried, 
 'Think you 'twere possible that any force 
 Could make a true man write himself a knave? 
 But, as for me, it little matters now 
 What you will judge : I am judged otherwhere ; 
 And if you'll let me die 'twill somewhat serve 
 To make me pitied in an afterthought, 
 And will be charitable good to one 
 Whom I have wronged — to one whom I wrong now 
 By only living ! ' 
 
 "But there was no talk 
 Of death for him ; though all his many friends 
 Could not undo his sentence — truly no 
 For Carlo had friends too. Condemned for life 
 To the galleys ! 
 
 "Gervase, had you known so much, 
 You never would have loved me — not I mean 
 If else you might have loved me. Convict's wife 
 Or convict's widow, 'tis all one in shame." 
 
 He smiled at her, his smiling sad beyond 
 
Lota. 263 
 
 Her tears, "I might have said so long ago, 
 But, knowing you, I never should have said it, 
 But, knowing you, I cannot see the shame." 
 
 "Ah well" she said "it seems to me that now 
 Using his name, using my husband's name, 
 Wearing his very ring that owns me his, 
 Letting my honest friends here talk of him 
 Or not talk as it lists them, I endure 
 A penance that may punish me enough, 
 A penance that may punish me for you 
 As I would fain be punished. Oh, sometimes 
 I hug the shame because it is so great." 
 
 He said "Mad Lota, Evelyn once said 
 That you loved sorrow as the petrel loves 
 The storm-winds and the waves ; you laughed at that, 
 But now I feel the meaning of the thought. 
 Oh ! you have grief enough, why will you try 
 To swell its burden on you? You build up 
 A sorrow idol, and then lay yourself 
 Before its car to have it shatter you. 
 And in this story — let me say so much 
 For the man who is my fatalest bane on earth — 
 I see a great crime with the least of shame 
 That ever crime could have. Our English blood 
 Runs cooler in the veins, but yet, I think, 
 We've many a steady honest gentleman 
 
264 Lota. 
 
 Whose deadliest vengeance is a going to law 
 
 Would rub his hands 'Now that's the man for me, 
 
 A fine bold madcap standing for his rights 
 
 With a magnificent lawlessness.' There's yet, 
 
 With all our smugness, somewhere in most minds 
 
 A corner where the natural savage lurks : 
 
 In spite of Law and Gospel we've a thrill 
 
 For redhand justice bursting through its dams 
 
 Like a swelled reckless river from the hills 
 
 That rushes to its goal forbiddenly. 
 
 Oh Lota, if I loathe or scorn this man, 
 
 It is for his foul former wrongs to you 
 
 Which are — Child, I'll not talk of them. Go on : 
 
 You say he wished to die, yet did not die; 
 
 I should have thought — " 
 
 He drew a sudden breath, 
 Checking his words upon the very lip. 
 "I know," she said, "I feared so much from him. 
 I wrote; I urged him with my utmost stress 
 Of reasons and of prayers, I even begged 
 By pity to myself, so that he wrote 
 'It shall be as you will, since you'll not take 
 Even the service from me of my death, 
 Since you believe I shall be more a curse 
 Dead than alive. You put it mincingly 
 Out of a present pity for a foe 
 (You think me that) fallen so utterly, 
 
Ldta. 265 
 
 But there the gist lies — even more a curse 
 
 Dead than alive, unless some seemly bout 
 
 Of sickness come to play the scavenger 
 
 And sweep me from your path. If I died so 
 
 You'd have no ghost to dog you: that would serve, 
 
 And so we'll pray for that end, you and I.' 
 
 "This is the letter see, and added here 
 In postscript 'Would thou couldst have said 
 Thy just farewell with but a little grief, 
 A little show of having loved me once ; 
 But that thou couldst not. And I thank thee much 
 That thou hast been the least harsh possible.' 
 It is the end of all he was to me, 
 Or I to him. I know but this much since : 
 He had his pardon some five years ago — 
 Carlo was dead then — that the journals told. 
 
 "We lived in Florence then; but at the news 
 We fled to Paris, safelier out of sweep 
 Of chance winds blowing him upon our track, 
 And it was there my father died — ah me ! 
 My dear dear father ! never the same man 
 After that heavy trouble, to the last 
 Gentle to me, but turning a cold face 
 Distrustful, nearly bitter, to all else, 
 And oftenest silent. Sometimes he would sit 
 Seeming to sleep, then suddenly would hiss 
 
266 Lota. 
 
 A vehement word of scorn, or break aloud 
 
 Into tumultuous anger. Even in sleep 
 
 He'd cry out on Emilio, storm at him 
 
 As basest of all hypocrites, or fret 
 
 And reason with him and rebuke, as though 
 
 He stood there claiming me for his again. 
 
 Ah me, my father ! 'twas an evil day 
 
 When first you bade him come, a lurid cloud 
 
 Into the sunshine of our simple home. 
 
