His work is the duty to which he was born;
     He accepts it, without ostentation or scorn:
     And this man is no uncommon type (I thank Heaven!)
     Of this land's common men.  In all other lands, even
     The type's self is wanting.  Perchance, 'tis the reason
     That Government oscillates ever 'twixt treason
     And tyranny elsewhere.
                             "I wander away
     Too far, though, from what I was wishing to say.
     You, for instance, read Plato.  You know that the soul
     Is immortal; and put this in rhyme, on the whole,
     Very well, with sublime illustration.  Man's heart
     Is a mystery, doubtless.  You trace it in art:--
     The Greek Psyche,--that's beauty,--the perfect ideal.
     But then comes the imperfect, perfectible real,
     With its pain'd aspiration and strife.  In those pale
     Ill-drawn virgins of Giotto you see it prevail.
     You have studied all this.  Then, the universe, too,
     Is not a mere house to be lived in, for you.
     Geology opens the mind.  So you know
     Something also of strata and fossils; these show
     The bases of cosmical structure: some mention
     Of the nebulous theory demands your attention;
     And so on.
                 "In short, it is clear the interior
     Of your brain, my dear Alfred, is vastly superior
     In fibre, and fulness, and function, and fire,
     To that of my poor parliamentary squire;
     But your life leaves upon me (forgive me this heat
     Due to friendship) the sense of a thing incomplete.
     You fly high.  But what is it, in truth, you fly at?
     My mind is not satisfied quite as to that.
     An old illustration's as good as a new,
     Provided the old illustration be true.
     We are children.  Mere kites are the fancies we fly,
     Though we marvel to see them ascending so high;
     Things slight in themselves,--long-tail'd toys, and no more:
     What is it that makes the kite steadily soar
     Through the realms where the cloud and the whirlwind have birth
     But the tie that attaches the kite to the earth?
     I remember the lessons of childhood, you see,
     And the hornbook I learn'd on my poor mother's knee.
     In truth, I suspect little else do we learn
     From this great book of life, which so shrewdly we turn,
     Saving how to apply, with a good or bad grace,
     What we learn'd in the hornbook of childhood.
                                                    "Your case
     Is exactly in point.
                           "Fly your kite, if you please,
     Out of sight: let it go where it will, on the breeze;
     But cut not the one thread by which it is bound,
     Be it never so high, to this poor human ground.
     No man is the absolute lord of his life.
     You, my friend, have a home, and a sweet and dear wife.
     If I often have sigh'd by my own silent fire,
     With the sense of a sometimes recurring desire
     For a voice sweet and low, or a face fond and fair,
     Some dull winter evening to solace and share
     With the love which the world its good children allows
     To shake hands with,--in short, a legitimate spouse,
     This thought has consoled me: 'At least I have given
     For my own good behavior no hostage to heaven.'
     You have, though.  Forget it not! faith, if you do,
     I would rather break stones on a road than be you.
     If any man wilfully injured, or led
     That little girl wrong, I would sit on his head,
     Even though you yourself were the sinner!
                                                "And this
     Leads me back (do not take it, dear cousin, amiss!)
     To the matter I meant to have mention'd at once,
     But these thoughts put it out of my head for the nonce.
     Of all the preposterous humbugs and shams,
     Of all the old wolves ever taken for lambs,
     The wolf best received by the flock he devours
     Is that uncle-in-law, my dear Alfred, of yours.
     At least, this has long been my unsettled conviction,
     And I almost would venture at once the prediction
     That before very long--but no matter!  I trust,
     For his sake and our own, that I may be unjust.
     But Heaven forgive me, if cautious I am on
     The score of such men as with both God and Mammon
     Seem so shrewdly familiar.
                                 "Neglect not this warning.
     There were rumors afloat in the City this morning
     Which I scarce like the sound of.  Who knows? would he fleece
     At a pinch, the old hypocrite, even his own niece?
     For the sake of Matilda I cannot importune
     Your attention too early.  If all your wife's fortune
     Is yet in the hands of that specious old sinner,
     Who would dice with the devil, and yet rise up winner,
     I say, lose no time! get it out of the grab
     Of her trustee and uncle, Sir Ridley McNab.
     I trust those deposits, at least, are drawn out,
     And safe at this moment from danger or doubt.
     A wink is as good as a nod to the wise.
     Verbum sap.  I admit nothing yet justifies
     My mistrust; but I have in my own mind a notion
     That old Ridley's white waistcoat, and airs of devotion,
     Have long been the only ostensible capital
     On which he does business.  If so, time must sap it all,
     Sooner or later.  Look sharp.  Do not wait,
     Draw at once.  In a fortnight it may be too late.
     I admit I know nothing.  I can but suspect;
     I give you my notions.  Form yours and reflect.
     My love to Matilda.  Her mother looks well.
     I saw her last week.  I have nothing to tell
     Worth your hearing.  We think that the Government here
     Will not last our next session.  Fitz Funk is a peer,
     You will see by the Times.  There are symptoms which show
     That the ministers now are preparing to go,
     And finish their feast of the loaves and the fishes.
     It is evident that they are clearing the dishes,
     And cramming their pockets with bonbons.  Your news
     Will be always acceptable.  Vere, of the Blues,
     Has bolted with Lady Selina.  And so
     You have met with that hot-headed Frenchman?  I know
     That the man is a sad mauvais sujet.  Take care
     Of Matilda.  I wish I could join you both there;
     But before I am free, you are sure to be gone.
     Good-by, my dear fellow.  Yours, anxiously,
                                                 JOHN."

     II.

