It works on, being one ever-changing form—
The living and the dying and the dead.
I’ll not believe a thing which I have known.
Hell was made hell for me, and I am mad.
True venom churns the froth out of the lips;
It works, and works like any waterwheel.
And she then was the maiden of thy heart.
Well, I have promised. Ye shall meet again.
I loved her for that she was beautiful;
And that to me she seemed to be all nature
And all varieties of things in one:
Would set at night in clouds of tears, and rise
All light and laughter in the morning: yea,
And that she never schooled within her breast
One thought or feeling, but gave holiday
To all; and that she made all even mine
In the communion of love: and we
Grew like each other for we loved each other—
She, mild and generous as the sun in spring;
And I, like earth all budding out with love.
And then, love’s old end, falsehood: nothing worse
I hope?
What’s worse than falsehood? to deny
The god which is within us, and in all
Is love? Love hath as many vanities
As charms; and this, perchance, the chief of both:
To make our young heart’s track upon the first,
And snowlike fall of feeling which overspreads
The bosom of the youthful maiden’s mind,
More pure and fair than even its outward type.
If one did thus, was it from vanity?
Or thoughtlessness, or worse? Nay, let it pass.
The beautiful are never desolate;
But some one alway loves them—God or man.
If man abandons, God himself takes them.
And thus it was. She whom I once loved died.
The lightning loathes its cloud—the soul its clay.
Can I forget that hand I took in mine,
Pale as pale violets; that eye, where mind
And matter met alike divine? ah, no!
May God that moment judge me when I do!
Oh! she was fair: her nature once all spring,
And deadly beauty like a maiden sword;
Startlingly beautiful. I see her now!
Whatever thou art thy soul is in my mind;
Thy shadow hourly lengthens o’er my brain,
And peoples all its pictures with thyself.
Gone, not forgot—passed, not lost—thou shalt shine
In Heaven like a bright spot in the sun!
She said she wished to die, and so she died;
For, cloudlike, she poured out her love, which was
Her life, to freshen this parched heart. It was thus:
I said we were to part, but she said nothing.
There was no discord—it was music ceased—
Life’s thrilling, bounding, bursting joy. She sat
Like a house-god, her hands fixed on her knee;
And her dark hair lay loose and long around her,
Through which her wild bright eye flashed like flint.
She spake not, moved not, but she looked the more,
As if her eye were action, speech and feeling.
I felt it all; and came and knelt beside her.
The electric touch solved both our souls together.
Then comes the feeling which unmakes, undoes;
Which tears the sealike soul up by the roots
And lashes it in scorn against the skies.
Twice did I madly swear to God, hand clenched,
That not even He nor death should tear her from me.
It is the saddest and the sorest sight
One’s own love weeping;—but why call on God,
But that the feeling of the boundless bounds
All feeling, as the welkin doth the world?
It is this which ones us with the whole and God.
Then first we wept; then closed and clung together;
And my heart shook this building of my breast,
Like a live engine booming up and down.
She fell upon me like a snow-wreath thawing.
Never were bliss and beauty, love and woe,
Ravelled and twined together into madness,
As in that one wild hour; to which all else,
The past, is but a picture—that alone
Is real, and for ever there in front;
Making a black blank on one side of life
Like a blind eye. But after that I left her:
And only saw her once ogain alive.
Well, shall we go?
This moment. I am ready.
Farewell ye dear old walks and trees! farewell
Ye waters! I have loved ye well. In youth
And childhood it hath been my life to drift
Across ye lightly as a leaf; or skim
Your waves in yon skiff, swallowlike; or lie
Like a loved locket on your sunny bosom.
Could I, like you, by looking in myself
Find mine own Heaven—farewell! Immortal, come!
The morning peeps her blue eye on the east.
Think not so fondly as thy foolish race,
Imagining a Heaven from things without;
The picture on the passing wave call Heaven—
The wavelet, life—the sands beneath it, death;
Daily more seen till, lo! the bed is bare.
This fancy fools the world.
Let us away!
IV
Scene—A mountain—Sunrise.
| Festus and Lucifer. | |
| Festus |
Hail beauteous Earth! Gazing o’er thee, I all |
| Lucifer |
Ay. |