 "My father died; and then I did his wish, 
 And took my shelter at the Westlands, earned 
 Some part of what they gave and plucked up heart 
 To bear their charity for what remained, 
 Because she was my father's sister. Then 
 I met you, Gervase. Is there more to tell?" 
 
 She ceased; yet stopped him in the answer, "Nay 
 There is this much— so that you may believe 
 I was not guilty of this pain of ours 
 For wilfulness — Oh ! let me make you know. 
 I was half blinded. I had wept so much, 
 And then a sunshine came; I only saw 
 A sort of golden mist, saw not the verge 
 Of the great precipice to which I walked. 
 Oh Gervase, I was cheated by my heart, 
 That did not like to part from happiness; 
 And I believed, because I would believe, 
 
Lota. 267 
 
 Love was not love, and you and I might smile 
 
 Like sister and dear brother all our lives 
 
 And never find a miss of warmer smiles 
 
 Upon each other's faces. I thought first 
 
 Your love was for sweet stately Evelyn, 
 
 And afterwards — ah then I would not think; 
 
 Till Evelyn said a word which I laughed off 
 
 And then remembered in a sadder mind : 
 
 And surely I did try to change you then — 
 
 I thought I did. I meant to keep the pain 
 
 For me alone, and let you turn from me 
 
 With a free heart, forgetting. Ah ! my friend, 
 
 Forgive me, I would freely bear worse harm 
 
 Than any yet fallen on me, to know you 
 
 Scathless from my poor folly. But, alas ! 
 
 It is too late : the adder in the grass 
 
 Looks not too carefully what hand disturbs 
 
 Its bed in picking daisy-buds, but digs 
 
 Its fangs in the nearest flesh. We both are stung : 
 
 Only I think that you, who have so much 
 
 To make life strong in you, will soon throw off 
 
 The last taint of the venom. Oh, you'll find 
 
 Balm everywhere ; your life is still a hope, 
 
 As lives no older yet than yours and mine 
 
 Are in their natural current; you can pass 
 
 Along a safer way and find new flowers. 
 
 Oh Gervase you, whom I made sad awhile, 
 
 You will be happy, I — " 
 
268 Lota. 
 
 Sudden she broke 
 Her cry of anguish, would have laughed it off 
 With a laugh that quivered twitching round the lips. 
 But Gervase brooked no laughter; both her hands 
 Were fast in his, his eyes burned into hers. 
 "Lota I cannot lose you! Is he dead? 
 Is there nothing in your heart that calls him dead?" 
 
 "He was not dead" she said; and all her face 
 Was curdled into wanness. Then she cried, 
 Writhing with an intolerable pain, 
 "My God ! My God ! do I long to have him dead? 
 Oh Gervase, hush ! he was not dead. Oh ! hush, 
 And let me go." 
 
 He put her gently back, 
 And stood away from her. "Be calm again. 
 I will not scare you : do not ask yourself 
 If he is dead or living; I will know. 
 And, Lota, when, as a strong faith in my breast 
 Assures me, I come back to you with news 
 That he is dead, you will be innocent, 
 Most innocent, of any brooded hope 
 To name a longing." 
 
 But she sat and wept, 
 And short sharp tremors shook her, as the leaves 
 
Lota. 269 
 
 Are shaken on their boughs by gusts in spring, 
 And so he asked her, "There is something yet 
 I would be told. By what chance are you here?" 
 
 She said, and in the answering gained the calm 
 He looked for, "I had in the world no friend 
 Truer to help me than a worthy soul 
 Who was our servant. She and her good man 
 Throve in the world, and keep the chief inn here. 
 When she left us to marry I had said 
 That on my birthday, as she asked, perhaps 
 Some once or twice a year besides, I 'd write : 
 And that I did, and had such answers back 
 As made me laugh and cry, they were so quaint, 
 Showing such honest love so blunderingly. 
 And so I fled to her. Good creature ! glad 
 She would have been to make me in her home 
 Like a fine lady daughter : but to-day 
 As we walked here, she turned to the old theme 
 And urged it with her honest eloquence. 
 Through her I got my pupils — I teach French, 
 Italian, 'fluent German,' and so forth 
 'Learned in the countries.' and I do not starve/' 
 
 He thought a little. "Will you for* my prayer 
 Put strain upon your pride? I will not ask 
 That you should go to her, sit down again 
 Beside her hearth, but, if risk comes to you, 
 Or illness, while I am away, you'll write 
 
270 Lota. 
 
 To that too rashly judging aunt whom yet 
 
 One day we will forgive together?" 
 
 "Nay," 
 She laughed in anger, "would she care for me?" 
 
 He said "We are in feud for your sake now, 
 And for your sake, because I will not stoop 
 To exonerate you whom she should have known, 
 I will not seek her till — I told her when : 
 But yet, I know her, and her heart is good, 
 I'll trust her. Promise, Lota." 
 
 "Oh," she said, 
 "You pardon lightly, you. I am not so; 
 I take no grace from hands that struck me first. 
 I cannot tie a loop in a snapped thread 
 Of love, and work on with the knot and all. 
 You ask a promise past my strength. No, no, 
 I cannot promise." 
 