     This is just the advice I myself would have given
     To Lord Alfred, had I been his cousin, which, Heaven
     Be praised, I am not.  But it reach'd him indeed
     In an unlucky hour, and received little heed.
     A half-languid glance was the most that he lent at
     That time to these homilies.  Primum dementat
     Quem Deus vult perdere.  Alfred in fact
     Was behaving just then in a way to distract
     Job's self had Job known him.  The more you'd have thought
     The Duke's court to Matilda his eye would have caught,
     The more did his aspect grow listless to hers,
     And the more did it beam to Lucile de Nevers.
     And Matilda, the less she found love in the look
     Of her husband, the less did she shrink from the Duke.
     With each day that pass'd o'er them, they each, heart from heart,
     Woke to feel themselves further and further apart.
     More and more of his time Alfred pass'd at the table;
     Played high; and lost more than to lose he was able.
     He grew feverish, querulous, absent, perverse,--
     And here I must mention, what made matters worse,
     That Lucile and the Duke at the selfsame hotel
     With the Vargraves resided.  It needs not to tell
     That they all saw too much of each other.  The weather
     Was so fine that it brought them each day all together
     In the garden, to listen, of course, to the band.
     The house was a sort of phalanstery; and
     Lucile and Matilda were pleased to discover
     A mutual passion for music.  Moreover,
     The Duke was an excellent tenor; could sing
     "Ange si pure" in a way to bring down on the wing
     All the angels St. Cicely play'd to.  My lord
     Would also, at times, when he was not too bored,
     Play Beethoven, and Wagner's new music, not ill;
     With some little things of his own, showing skill.
     For which reason, as well as for some others too,
     Their rooms were a pleasant enough rendezvous.
     Did Lucile, then, encourage (the heartless coquette!)
     All the mischief she could not but mark?
                                               Patience yet!

     III.

     In that garden, an arbor, withdrawn from the sun,
     By laburnum and lilac with blooms overrun,
     Form'd a vault of cool verdure, which made, when the heat
     Of the noontide hung heavy, a gracious retreat.
     And here, with some friends of their own little world,
     In the warm afternoons, till the shadows uncurl'd
     From the feet of the lindens, and crept through the grass,
     Their blue hours would this gay little colony pass.
     The men loved to smoke, and the women to bring,
     Undeterr'd by tobacco, their work there, and sing
     Or converse, till the dew fell, and homeward the bee
     Floated, heavy with honey.  Towards eve there was tea
     (A luxury due to Matilda), and ice,
     Fruit and coffee.  [Greek text omitted]!
     Such an evening it was, while Matilda presided
     O'er the rustic arrangements thus daily provided,
     With the Duke, and a small German Prince with a thick head,
     And an old Russian Countess both witty and wicked,
     And two Austrian Colonels,--that Alfred, who yet
     Was lounging alone with his last cigarette,
     Saw Lucile de Nevers by herself pacing slow
     'Neath the shade of the cool linden-trees to and fro,
     And joining her, cried, "Thank the good stars, we meet!
     I have so much to say to you!"
                                     "Yes?... "with her sweet
     Serene voice, she replied to him.... "Yes? and I too
     Was wishing, indeed, to say somewhat to you."
     She was paler just then than her wont was.  The sound
     Of her voice had within it a sadness profound.
     "You are ill?" he exclaim'd.
                                   "No!" she hurriedly said.
     "No, no!"
                "You alarm me!"
                                 She droop'd down her head.
     "If your thoughts have of late sought, or cared, to divine
     The purpose of what has been passing in mine,
     My farewell can scarcely alarm you."

     ALFRED.

                                           Lucile!
     Your farewell! you go!

     LUCILE.

                             Yes, Lord Alfred.

     ALFRED.

                                               Reveal
     The cause of this sudden unkindness.

     LUCILE.

                                           Unkind?

     ALFRED.

     Yes! what else is this parting?

     LUCILE.

                                      No, no! are you blind?
     Look into your own heart and home.  Can you see
     No reason for this, save unkindness in me?
     Look into the eyes of your wife--those true eyes,
     Too pure and too honest in aught to disguise
     The sweet soul shining through them.

     ALFRED.

                                          Lucile! (first and last
     Be the word, if you will!) let me speak of the past.
     I know now, alas! though I know it too late,
     What pass'd at that meeting which settled my fate.
     Nay, nay, interrupt me not yet! let it be!
     I but say what is due to yourself--due to me,
     And must say it.
                       He rushed incoherently on,
     Describing how, lately, the truth he had known,
     To explain how, and whence, he had wrong'd her before,
     All the complicate coil wound about him of yore,
     All the hopes that had flown with the faith that was fled,
     "And then, O Lucile, what was left me," he said,
     "When my life was defrauded of you, but to take
     That life, as 'twas left, and endeavor to make
     Unobserved by another, the void which remain'd
     Unconceal'd to myself?  If I have not attain'd,
     I have striven.  One word of unkindness has never
     Pass'd my lips to Matilda.  Her least wish has ever
     Received my submission.  And if, of a truth,
     I have fail'd to renew what I felt in my youth,
     I at least have been loyal to what I DO feel,
     Respect, duty, honor, affection.  Lucile,
     I speak not of love now, nor love's long regret:
     I would not offend you, nor dare I forget
     The ties that are round me.  But may there not be
     A friendship yet hallow'd between you and me?
     May we not be yet friends--friends the dearest?"
                                                       "Alas!"
     She replied, "for one moment, perchance, did it pass
     Through my own heart, that dream which forever hath brought
     To those who indulge it in innocent thought
     So fatal an evil awaking!  But no.
     For in lives such as ours are, the Dream-tree would grow
     On the borders of Hades: beyond it, what lies?
     The wheel of Ixion, alas! and the cries
     Of the lost and tormented.  Departed, for us,
     Are the days when with innocence we could discuss
     Dreams like these.  Fled, indeed, are the dreams of my life!
     Oh trust me, the best friend you have is your wife.
     And I--in that pure child's pure virtue, I bow
     To the beauty of virtue.  I felt on my brow
     Not one blush when I first took her hand.  With no blush
     Shall I clasp it to-night, when I leave you.
                                                   "Hush! hush!
     I would say what I wish'd to have said when you came.
     Do not think that years leave us and find us the same!
     The woman you knew long ago, long ago,
     Is no more.  You yourself have within you, I know,
     The germ of a joy in the years yet to be,
     Whereby the past years will bear fruit.  As for me,
     I go my own way,--onward, upward!
                                        "O yet,
     Let me thank you for that which ennobled regret
     When it came, as it beautified hope ere it fled,--
     The love I once felt for you.  True, it is dead,
     But it is not corrupted.  I too have at last
     Lived to learn that love is not--such love as is past,
     Such love as youth dreams of at least--the sole part
     Of life, which is able to fill up the heart;
     Even that of a woman.
                            "Between you and me
     Heaven fixes a gulf, over which you must see
     That our guardian angels can bear us no more.
     We each of us stand on an opposite shore.
     Trust a woman's opinion for once.  Women learn,
     By an instinct men never attain, to discern
     Each other's true natures.  Matilda is fair,
     Matilda is young--see her now, sitting there!--
     How tenderly fashion'd--(oh, is she not? say,)
     To love and be loved!"

