But came abroad, went dreaming o’er the sands,
And lost itself in finding out the sea;
Inside, it bore grave swans, white splendours—crept
Under the fairy leap of a wire bridge,
Vanished in leaves, and came again where lawns
Lay verdurous, and the peacock’s plumy heaven
Bore azure suns with green and golden rays.
It was my childish Eden; for the skies
Were loftier in that garden, and the clouds
More summer-gracious, edged with broader white;
And when they rained, it was a golden rain
That sparkled as it fell—an odorous rain.
And then its wonder-heart!—a little room,
Half-hollowed in the side of a steep hill,
Which rose, with columned, windy temple crowned,
A landmark to far seas. The enchanted cell
Was clouded over in the gentle night
Of a luxuriant foliage, and its door,
Half-filled with rainbow hues of coloured glass,
Opened into the bosom of the hill.
Never to sesame of mine that door
Gave up its sanctuary; but through the glass,
Gazing with reverent curiosity,
I saw a little chamber, round and high,
Which but to see was to escape the heat,
And bathe in coolness of the eye and brain;
For all was dusky greenness; on one side,
A window, half-blind with ivy manifold,
Whose leaves, like heads of gazers, climbed to the top,
Gave a joy-saddened light, for all that came
Through the thick veil was green, oh, kindest hue!
But the heart has a heart—this heart had one:
Still in the midst, the ever more of all,
On a low column stood, white, cold, dim-clear,
A marble woman. Who she was I know not—
A Psyche, or a Silence, or an Echo:
Pale, undefined, a silvery shadow, still,
In one lone chamber of my memory,
She is a power upon me as of old.
But, ah, to dream there through hot summer days,
In coolness shrouded and sea-murmurings,
Forgot by all till twilight shades grew dark!
To find half-hidden in the hollowed wall,
A nest of tales, old volumes such as dreams
Hoard up in bookshops dim in tortuous streets!
That wondrous marble woman evermore
Filling the gloom with calm delirium
Of radiated whiteness, as I read!—
The fancied joy, too plenteous for its cup,
O’erflowed, and turned to sadness as it fell.
But the gray ruin on the shattered shore,
Not the green refuge in the bowering hill,
Drew forth our talk that day. For, as I said,
I asked her if she knew it. She replied,
“I know it well. A woman used to live
In one of its low vaults, my mother says.”
“I found a hole,” I said, “and spiral stair,
Leading from level of the ground above
To a low-vaulted room within the rock,
Whence through a small square window I looked forth
Wide o’er the waters; the dim-sounding waves
Were many feet below, and shrunk in size
To a great ripple.” “ ’Twas not there,” she said,
“—Not in that room half up the cliff, but one
Low down, within the margin of spring tides:
When both the tide and northern wind are high,
’Tis more an ocean-cave than castle-vault.”
And then she told me all she knew of her.
It was a simple tale, a monotone:
She climbed one sunny hill, gazed once abroad,
Then wandered down, to pace a dreary plain;
Alas! how many such are told by night,
In fisher-cottages along the shore!
Farewell, old summer-day! I turn aside
To tell her story, interwoven with thoughts
Born of its sorrow; for I dare not think
A woman at the mercy of a sea.
The Story
Aye as it listeth blows the listless wind,
Swelling great sails, and bending lordly masts,
Or hurrying shadow-waves o’er fields of corn,
And hunting lazy clouds across the sky:
Now, like a white cloud o’er another sky,
It blows a tall brig from the harbour’s mouth,
Away to high-tossed heads of wallowing waves,
’Mid hoverings of long-pinioned arrowy birds.
With clouds and birds and sails and broken crests,
All space is full of spots of fluttering white,
And yet the sailor knows that handkerchief
Waved wet with tears, and heavy in the wind.
Blow, wind! draw out the cord that binds the twain;
Draw, for thou canst not break the lengthening cord.
Blow, wind! yet gently; gently blow, fair wind!
And let love’s vision slowly, gently die;
Let the bright sails all solemn-slowly pass,
And linger ghost-like o’er the vanished hull,
With a white farewell to her straining eyes;
For never more in morning’s level beams,
Will those sea-shadowing sails, dark-stained and worn,
From the gray-billowed north come dancing in;
Oh, never, gliding home ’neath starry skies,
Over the dusk of the dim-glancing sea,
Will the great ship send forth a herald cry
Of home-come sailors, into sleeping streets!
Blow gently, wind! blow slowly, gentle wind!
Weep not yet, maiden; ’tis not yet thy hour.
Why shouldst thou weep before thy time is come?
Go to thy work; break into song sometimes—
Song dying slow-forgotten, in the lapse
Of dreamy thought, ere natural pause ensue,
Or sudden dropt what time the eager heart
Hurries the ready eye to north and east.
Sing, maiden, while thou canst, ere yet the truth,
Slow darkening, choke the heart-caged singing bird!
The weeks went by. Oft leaving household work,
With bare arms and uncovered head she clomb
The landward slope of the prophetic hill;
From whose green head, as from the verge of time,
Far out on the eternity of blue,
Shading her hope-rapt eyes, seer-like she gazed,
If from the Hades of the nether world,
Slow climbing up the round side of the earth,
Haply her prayers were drawing his tardy sails
Over the threshold of the far sky-sea—
Drawing her sailor home to celebrate,
With holy rites of family and church,
The apotheosis of maidenhood.
Months passed; he came not; and a shadowy fear,
Long haunting the horizon of her soul,
In deeper gloom and sharper form drew nigh;
And growing in bulk, possessed her atmosphere,
And lost all shape, because it filled all space,
And reached beyond the bounds of consciousness—
In sudden incarnations darting swift
From out its infinite a gulfy stare
Of terror blank, of hideous emptiness,
Of widowhood ere ever wedding-day.
On granite ridge, and chalky cliff, and pier,
Far built into the waves along our shores,
Maidens have stood since ever ships went forth;
The same pain at the heart; the same slow mist
Clouding the eye; the same fixed longing look,
As if the soul had gone, and left the door
Wide open—gone to lean, hearken, and peer
Over the awful edge where voidness sinks
Sheer to oblivion—that horizon-line
Over whose edge he vanished—came no more.
O God, why are our souls, waste, helpless seas,
Tortured with such immitigable storm?
What is this love, that