 "Then to Evelyn;" 
 He said "You'll turn for help to Evelyn? 
 She did not wrong you. I could go content 
 If you would promise me to trust in her." 
 And then, because he urged it, Lota said 
 "Yes, Evelyn — I'll turn to her at need." 
 And Gervase leaving her was comforted, 
 As if he left her in an angel's care. 
 
III. 
 
 So Gervase went to seek if anywhere 
 Tidings of Lota's husband might be found, 
 And thought "If he be living, it were well 
 To find him ; for he might want even bread, 
 And if not, one might save him from himself 
 With a friend's hand perhaps : and thought again 
 "If he be living and were one so schooled 
 That he might make my dear one happy yet, 
 Well then, what better use could be of me 
 Than to have bought her happiness at last, 
 Ever so dearly?" Yet he seemed to know, 
 As by presentiment, the man was dead. 
 
 He went; and scarcely could he yet have seen 
 The shores of southern France wane into sky 
 Behind the waves, when Lota, suddenly 
 Fallen weaker than a year-old baby, lay 
 
272 Lota. 
 
 Drifting and drifting on to death. At first 
 She said to the good woman from the inn, 
 Who flounced and clattered round her busily 
 And cried about her, " Never fear for me ; 
 You'll see me strong again. Once I was thus — 
 Just after we left Venice last — you heard; 
 I was not ill, only my life seemed spent, 
 Like a little brook in June whose waters waste 
 Till you can scarcely see a runnel thread. 
 I shall grow strong again as I did then; 
 Just like the little brook that, drop by drop, 
 Gets back some life from every passing shower." 
 But when day after day went by and still 
 Each morning wakened her a thought more tired 
 Than last night saw her fall asleep, she said 
 "Nay this time I am dying," and she sent 
 A little pencilled note to Evelyn, 
 A word or two that ended suddenly 
 Because she was so tired. And her good friend 
 Wrote at the end, " Miss, she can never live 
 She is so weak, and she don't seem to try 
 But takes it as it may. Some one should come 
 That's fit to chirrup to her." 
 
 Evelyn came, 
 Her mother with her, but they had agreed 
 That Evelyn should be with Lota first, 
 Then tell her who besides was there. But yet 
 
Lota. 273 
 
 She did not tell her; but she left her side 
 To warn her mother. " Nay she is too weak, 
 I dare not let her guess that you are here. 
 Dear mother, when she saw you last such wrath 
 Was hot between you — and she is so weak. 
 Leave her to me until some stronger day." 
 
 So Evelyn stayed alone with Lota, watched 
 Her life that ebbed and flowed like river tides, 
 Changing but changing silently. For weeks 
 She watched and hoped and scarcely could be sure 
 If better came a little oftener 
 Than worse. But when the vivid autumn leaves 
 Showed crimson through the mist of afternoons 
 She knew that Lota stirred a little more 
 And asked more questions, and she saw a dawn 
 Of glimmering sea-shell pink in the wax cheeks, 
 And sunlights coming back upon her hair. 
 And Lota said, " My Evelyn, but for you 
 I should have shut my eyes and gone to sleep 
 Like the lost travellers in the snow. But you, 
 You kept me waking, warmed me : I shall live." 
 
 Then bye and bye she thirsted for the sight 
 Of grey hills through the air, and woods where yet 
 The leaves were lingering thinly, of quick brooks 
 Between the red-leafed brambles, slope-side waves 
 Of plumy ferns with fronds just tipped with brown 
 
 18 
 
274 Lota. 
 
 By earliest frosts, and flower-weeds in the lanes. 
 
 And in the sunniest hours of sunny days 
 
 The cousins lingered through the nearest walks 
 
 While Lota breathed in life from sun and air, 
 
 Like flowers, too long forgotten in the dark, 
 
 That come back to the daylight — till she said 
 
 "Why I am strong!" Then, on an afternoon 
 
 Yellow with autumn sunlight striking low, 
 
 She said "My churchyard is not now too far — 
 
 I long to show it, 'tis so beautiful." 
 
 And so they rambled for an easy mile 
 
 Through field ways and along a little grove, 
 
 And came to a grey church with tower and porch 
 
 Half lost in glistening ivy, and the shade 
 
 Of a great cedar on its southern wall. 
 
 And westward a green slope curved slowly down 
 
 To a broad river's brim, where now and then 
 
 A barge came drifting by, but oftener 
 
 The great white swans from Yewter Hall at hand 
 
 Broke the smooth water slowly. Down the slope, 
 
 And underneath the cedar, lay the graves 
 
 Among smooth turf, with here and there a flower 
 
 Of simple kind, set by some loving hand; 
 
 And here and there a hedge-rose climbed and drooped, 
 
 With its wild careless trails, about a stone, 
 
 Pruned off no more than not to hide the name — 
 
 No gardener's playground this, but just so kept 
 
 As showed it was a cared for, sacred place. 
 