     IV.

                              He turn'd sharply away--
     "Matilda is young, and Matilda is fair;
     Of all that you tell me pray deem me aware;
     But Matilda's a statue, Matilda's a child;
     Matilda loves not--"
                           Lucile quietly smiled
     As she answer'd him--"Yesterday, all that you say
     Might be true; it is false, wholly false, though, today."
     "How?--what mean you?"
                             "I mean that to-day," she replied,
     "The statue with life has become vivified:
     I mean that the child to a woman has grown:
     And that woman is jealous."
                                  "What, she!" with a tone
     Of ironical wonder, he answer'd--what, she!
     She jealous!--Matilda!--of whom, pray?--not me!"
     "My lord, you deceive yourself; no one but you
     Is she jealous of.  Trust me.  And thank Heaven, too,
     That so lately this passion within her hath grown.
     For who shall declare, if for months she had known
     What for days she has known all too keenly, I fear,
     That knowledge perchance might have cost you more dear?"

     "Explain! explain, madam!" he cried, in surprise;
     And terror and anger enkindled his eyes.
     "How blind are you men!" she replied.  "Can you doubt
     That a woman, young, fair, and neglected--"
                                                  "Speak out!"
     He gasp'd with emotion.  "Lucile! you mean--what!
     Do you doubt her fidelity?"
                                  "Certainly not.
     Listen to me, my friend.  What I wish to explain
     Is so hard to shape forth.  I could almost refrain
     From touching a subject so fragile.  However,
     Bear with me awhile, if I frankly endeavor
     To invade for one moment your innermost life.
     Your honor, Lord Alfred, and that of your wife,
     Are dear to me,--most dear!  And I am convinced
     That you rashly are risking that honor."
                                               He winced,
     And turn'd pale, as she spoke.
                                     She had aim'd at his heart,
     And she saw, by his sudden and terrified start,
     That her aim had not miss'd.
                                   "Stay, Lucile!" he exclaim'd,
     "What in truth do you mean by these words, vaguely framed
     To alarm me?  Matilda?--my wife?--do you know?"--

     "I know that your wife is as spotless as snow.
     But I know not how far your continued neglect
     Her nature, as well as her heart, might affect.
     Till at last, by degrees, that serene atmosphere
     Of her unconscious purity, faint and yet dear,
     Like the indistinct golden and vaporous fleece
     Which surrounded and hid the celestials in Greece
     From the glances of men, would disperse and depart
     At the sighs of a sick and delirious heart,--
     For jealousy is to a woman, be sure,
     A disease heal'd too oft by a criminal cure;
     And the heart left too long to its ravage in time
     May find weakness in virtue, reprisal in crime."

     V.

     "Such thoughts could have never," he falter'd, "I know,
     Reach'd the heart of Matilda."
                                     "Matilda? oh no!
     But reflect! when such thoughts do not come of themselves
     To the heart of a woman neglected, like elves
     That seek lonely places,--there rarely is wanting
     Some voice at her side, with an evil enchanting
     To conjure them to her."
                               "O lady, beware!
     At this moment, around me I search everywhere
     For a clew to your words"--
                                 "You mistake them," she said,
     Half fearing, indeed, the effect they had made.
     "I was putting a mere hypothetical case."
     With a long look of trouble he gazed in her face.
     "Woe to him,..." he exclaim'd... "woe to him that shall feel
     Such a hope! for I swear, if he did but reveal
     One glimpse,--it should be the last hope of his life!"
     The clench'd hand and bent eyebrow betoken'd the strife
     She had roused in his heart.
                                   "You forget," she began,
     "That you menace yourself.  You yourself are the man
     That is guilty.  Alas! must it ever be so?
     Do we stand in our own light, wherever we go,
     And fight our own shadows forever?  O think!
     The trial from which you, the stronger ones, shrink,
     You ask woman, the weaker one, still to endure;
     You bid her be true to the laws you abjure;
     To abide by the ties you yourselves rend asunder,
     With the force that has fail'd you; and that too, when under
     The assumption of rights which to her you refuse,
     The immunity claim'd for yourselves you abuse!
     Where the contract exists, it involves obligation
     To both husband and wife, in an equal relation.
     You unloose, in asserting your own liberty,
     A knot, which, unloosed, leaves another as free.
     Then, O Alfred! be juster at heart: and thank Heaven
     That Heaven to your wife such a nature has given
     That you have not wherewith to reproach her, albeit
     You have cause to reproach your own self, could you see it!"

     VI.

     In the silence that follow'd the last word she said,
     In the heave of his chest, and the droop of his head,
     Poor Lucile mark'd her words had sufficed to impart
     A new germ of motion and life to that heart
     Of which he himself had so recently spoken
     As dead to emotion--exhausted, or broken!
     New fears would awaken new hopes in his life.
     In the husband indifferent no more to the wife
     She already, as she had foreseen, could discover
     That Matilda had gain'd at her hands, a new lover.
     So after some moments of silence, whose spell
     They both felt, she extended her hand to him....

     VII.