Lota. 275 
 
 And from the river's other bank there stretched 
 A green far plain of fields that came at last 
 To woodland rises, and above these peered 
 The grey and shadowy line of five long hills. 
 
 And Evelyn and Lota sat at rest 
 In the broad cedar's hush, and felt far off 
 From the world's hurry : and they talked of thoughts 
 They would not, sitting friendly in their room, 
 Have felt alone enough or near enough 
 To tell each other plainly : and at last 
 Lota poured out her heart. 
 
 But, when she said 
 " I love him, love him still," she said besides 
 " I love him so that it would comfort me 
 Beyond all words, if he would love again — 
 Oh Evelyn, if he would love my friend, 
 And she would love him... as I think she could." 
 But Evelyn spoke resolute, though low, 
 " Not so, you dreamer. He and I no more 
 Could take love of our making for love's self 
 And keep life warm by it than we could think 
 We felt the rays hot from a tinsel sun 
 And sit to bask in it upon the stage. 
 Friends he and I, but never more than friends." 
 
276 Lota. 
 
 And as she spoke they heard a sound of steps, 
 And Gervase Lester, seeking them, was there. 
 
 "At Lota's door they told me where to come" 
 He answered to their wonderings; yet still 
 Wherefore he came to Woodley told them not : 
 But, walking slowly homeward with them, talked 
 Of his long useless search — till, step by step, 
 He seemed to lay the clue in Lota's hand, 
 Unwinding it as he had first unwound. 
 
 For he, when many tedious days were lost 
 In questionings and seekings to and fro, 
 Went back once more to the old Barbara, 
 Emilio's foster-mother, who one day 
 Had been too deaf to listen, and the next 
 Forgot if she had seen him, yes or no, 
 After his freeing, and the next declared 
 That Gervase meant him mischief, and would take 
 No pledge or promise from a heretic. 
 Gervase went back to her, with him her priest, 
 "Now will you take the father's word for me, 
 That I intend your foster-son no harm — 
 Good rather?" And the priest, blandly, "Do not fear, 
 I know his reason; tell him what you can." 
 And what she could was that Emilio, 
 Having a loud sweet voice, had gone to sing 
 To the rich English who, she heard, would pay 
 
Lota. 277 
 
 In gold for every note, and so she thought 
 He must be a Milordo with them now. 
 
 So Gervase went to London, seeking still ; 
 And found a track, then lost, then found again: 
 And so, by fragments, traced what sorry way 
 The man he sought had gone. 
 
 Not much to learn; 
 Yet meaning such a countless tale of hopes 
 Coming and going always till at length 
 The very last had drifted out of sight, 
 Of efforts, and of languors and despairs, 
 Of rashnesses, and failures, and of want; 
 And bye and bye the recklessness that comes 
 From being too forlorn and out of heart : 
 Then sickness, and the hand of death stretched out 
 To take the useless life and hide it down 
 With those who neither work nor starve, but sleep, 
 And cumber no one. 
 
 Confident at first, 
 Then wondering, then angry, and at last 
 Indifferent for very hopelessness, 
 Emilio made the round of London marts 
 For loud sweet voices, finding everywhere 
 The same repulse. I heard once of a youth 
 Whose mother in a craze had pampered him 
 
278 Lota. 
 
 Into the fond dream he was a great prince 
 
 Whose name rang loud upon the people's tongues, 
 
 And one day taken from her, sent to school, 
 
 He learned, poor lad, how much he was a prince, 
 
 In a hard fashion : and I who, something touched 
 
 For the poor zany, yet could not but laugh 
 
 At the quaint error, thought "And yet why laugh? 
 
 We most of us are princes in such guise ; 
 
 And some of us learn hardly in our school, 
 
 'I'm not the prince imperial, after all; 
 
 But nobody;' and some who stay at home 
 
 May never learn it... All the happier they." 
 
 Emilio learnt it very bitterly; 
 Because for him it meant the nighest thing 
 To starving. Piece by piece the coins clinked out 
 From the thin purse that held his fortune : so 
 He must accept his downfall. No prince he 
 Of opera or concert, with the gift 
 Out of the fairy tale to mint red gold 
 By just articulating; but, perhaps, 
 Some one would hire him for a singing drudge. 
 And so much grace he gained. But things went ill: 
 One place his passion lost him, and the next 
 His carelessness ; and once, when he had gained 
 The vantage ground of a small separate part 
 That might have helped him higher, he, elate, 
 Ran riot with some roysterers of his set, 
 
Lota. 279 
 
 And stood forth flurried with unwonted wine 
 To be chased off with outcry ; so that place 
 Went too, and with it his last upward hope. 
 
 But yet his singing kept him in some sort 
 Till sickness came. Dying, almost from want 
 More than from ailing, helpless to turn himself, 
 Wasted and pinched from want and cold, 'twas thus 
 That Gervase Lester found him. Instantly 
 All care that might be, fitting sustenance, 
 Nursing, and doctoring, were spent on him; 
 So he revived; and when some days went by, 
 There was a letter written to his wife, 
 Which Gervase saw by chance as it lay sealed. 
 "Tis to my wife:" the sick man said, "she lives 
 At Woodley, and 'tis years since we have met. 
 She hates me, but a dying man may ask. 
 Oh ! she must come. I cannot pray in peace 
 Till she says one kind word before I die." 
 Then Gervase said "Nay, you will startle her. 
 Give me the letter; I will go for you, 
 And bring her, if she will." 
 