                                                   "Well?"

     VIII.

     "Lucile," he replied, as that soft quiet hand
     In his own he clasp'd warmly, "I both understand
     And obey you."
                     "Thank Heaven!" she murmur'd.
                                                    "O yet,
     One word, I beseech you! I cannot forget,"
     He exclaim'd, "we are parting for life.  You have shown
     My pathway to me: but say, what is your own?"
     The calmness with which until then she had spoken
     In a moment seem'd strangely and suddenly broken.
     She turn'd from him nervously, hurriedly.
                                                "Nay,
     I know not," she murmur'd, "I follow the way
     Heaven leads me; I cannot foresee to what end.
     I know only that far, far away it must tend
     From all places in which we have met, or might meet.
     Far away!--onward upward!"
                                 A smile strange and sweet
     As the incense that rises from some sacred cup
     And mixes with music, stole forth, and breathed up
     Her whole face, with those words.
                                        "Wheresoever it be,
     May all gentlest angels attend you!" sighed he,
     "And bear my heart's blessing wherever you are!"
     And her hand, with emotion, he kiss'd.

     IX.

                                             From afar
     That kiss was, alas! by Matilda beheld.
     With far other emotions: her young bosom swell'd,
     And her young cheek with anger was crimson'd.
                                                    The Duke
     Adroitly attracted towards it her look
     By a faint but significant smile.

     X.

                                       Much ill-construed,
     Renown'd Bishop Berkeley has fully, for one, strew'd
     With arguments page upon page to teach folks
     That the world they inhabit is only a hoax.
     But it surely is hard, since we can't do without them,
     That our senses should make us so oft wish to doubt them!

CANTO III.

     I.

     When first the red savage call'd Man strode, a king,
     Through the wilds of creation--the very first thing
     That his naked intelligence taught him to feel
     Was the shame of himself; and the wish to conceal
     Was the first step in art.  From the apron which Eve
     In Eden sat down out of fig-leaves to weave,
     To the furbelow'd flounce and the broad crinoline
     Of my lady--you all know of course whom I mean--
     This art of concealment has greatly increas'd.
     A whole world lies cryptic in each human breast;
     And that drama of passions as old as the hills,
     Which the moral of all men in each man fulfils,
     Is only reveal'd now and then to our eyes
     In the newspaper-files and the courts of assize.

     II.

     In the group seen so lately in sunlight assembled,
     'Mid those walks over which the laburnum-bough trembled,
     And the deep-bosom'd lilac, emparadising
     The haunts where the blackbird and thrush flit and sing,
     The keenest eye could but have seen, and seen only,
     A circle of friends, minded not to leave lonely
     The bird on the bough, or the bee on the blossom;
     Conversing at ease in the garden's green bosom,
     Like those who, when Florence was yet in her glories,
     Cheated death and kill'd time with Boccaccian stories.
     But at length the long twilight more deeply grew shaded,
     And the fair night the rosy horizon invaded.
     And the bee in the blossom, the bird on the bough,
     Through the shadowy garden were slumbering now.
     The trees only, o'er every unvisited walk,
     Began on a sudden to whisper and talk.
     And, as each little sprightly and garrulous leaf
     Woke up with an evident sense of relief,
     They all seem'd to be saying... "Once more we're alone,
     And, thank Heaven, those tiresome people are gone!"

     III.

     Through the deep blue concave of the luminous air,
     Large, loving, and languid, the stars here and there,
     Like the eyes of shy passionate women, look'd down
     O'er the dim world whose sole tender light was their own,
     When Matilda, alone, from her chamber descended,
     And enter'd the garden, unseen, unattended.
     Her forehead was aching and parch'd, and her breast
     By a vague inexpressible sadness oppress'd:
     A sadness which led her, she scarcely knew how,
     And she scarcely knew why... (save, indeed, that just now
     The house, out of which with a gasp she had fled
     Half stifled, seem'd ready to sink on her head)...
     Out into the night air, the silence, the bright
     Boundless starlight, the cool isolation of night!
     Her husband that day had look'd once in her face,
     And press'd both her hands in a silent embrace,
     And reproachfully noticed her recent dejection
     With a smile of kind wonder and tacit affection.
     He, of late so indifferent and listless!... at last
     Was he startled and awed by the change which had pass'd
     O'er the once radiant face of his young wife?  Whence came
     That long look of solicitous fondness?... the same
     Look and language of quiet affection--the look
     And the language, alas! which so often she took
     For pure love in the simple repose of its purity--
     Her own heart thus lull'd to a fatal security!
     Ha! would he deceive her again by this kindness?
     Had she been, then, O fool! in her innocent blindness,
     The sport of transparent illusion? ah folly!
     And that feeling, so tranquil, so happy, so holy,
     She had taken, till then, in the heart, not alone
     Of her husband, but also, indeed, in her own,
     For true love, nothing else, after all, did it prove
     But a friendship profanely familiar?
                                           "And love?...
     What was love, then?... not calm, not secure--scarcely kind,
     But in one, all intensest emotions combined:
     Life and death: pain and rapture?"
                                         Thus wandering astray,
     Led by doubt, through the darkness she wander'd away.
     All silently crossing, recrossing the night.
     With faint, meteoric, miraculous light,
     The swift-shooting stars through the infinite burn'd,
     And into the infinite ever return'd.
     And silently o'er the obscure and unknown
     In the heart of Matilda there darted and shone
     Thoughts, enkindling like meteors the deeps, to expire,
     Leaving traces behind them of tremulous fire.

     IV.

     She enter'd that arbor of lilacs, in which
     The dark air with odors hung heavy and rich,
     Like a soul that grows faint with desire.
                                                'Twas the place
     In which she so lately had sat face to face,
     With her husband,--and her, the pale stranger detested
     Whose presence her heart like a plague had infested.
     The whole spot with evil remembrance was haunted.
     Through the darkness there rose on the heart which it daunted,
     Each dreary detail of that desolate day,
     So full, and yet so incomplete.  Far away
     The acacias were muttering, like mischievous elves,
     The whole story over again to themselves,
     Each word,--and each word was a wound!  By degrees
     Her memory mingled its voice with the trees.

     V.

     Like the whisper Eve heard, when she paused by the root
     Of the sad tree of knowledge, and gazed on its fruit,
     To the heart of Matilda the trees seem'd to hiss
     Wild instructions, revealing man's last right, which is
     The right of reprisals.
                              An image uncertain,
     And vague, dimly shaped itself forth on the curtain
     Of the darkness around her.  It came, and it went;
     Through her senses a faint sense of peril it sent:
     It pass'd and repass'd her; it went and it came,
     Forever returning; forever the same;
     And forever more clearly defined; till her eyes
     In that outline obscure could at last recognize
     The man to whose image, the more and the more
     That her heart, now aroused from its calm sleep of yore,
     From her husband detach'd itself slowly, with pain.
     Her thoughts had return'd, and return'd to, again,
     As though by some secret indefinite law,--
     The vigilant Frenchman--Eugene de Luvois!

     VI.

     A light sound behind her.  She trembled.  By some
     Night-witchcraft her vision a fact had become.
     On a sudden she felt, without turning to view,
     That a man was approaching behind her.  She knew
     By the fluttering pulse which she could not restrain,
     And the quick-beating heart, that this man was Eugene.
     Her first instinct was flight; but she felt her slight foot
     As heavy as though to the soil it had root.
     And the Duke's voice retain'd her, like fear in a dream.

     VII.

     "Ah, lady! in life there are meetings which seem
     Like a fate.  Dare I think like a sympathy too?
     Yet what else can I bless for this vision of you?
     Alone with my thoughts, on this starlighted lawn,
     By an instinct resistless, I felt myself drawn
     To revisit the memories left in the place
     Where so lately this evening I look'd in your face.
     And I find,--you, yourself,--my own dream!
                                                 "Can there be
     In this world one thought common to you and to me?
     If so,... I, who deem'd but a moment ago
     My heart uncompanion'd, save only by woe,
     Should indeed be more bless'd than I dare to believe--
     --Ah, but ONE word, but one from your lips to receive"...
     Interrupting him quickly, she murmur'd, "I sought,
     Here, a moment of solitude, silence, and thought,
     Which I needed."...
                        "Lives solitude only for one?
     Must its charm by my presence so soon be undone?
     Ah, cannot two share it?  What needs it for this?--
     The same thought in both hearts,--be it sorrow or bliss;
     If my heart be the reflex of yours, lady--you,
     Are you not yet alone,--even though we be two?"

     "For that,"... said Matilda,... "needs were, you should read
     What I have in my heart"...
                               "Think you, lady, indeed,
     You are yet of that age when a woman conceals
     In her heart so completely whatever she feels
     From the heart of the man whom it interests to know
     And find out what that feeling may be?  Ah, not so,
     Lady Alfred?  Forgive me that in it I look,
     But I read in your heart as I read in a book."

     "Well, Duke! and what read you within it? unless
     It be, of a truth, a profound weariness,
     And some sadness?"
                         "No doubt.  To all facts there are laws.
     The effect has its cause, and I mount to the cause."

     VIII.

     Matilda shrank back; for she suddenly found
     That a finger was press'd on the yet bleeding wound
     She, herself, had but that day perceived in her breast.

     "You are sad,"... said the Duke (and that finger yet press'd
     With a cruel persistence the wound it made bleed)--
     "You are sad, Lady Alfred, because the first need
     Of a young and a beautiful woman is to be
     Beloved, and to love.  You are sad: for you see
     That you are not beloved, as you deem'd that you were:
     You are sad: for that knowledge hath left you aware
     That you have not yet loved, though you thought that you had.
     "Yes, yes!... you are sad--because knowledge is sad!"

     He could not have read more profoundly her heart.
     "What gave you," she cried, with a terrified start,
     "Such strange power?"
                            "To read in your thoughts?" he exclaim'd
     "O lady,--a love, deep, profound--be it blamed
     Or rejected,--a love, true, intense--such, at least,
     As you, and you only, could wake in my breast!"

     "Hush, hush!... I beseech you... for pity!' she gasp'd,
     Snatching hurriedly from him the hand he had clasp'd,
     In her effort instinctive to fly from the spot.

     "For pity?"... he echoed, "for pity! and what
     Is the pity you owe him? his pity for you!
     He, the lord of a life, fresh as new-fallen dew!
     The guardian and guide of a woman, young, fair,
     And matchless! (whose happiness did he not swear
     To cherish through life?) he neglects her--for whom?
     For a fairer than she?  No! the rose in the bloom
     Of that beauty which, even when hidd'n, can prevail
     To keep sleepless with song the aroused nightingale,
     Is not fairer; for even in the pure world of flowers
     Her symbol is not, and this pure world of ours
     Has no second Matilda!   For whom?  Let that pass!
     'Tis not I, 'tis not you, that can name her, alas!
     And I dare not question or judge her.  But why,
     Why cherish the cause of your own misery?
     Why think of one, lady, who thinks not of you?
     Why be bound by a chain which himself he breaks through?
     And why, since you have but to stretch forth your hand,
     The love which you need and deserve to command,
     Why shrink?  Why repel it?"
                                  "O hush, sir! O hush!"
     Cried Matilda, as though her whole heart were one blush.
     "Cease, cease, I conjure you, to trouble my life!
     Is not Alfred your friend? and am I not his wife?"

     IX.