 And now he came 
 And told this all to Lota. 
 
 But she sighed, 
 And trembled, and looked down reluctantly. 
 
280 Lota. 
 
 She said "I cannot ; I should make new pain, 
 No other, for him." But he urged her more, 
 And Evelyn urged. 
 
 She cried "Alas ! there is 
 A hardness in me. I might shrink from him 
 Abhorrently when I would take his hand 
 And seem to soothe him. No, I will not go." 
 
 Then Gervase said "Once, Lota, while he sang, 
 He saw you, you who listened ignorant 
 Of him among an open-mouthed stage crowd, 
 And, when he learned your name, 'Miss Deveril,' 
 He threw his future wildly to the winds, 
 That then was something brightening ; ' Lost ' he said 
 And — thus he told it me when I had said 
 I would come for you, he told all unaware 
 That I had known you — like a desperate wretch 
 Who, meaning to front death, should furiously 
 Quaff heady madness, cup by cup, to make 
 Dying a drunkard's frolic, he, doomed still 
 To live, because you bade him not take rest 
 In his own fashion, sought for madness then 
 To front life with, and headlong hurried o'er 
 The deep scarp of his downfall. ' Lost' he cried, 
 And took no further thought to save himself, 
 But rushed into a quagmire in his way, 
 And felt the slimy murderous waters ooze 
 
Lota. 281 
 
 Over the lip and choke him. Mad indeed, 
 But mad because, for all his wrongs to you, 
 He loved you." 
 
 But she answered, though some tears 
 In spite of her went slowly down her cheeks, 
 " If, as I guess your tale, your quagmire means 
 An utterer slough of vice than yet he knew, 
 Your madness wickedness, is it a claim 
 Because he tries to foul me with his guilt, 
 As formerly — my fault his infamies, 
 My fault that he betrayed me, my fault now 
 His lawless shameless outburst — is it a claim 
 Because he adds this outrage?" so she grew 
 To passion by her speaking. 
 
 Gervase said 
 "Yet hear again. Some singing people went 
 To Woodley, and they told him they saw there 
 A woman with his name, a woman young 
 And worth the claiming; thus they jested him; 
 But he found earnest in it they guessed not, 
 And secretly he came to Woodley, saw 
 The name, saw you. It seemed to him that you, 
 Taking thus far your wifehood back, avowed 
 A softer mind towards him or a thought 
 That he might yet uplift himself to you : 
 And to that toil he instant vowed himself, 
 
282 Lota. 
 
 And the vow is not broken — only made 
 Too late. Lota, it was a cruel walk, 
 For one already weakened and ill fed : 
 He never rallied from it. For some days 
 He tried to work, and, as he sadly tells, 
 Tried the first time in life to really pray ; 
 And then he lay down on his bed to die, 
 Hopeless and spent." 
 
 Then Evelyn eagerly 
 Took Lota's hand and looked into her face. 
 And Lota answered hoarsely "I will go" 
 And walked on silent, holding back the sobs. 
 
 And when the London evening came, ablaze 
 With glittering lights, Lota Guarini stood 
 Beside her husband, stooping down to hear 
 His feeble murmur "Now I will thank God, 
 And die. But, Lota, will you kiss me once?" 
 
 There was a sudden catching in her breath, 
 But then she kissed him; and she said aloud, 
 As if she . spoke to others more than him, 
 "You are my husband, I will stay with you 
 And be your nurse, with this good woman's help." 
 
 And Gervase did not speak; and Evelyn said 
 " Right, Lota; yet" — and stopped; but the nurse cried 
 
Lota. 283 
 
 "Dear lady, no, this is no place for you — 
 Such people round us ! such a wretched room!" 
 But Lota said, " Nay nay here is my place 
 Since there's no moving him" and with a fling 
 Of wonted wilfulness threw off her cloak. 
 And Gervase said "I watched last night — to-night 
 I'll watch again;" and Evelyn would not go 
 Although they urged her. 
 
 So through a long night 
 Together they kept watch. And oftenest 
 The sick man slept, and, if they lost the sound 
 Of his thick breathing, they would stoop to hark, 
 And whisper "Has he passed?" And every time 
 He wakened they would think it was for' death; 
 And every time he settled back to sleep 
 Would think "Now he'll not waken anymore." 
 But yet the glimmering morning came and peered 
 Upon him sleeping, Lota's hand in his ; 
 And the full flash of day shewed them his face 
 Less deathly; and it seemed as if the light 
 Of life had sucked new oil, might flicker on 
 A day or two. 
 