     "And have I not, lady," he answer'd,... "respected
     HIS rights as a friend, till himself he neglected
     YOUR rights as a wife?  Do you think 'tis alone
     For three days I have loved you?  My love may have grown,
     I admit, day by day, since I first felt your eyes,
     In watching their tears, and in sounding your sighs.
     But, O lady! I loved you before I believed
     That your eyes ever wept, or your heart ever grieved.
     Then I deem'd you were happy--I deem'd you possess'd
     All the love you deserved,--and I hid in my breast
     My own love, till this hour--when I could not but feel
     Your grief gave me the right my own grief to reveal!
     I knew, years ago, of the singular power
     Which Lucile o'er your husband possess'd.  Till the hour
     In which he revea'd it himself, did I,--say!--
     By a word, or a look, such a secret betray?
     No! no! do me justice.  I never have spoken
     Of this poor heart of mine, till all ties he had broken
     Which bound YOUR heart to him.  And now--now, that his love
     For another hath left your own heart free to rove,
     What is it,--even now,--that I kneel to implore you?
     Only this, Lady Alfred!... to let me adore you
     Unblamed: to have confidence in me: to spend
     On me not one thought, save to think me your friend.
     Let me speak to you,--ah, let me speak to you still!
     Hush to silence my words in your heart if you will.
     I ask no response: I ask only your leave
     To live yet in your life, and to grieve when you grieve!"

     X.

     "Leave me, leave me!"... she gasp'd, with a voice thick and low
     From emotion.  "For pity's sake, Duke, let me go!
     I feel that to blame we should both of us be,
     Did I linger."
                     "To blame? yes, no doubt!"... answer'd he,
     "If the love of your husband, in bringing you peace,
     Had forbidden you hope.  But he signs your release
     By the hand of another.  One moment! but one!
     Who knows when, alas! I may see you alone
     As to-night I have seen you? or when we may meet
     As to-night we have met? when, entranced at your feet,
     As in this blessed hour, I may ever avow
     The thoughts which are pining for utterance now?"
     "Duke! Duke!"... she exclaim'd,... "for Heaven's sake let me go!
     It is late.  In the house they will miss me, I know.
     We must not be seen here together.  The night
     Is advancing.  I feel overwhelm'd with affright!
     It is time to return to my lord."
                                        "To your lord?"
     He repeated, with lingering reproach on the word.
     "To your lord? do you think he awaits you in truth?
     Is he anxiously missing your presence, forsooth?
     Return to your lord!... his restraint to renew?
     And hinder the glances which are not for you?
     No, no!... at this moment his looks seek the face
     Of another! another is there in your place!
     Another consoles him! another receives
     The soft speech which from silence your absence relieves!"

     XI.

     "You mistake, sir!"... responded a voice, calm, severe,
     And sad,. . .  "You mistake, sir! that other is here."
     Eugene and Matilda both started.
                                       "Lucile!"
     With a half-stifled scream, as she felt herself reel
     From the place where she stood, cried Matilda.
                                                    "Ho, oh!
     What! eaves-dropping, madam?"... the Duke cried... "And so
     You were listening?"
                           "Say, rather," she said, "that I heard,
     Without wishing to hear it, that infamous word,--
     Heard--and therefore reply."
                                   "Belle Comtesse," said the Duke,
     With concentrated wrath in the savage rebuke,
     Which betray'd that he felt himself baffled... "you know
     That your place is not HERE."
                                    "Duke," she answer'd him slow,
     "My place is wherever my duty is clear;
     And therefore my place, at this moment, is here.
     O lady, this morning my place was beside
     Your husband, because (as she said this she sigh'd)
     I felt that from folly fast growing to crime--
     The crime of self-blindness--Heaven yet spared me time
     To save for the love of an innocent wife
     All that such love deserved in the heart and the life
     Of the man to whose heart and whose life you alone
     Can with safety confide the pure trust of your own."

     She turn'd to Matilda, and lightly laid on her
     Her soft quiet hand...
                               "'Tis, O lady, the honor
     Which that man has confided to you, that, in spite
     Of his friend, I now trust I may yet save to-night--
     Save for both of you, lady! for yours I revere;
     Duc de Luvois, what say you?--my place is not here?"

     XII.

     And, so saying, the hand of Matilda she caught,
     Wound one arm round her waist unresisted and sought
     Gently, softly, to draw her away from the spot.
     The Duke stood confounded, and follow'd them not,
     But not yet the house had they reach'd when Lucile
     Her tender and delicate burden could feel
     Sink and falter beside her.  Oh, then she knelt down,
     Flung her arms round Matilda, and press'd to her own
     The poor bosom beating against her.
                                          The moon,
     Bright, breathless, and buoyant, and brimful of June,
     Floated up from the hillside, sloped over the vale,
     And poised herself loose in mid-heaven, with one pale,
     Minute, scintillescent, and tremulous star
     Swinging under her globe like a wizard-lit car,
     Thus to each of those women revealing the face
     Of the other.  Each bore on her features the trace
     Of a vivid emotion.  A deep inward shame
     The cheek of Matilda had flooded with flame.
     With her enthusiastic emotion, Lucile
     Trembled visibly yet; for she could not but feel
     That a heavenly hand was upon her that night,
     And it touch'd her pure brow to a heavenly light.
     "In the name of your husband, dear lady," she said,
     "In the name of your mother, take heart!  Lift your head,
     For those blushes are noble.  Alas! do not trust
     To that maxim of virtue made ashes and dust,
     That the fault of the husband can cancel the wife's.
     Take heart! and take refuge and strength in your life's
     Pure silence,--there, kneel, pray, and hope, weep, and wait!"
     "Saved, Lucile!" sobb'd Matilda, "but saved to what fate?
     Tears, prayers, yes! not hopes."
                                       "Hush!" the sweet voice replied.
     "Fool'd away by a fancy, again to your side
     Must your husband return.  Doubt not this.  And return
     For the love you can give, with the love that you yearn
     To receive, lady.  What was it chill'd you both now?
     Not the absence of love, but the ignorance how
     Love is nourish'd by love.  Well! henceforth you will prove
     Your heart worthy of love,--since it knows how to love."

     XIII.

     "What gives you such power over me, that I feel
     Thus drawn to obey you?  What are you, Lucile?"
     Sigh'd Matilda, and lifted her eyes to the face
     Of Lucile.
                 There pass'd suddenly through it the trace
     Of deep sadness; and o'er that fair forehead came down
     A shadow which yet was too sweet for a frown.
     "The pupil of sorrow, perchance,"... she replied.
     "Of sorrow?" Matilda exclaim'd... "O confide
     To my heart your affliction.  In all you made known
     I should find some instruction, no doubt, for my own!"

     "And I some consolation, no doubt; for the tears
     Of another have not flow'd for me many years."

     It was then that Matilda herself seized the hand
     Of Lucile in her own, and uplifted her; and
     Thus together they enter'd the house.

     XIV.

                                           'Twas the room
     Of Matilda.
                  The languid and delicate gloom
     Of a lamp of pure white alabaster, aloft
     From the ceiling suspended, around it slept soft.
     The casement oped into the garden.  The pale
     Cool moonlight stream'd through it.  One lone nightingale
     Sung aloof in the laurels.  And here, side by side,
     Hand in hand, the two women sat down undescried,
     Save by guardian angels.
                               As when, sparkling yet
     From the rain, that, with drops that are jewels, leaves wet
     The bright head it humbles, a young rose inclines
     To some pale lily near it, the fair vision shines
     As one flower with two faces, in hush'd, tearful speech,
     Like the showery whispers of flowers, each to each
     Link'd, and leaning together, so loving, so fair,
     So united, yet diverse, the two women there
     Look'd, indeed, like two flowers upon one drooping stem,
     In the soft light that tenderly rested on them.
     All that soul said to soul in that chamber, who knows?
     All that heart gain'd from heart?
                                        Leave the lily, the rose,
     Undisturb'd with their secret within them.  For who
     To the heart of the floweret can follow the dew?
     A night full of stars!  O'er the silence, unseen,
     The footsteps of sentinel angels between
     The dark land and deep sky were moving.  You heard
     Pass'd from earth up to heaven the happy watchword
     Which brighten'd the stars as amongst them it fell
     From earth's heart, which it eased... "All is well! all is well!"

CANTO IV.

     I.

     The Poets pour wine; and, when 'tis new, all decry it;
     But, once let it be old, every trifler must try it.
     And Polonius, who praises no wine that's not Massic,
     Complains of my verse, that my verse is not classic.
     And Miss Tilburina, who sings, and not badly,
     My earlier verses, sighs "Commonplace sadly!"

     As for you, O Polonius, you vex me but slightly;
     But you, Tilburina, your eyes beam so brightly
     In despite of their languishing looks, on my word,
     That to see you look cross I can scarcely afford.
     Yes! the silliest woman that smiles on a bard
     Better far than Longinus himself can reward
     The appeal to her feelings of which she approves;
     And the critics I most care to please are the Loves.

     Alas, friend! what boots it, a stone at his head
     And a brass on his breast,--when a man is once dead?
     Ay! were fame the sole guerdon, poor guerdon were then
     Theirs who, stripping life bare, stand forth models for men.
     The reformer's?--a creed by posterity learnt
     A century after its author is burnt!
     The poet's?--a laurel that hides the bald brow
     It hath blighted!  The painter's?--Ask Raphael now
     Which Madonna's authentic!  The stateman's?--a name
     For parties to blacken, or boys to declaim!
     The soldier's?--three lines on the cold Abbey pavement!
     Were this all the life of the wise and the brave meant,
     All it ends in, thrice better, Neaera, it were
     Unregarded to sport with thine odorous hair,
     Untroubled to lie at thy feet in the shade
     And be loved, while the roses yet bloom overhead,
     Than to sit by the lone hearth, and think the long thought,
     A severe, sad, blind schoolmaster, envied for naught
     Save the name of John Milton!  For all men, indeed,
     Who in some choice edition may graciously read,
     With fair illustration, and erudite note,
     The song which the poet in bitterness wrote,
     Beat the poet, and notably beat him, in this--
     The joy of the genius is theirs, whilst they miss
     The grief of the man: Tasso's song--not his madness!
     Dante's dreams--not his waking to exile and sadness!
     Milton's music--but not Milton's blindness!...
                                                   Yet rise,
     My Milton, and answer, with those noble eyes
     Which the glory of heaven hath blinded to earth!
     Say--the life, in the living it, savors of worth:
     That the deed, in the doing it, reaches its aim:
     That the fact has a value apart from the fame:
     That a deeper delight, in the mere labor, pays
     Scorn of lesser delights, and laborious days:
     And Shakespeare, though all Shakespeare's writings were lost,
     And his genius, though never a trace of it crossed
     Posterity's path, not the less would have dwelt
     In the isle with Miranda, with Hamlet have felt
     All that Hamlet hath uttered, and haply where, pure
     On its death-bed, wrong'd Love lay, have moan'd with the Moor!

     II.

     When Lord Alfred that night to the salon return'd
     He found it deserted.  The lamp dimly burn'd
     As though half out of humor to find itself there
     Forced to light for no purpose a room that was bare.
     He sat down by the window alone.  Never yet
     Did the heavens a lovelier evening beget
     Since Latona's bright childbed that bore the new moon!
     The dark world lay still, in a sort of sweet swoon,
     Wide open to heaven; and the stars on the stream
     Were trembling like eyes that are loved on the dream
     Of a lover; and all things were glad and at rest
     Save the unquiet heart in his own troubled breast.
     He endeavor'd to think--an unwonted employment,
     Which appear'd to afford him no sort of enjoyment.

     III.