 The day or two crept by, 
 And still Emilio lived. And in a while 
 They moved him to a freer wholesomer air 
 And fresher pleasant rooms. "Some weeks to live, 
 
284 Lota. 
 
 With care and cheering him" the doctors said. 
 And Evelyn went home; and Gervase came 
 But rarely. Lota watched her husband's life 
 Alone, and talked with him of death and God, 
 As Evelyn would have talked; and all the while 
 Her heart grew nearer both to God and him. 
 
 And the first day that she could leave his side 
 An hour or two, she hurried to her aunt, 
 And kissed her, weeping " Love me as before, 
 For I do love you. You have been more kind 
 Than ever you were wrongful." Cordially 
 The softened matron kissed her back; she said 
 "That foolish Gervase came a while ago 
 And thanked me that I had gone down to you 
 When you were dying. Did you both believe, 
 Because I took my eyes for guide and blamed 
 What looked amiss, that I could let you die, 
 My niece, and never stir a hand to help? 
 And now I did not come because I thought 
 You would not have me; but I'll be with you 
 As often as I can." 
 
 But Lota said, 
 "Dear aunt, I help my husband best alone." 
 And even Evelyn she told, "You were 
 My stay: but I have learned from you, and now 
 I am his stay. Dear, we are best alone." 
 
Lota. 285 
 
 So she did wifely duty to her best, 
 And comforted and tended. And one day 
 When Gervase came for news, she went to him 
 With a pale radiant face, where a grave joy 
 And something sorrow-like played tremulous. 
 She said, "There is no doubt now. He will live, 
 The doctors are assured, live and be well." 
 
 He said, " Days since they told me so, but thought 
 You should not be sure then, for fear of change. 
 God bless you Lota." 
 
 Then she looked at him 
 Half frightened but with purpose, spoke to him 
 " Gervase, O dear brave friend, friend whom I love 
 With love beyond a sister's but yet like, 
 My husband is more noble than I knew, 
 And, oh!- he loves me, and — and I" — she looked 
 Away from him and spoke in a low voice, 
 "And I am learning a wife's love." 
 
 He took 
 Her hand that clasped his freely, lifted it 
 To his cold trembling lips, " We both of us 
 Ought to thank God for that." And then he went. 
 
 And presently his country squires were scared 
 
286 Lota. 
 
 With more new systems, more new enterprize, 
 New works upon his lands, new drains, new dams, 
 New cottages, new cricket-grounds, new schools, 
 New churches, new steam-ploughs — he ceaselessly, 
 Ubiquitously, busy. " Egad" they cried, 
 "The devil's in the man! Here he comes back 
 With added cent for cent of hobby power 
 When we all looked his town life naturally 
 Would take the zeal out of him." 
 
 But before 
 He went from London he had made his care 
 To find for Lota's husband a career 
 And livelihood. And so, Guarini, well, 
 Became a city prince's clerk. 
 
 Now pass 
 Some years with me, and let me show you where 
 There is a smooth flat sward of lake-side shore 
 With a great fir-coned hill sloped steep above, 
 And on the water rosy snow-peaks shown, 
 And, over mountains fronting darkly near 
 With blue dim shadows in their dells and clefts 
 And creeping up them from the lake, a verge 
 Of rosy snow-peaks, and just opposite, 
 In the shelter of one grassy slope that mounts 
 In soft long curves and then breaks suddenly 
 In a notched line of rugged table-flat 
 
Lota. 287 
 
 With a great pinewood precipice above, 
 A little Alpine village glimmers out 
 From the grey evening shadows. 
 
 One who watched 
 The sunset on the far-off snowy hills 
 Said softly "And beyond is Italy." 
 And Lota answered "Italy, where once 
 We were not happy. We will go one day, 
 We and our Eva, and be happy there, 
 In one of these dear summer holidays." 
 And the child Eva, busy by their side 
 Making Papa a harebell crown, cried out 
 "To Italy, Papa's dear Italy!" 
 And ran to tell the others, Evelyn 
 And Ethel and tall Hugh and Marion, 
 Lota's young cousin-pupils of old days. 
 But Evelyn did not hear her: Evelyn sat' 
 Apart beneath a nut-tree, and by her 
 Was Gervase speaking very earnestly 
 And low; and Evelyn smiled. 
 
 "Ah! once," he said, 
 "The day I found you in the churchyard where 
 I sought your cousin Lota, I heard words 
 Which did not name me, and yet I believed, 
 I scarce know why, they were of me. You said 
 'Friends, he and I, but never more than friends.'" 
 
288 Lota. 
 
 She said, and her soft voice was happy sweet, 
 "You did not love me then." And then she rose 
 And stole away alone. 
 
 And Gervase, wild 
 With sudden boisterousness, caught the child up 
 And tossed her in his arms and carried her, 
 She shrieking with her mirth. " Kiss me," he said, 
 "A kiss for Cousin Gervase. Eva, come 
 Let's race each other in before the rest. 
 We've news to tell the Aunt — such happy news!" 
 
By the same Author. 
 
 DRAMATIC STUDIES. 
 
 BY 
 
 AUGUSTA WEBSTER. 
 
 Opinions of the Press. 
 
 "They are studies of character, passion, feeling, rather than 
 of incident ; yet they describe mental and imaginative phenomena 
 with a power and clearness which are often wanting in descrip- 
 tions of plain matter-of-fact The most striking study is 
 
 perhaps that which is called 'The Snow Waste,' and describes 
 in allegory the penalty of the heart which, having shut love out, 
 is itself shut out from love and lies in darkness. Poets and 
 painters have both represented cold as an instrument of penal 
 torture. Do our readers remember Gustave Dora's ice field, 
 over which Dante and Virgil walk together among the heads of 
 the wretches frozen into it ? Even there, according to both poet 
 and illustrator, human passions can glow with terrible fervour. 
 But Mrs Webster is more consistent; her penal snow waste 
 
 19 
 
excludes the heat even of immoral emotions : the wretched 
 sufferer tells the tale of his crime with a 'dull, dreamy loathing,' 
 a 'quiet nothingness of gaze,' in 'shadeless rhythm' and 
 monotonously recurring rhyme. The cold has eaten into his 
 soul. The whole poem leaves behind it an impression like that 
 which Edgar Poe might have produced if he had been as free 
 from erratic impulses and as inflexibly moral as Wordsworth." 
 
 — Guardian. 
 
 "It must be a very subtle imagination that can conceive so 
 extremely terrible, and yet so chaste and complete a story as we 
 have in this 'Snow Waste.'" — Sunday Gazette. 
 
 "They are powerful, original, and full of deep and some- 
 times passionate earnestness.... The earlier poems, 'A Preacher' 
 and ' A Painter, ' are very remarkable for the care of the mental 
 analysis which the author has undertaken ; and in both, and the 
 latter especially, the cry which is uttered comes from the heart, 
 and the satire upon the age is full of truth and power. Very 
 remarkable are the 'Jeanne d' Arc' and the 'Sister Annunciata. ' . . . 
 Our favourite, however, is the 'Snow Waste,' a noble and imagi- 
 native poem of which any living poet might be proud." 
 
 — Reader. 
 
 i 
 
 "Mrs Webster's dramatic and poetic poems are of no 
 
 common order. Her special line is the subjective analysis of 
 
 thought and feeling. 
 
 ******** 
 
 " 'The Snow Waste' is a grand Dantesque allegory, in which 
 one who has been guilty, during life, of unnatural cruelty of hate, 
 
is condemned to wander for ever in a waste of snow between 
 the corpses of his two victims. The effect of this 'doom of cold' 
 is strikingly expressed by the tale, told by the condemned, being 
 given in eight-line stanzas of one rhyme only — 'shadeless rhythm,' 
 as it is called in the poem : or as elsewhere — 
 
 ' An uncadenced chant on one slow chord, 
 
 Dull undulating surely to and fro.' " 
 
 — Contemporary Review. 
 
 "Mrs Webster's 'Dramatic Studies' are a set of soliloquies, 
 exhibiting a very remarkable power of mental analysis. In the 
 first, entitled 'A Preacher,' the supposed speaker — a highly 
 respected and eminently pious clergyman — complains to himself 
 that, though he can move his congregation to ardours of enthu- 
 siastic devotion, he is conscious in his own mind of a besetting 
 coldness, a mechanical tendency to say things because he knows 
 he is expected to say them, and an ever-recurring scepticism on 
 several important points. All this is subtly delineated, and the 
 distinction between conscious hypocrisy (which has no part in 
 the speaker's character) and the deadening effect of routine, from 
 which he is suffering, is very admirably drawn. In 'Sister 
 Annunciata,' 'With the Dead,' and some of the other poems, 
 the authoress shows a strong dramatic sense of character, and a 
 quick insight into the entanglement of motives and passions." 
 
 — London Review. 
 
 "A more genial companion for a July day in a shady copse 
 (on the suave marl magno principle) has not appeared this 
 season." — Spectator. 
 
"These, we say it with confidence, display true poetic 
 
 power Mrs Webster's 'Sister Annunciata' and 'With the 
 
 Dead' exhibit, in a high degree, that power of going out of 
 oneself and thinking the thoughts of others, which is, of course, 
 the essential function of the dramatist. There is an amount of 
 force, too, as well as tenderness and beauty, about some of these 
 self-portraitures, which raises them decidedly above that common 
 level of verse composition which is attained by so many ; who, 
 while writing for their own satisfaction, appear to think they are 
 writing for the world. 
 
 ******** 
 
 " 'With the Dead' is, perhaps, the poem which most impresses 
 the reader with the imaginative vigour and dramatic force dis- 
 played. The delineation is done with a firm, unsparing, and yet 
 delicate hand. Those entitled, respectively, 'A Preacher,' and 
 
 'A Painter,' are in another way scarcely inferior We have 
 
 said enough, we trust, to attract such of our readers as are lovers 
 of true poetry — even though not bearing a maestro's name — to a 
 volume as strongly marked by perfect taste as by poetic 
 power. " — Nonconformist. 
 
 "As a study of the workings of a nature at once loving 
 and lofty and skilled in self-analysis, it ['Sister Annunciata'] is 
 very lovely and very striking. It is long since we have read 
 anything which has moved us more. And it abounds, too, in 
 sudden turns and changes of feeling which we should think as 
 true to nature as they are beautiful in execution ; — little touches 
 also and gushes of human feeling breaking in, with the exquisite 
 felicity of a true woman-poet, across the play and counterplay of 
 old feelings and present aspirations."— Literary Churchman. 
 
"Her 'Preacher,' who thinks more deeply than he chooses 
 his flock to know, and feeds them, half by habit, upon conven- 
 tions rather than upon convictions, — her 'Painter,' who has to 
 sacrifice his ideal of Art to the needs of the hour, and who, 
 when he has done something better to satisfy his ambition, can 
 only say, 
 
 'I think the world would praise it were I known,' — 
 
 her 'Sister Annunciata,' in whom is embodied the whole 
 struggle of a young heart quickened with human love, and con- 
 demned to seek heaven not through the purification but through 
 the stifling of its instincts, — the sad pathetic reverie of the plain 
 girl yearning for love — 'By the Looking-glass,' — are all exposi- 
 tions of separate individualities profoundly studied and minutely 
 realized. Amongst these, 'Sister Annunciata' holds the foremost 
 place. The long vigil of the devoted sister, in which she straggles 
 to wean herself from memories of the love that will recur, — the 
 touching self-sophistry through which that love asserts its life, 
 even in the attempt to write its epitaph, and the way in which 
 the sweet nature of the sufferer stumbles over the ruin of its 
 hopes to a higher life, and, with a right impulse but exhausted 
 power, falls worn-out at last on the threshold of heaven, are 
 worthy, in point of conception, of high praise." — Athen^um. 
 
 "In the several poems there is great diversity; and a singular 
 contrast is presented by the homely good sense and shrewdness 
 of the 'Preacher,' and by the strange morbid strength of a 
 tour de force called the 'Snow Waste.'... 'Sister Annunciata' is 
 the most elaborate and finest poem in the collection, and com- 
 prises a masterly analysis of the leading motives of conventual 
 life. ...The 'Painter' shows a deep, and, what is more, a delicate 
 sympathy with a class of men often having a more thorough 
 
professional earnestness than the world will encourage or allow 
 them to live by. 'Too Late' is a slighter and 'By the Looking- 
 glass', a less pleasant poem; but they are both interesting from the 
 same subtle analysis of motives and sentiments which we have 
 already noted in Mrs Webster." — Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 "Mrs Webster shows not only originality, but what is nearly 
 as rare, trained intellect and seif-command. She possesses, too, 
 what is the first requisite of a poet — earnestness. This quality is 
 stamped upon all that she writes. The opening lines to the 
 poem of 'A Painter' prove that she thoroughly realizes what 
 Art means, and at once give an earnest of the power which the 
 conclusion fulfils." — Westminster Review. 
 
 ILontron anti (£amfrriUge: 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
Also by the same Author. 
 
 THE PROMETHEUS BOUND 
 OF AESCHYLUS. 
 
 LITERALLY TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH VERSE. 
 BY 
 
 AUGUSTA WEBSTER. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 THOMAS WEBSTER, M.A. 
 
 I.ATE FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 Opinions of the Press. 
 
 "Amongst recent translations of poetry Mrs Webster's 
 'Prometheus of ^Eschylus' claims a high rank. Of her vo- 
 lume of original poems we have already spoken. Her transla- 
 tion is marked by the same high qualities, but especially by 
 
 fidelity to the original without losing its spirit We sincerely 
 
 hope that her translation will introduce many English readers to 
 one of the greatest dramas ever written." — Westminster 
 Review. 
 
 "For a lady to translate ./Eschylus is no longer a strange 
 phenomenon. Mrs Browning made two versions of this very 
 play, the Prometheus; one for her private friends, one for the 
 
oc 
 
 8 
 
 public. Miss Swanwick has published within the last few 
 months an entire translation of the Orestean Trilogy. Mrs 
 Webster had, perhaps, the advantage of both her lady predeces- 
 sors, as well as of most of the translators of the other sex, in 
 closeness and simplicity, combined with literary skill." 
 
 — Athenaeum. 
 
 "It has clearly been a labour of love and has been done 
 faithfully and conscientiously." — Contemporary Review. 
 
 "We have been often quite amazed at the extent to which 
 she has complied with the severe conditions imposed on 
 herself." — Nonconformist. 
 
 "The translation may be regarded in its entirety as a really 
 marvellous performance ; it is astonishing how a certain poetic 
 majesty for which the original is remarkable discloses itself in 
 the choral portions and the monologues.... The scholar will 
 acknowledge the difficulty of the task undertaken, and will be 
 struck with no infrequent surprise and admiration at the art and 
 ingenuity with which troublesome passages are handled." 
 
 — Illustrated London News. 
 
 Eontion an* CamfrritJgc: 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 ^X