     "Withdraw into yourself.  But, if peace you seek there for,
     Your reception, beforehand, be sure to prepare for,"
     Wrote the tutor of Nero; who wrote, be it said,
     Better far than he acted--but peace to the dead!
     He bled for his pupil: what more could he do?
     But Lord Alfred, when into himself he withdrew,
     Found all there in disorder.  For more than an hour
     He sat with his head droop'd like some stubborn flower
     Beaten down by the rush of the rain--with such force
     Did the thick, gushing thoughts hold upon him the course
     Of their sudden descent, rapid, rushing, and dim,
     From the cloud that had darken'd the evening for him.
     At one moment he rose--rose and open'd the door,
     And wistfully look'd down the dark corridor
     Toward the room of Matilda.  Anon, with a sigh
     Of an incomplete purpose, he crept quietly
     Back again to his place in a sort of submission
     To doubt, and return'd to his former position,--
     That loose fall of the arms, that dull droop of the face,
     And the eye vaguely fix'd on impalpable space.
     The dream, which till then had been lulling his life,
     As once Circe the winds, had seal'd thought; and his wife
     And his home for a time he had quite, like Ulysses,
     Forgotten; but now o'er the troubled abysses
     Of the spirit within him, aeolian, forth leapt
     To their freedom new-found, and resistlessly swept
     All his heart into tumult, the thoughts which had been
     Long pent up in their mystic recesses unseen.

     IV.

     How long he thus sat there, himself he knew not,
     Till he started, as though he were suddenly shot,
     To the sound of a voice too familiar to doubt,
     Which was making some noise in the passage without.
     A sound English voice; with a round English accent,
     Which the scared German echoes resentfully back sent;
     The complaint of a much disappointed cab-driver
     Mingled with it, demanding some ultimate stiver;
     Then, the heavy and hurried approach of a boot
     Which reveal'd by its sound no diminutive foot:
     And the door was flung suddenly open, and on
     The threshold Lord Alfred by bachelor John
     Was seized in that sort of affectionate rage or
     Frenzy of hugs which some stout Ursa Major
     On some lean Ursa Minor would doubtless bestow
     With a warmth for which only starvation and snow
     Could render one grateful.  As soon as he could,
     Lord Alfred contrived to escape, nor be food
     Any more for those somewhat voracious embraces.
     Then the two men sat down and scann'd each other's faces:
     And Alfred could see that his cousin was taken
     With unwonted emotion.  The hand that had shaken
     His own trembled somewhat.  In truth he descried
     At a glance, something wrong.

     V.

                                  "What's the matter?" he cried.
     "What have you to tell me?"

     JOHN.

                                   What! have you not heard?

     ALFRED.

     Heard what?

     JOHN.

                  This sad business--

     ALFRED.

                                      I? no, not a word.

     JOHN.

     You received my last letter?

     ALFRED.

                                   I think so.  If not,
     What then?

     JOHN.

                 You have acted upon it?

     ALFRED.

                                           On what?

     JOHN.

     The advice that I gave you--

     ALFRED.

                                  Advice?--let me see?
     You ALWAYS are giving advice, Jack, to me.
     About Parliament, was it?

     JOHN.

                                 Hang Parliament! no,
     The Bank, the Bank, Alfred!

     ALFRED.

                                  What Bank?

     JOHN.

                                              Heavens! I know
     You are careless;--but surely you have not forgotten,--
     Or neglected... I warn'd you the whole thing was rotten.
     You have drawn those deposits at least?

     ALFRED.

                                              No, I meant
     To have written to-day; but the note shall be sent
     To-morrow, however.

     JOHN.

                          To-morrow? too late!
     Too late! oh, what devil bewitch'd you to wait?

     ALFRED.

     Mercy save us! you don't mean to say...

     JOHN.

                                            Yes, I do.

     ALFRED.

     What! Sir Ridley?

     JOHN.

                        Smash'd, broken, blown up, bolted too!

     ALFRED.

     But his own niece?... In Heaven's name, Jack...

     JOHN.

                                                      Oh, I told you
     The old hypocritical scoundrel would...

     ALFRED.

                                            Hold! you
     Surely can't mean we are ruin'd?

     JOHN.

                                        Sit down!
     A fortnight ago a report about town
     Made me most apprehensive.  Alas, and alas!
     I at once wrote and warn'd you.  Well, now let that pass.
     A run on the Bank about five days ago
     Confirm'd my forebodings too terribly, though.
     I drove down to the city at once; found the door
     Of the Bank close: the Bank had stopp'd payment at four.
     Next morning the failure was known to be fraud:
     Warrant out for McNab: but McNab was abroad:
     Gone--we cannot tell where.  I endeavor'd to get
     Information: have learn'd nothing certain as yet--
     Not even the way that old Ridley was gone:
     Or with those securities what he had done:
     Or whether they had been already call'd out:
     If they are not, their fate is, I fear, past a doubt.
     Twenty families ruin'd, they say: what was left,--
     Unable to find any clew to the cleft
     The old fox ran to earth in,--but join you as fast
     As I could, my dear Alfred?*

     *These events, it is needless to say, Mr. Morse,
     Took place when Bad News as yet travell'd by horse;
     Ere the world, like a cockchafer, buzz'd on a wire,
     Or Time was calcined by electrical fire;
     Ere a cable went under the hoary Atlantic,
     Or the word Telegram drove grammarians frantic.

     VI.

                                     He stopp'd here, aghast
     At the change in his cousin, the hue of whose face
     Had grown livid; and glassy his eyes fix'd on space.
     "Courage, courage!"... said John,... "bear the blow like a man!"
     And he caught the cold hand of Lord Alfred.  There ran
     Through that hand a quick tremor.  "I bear it," he said,
     "But Matilda? the blow is to her!"  And his head
     Seem'd forced down, as he said it.

     JOHN.

                                         Matilda?  Pooh, pooh!
     I half think I know the girl better than you.
     She has courage enough--and to spare.  She cares less
     Than most women for luxury, nonsense, and dress.

     ALFRED.

     The fault has been mine.

     JOHN.

                               Be it yours to repair it:
     If you did not avert, you may help her to bear t.

     ALFRED.

     I might have averted.

     JOHN.

                            Perhaps so.  But now
     There is clearly no use in considering how,
     Or whence, came the mischief.  The mischief is here.
     Broken shins are not mended by crying--that's clear!
     One has but to rub them, and get up again,
     And push on--and not think too much of the pain.
     And at least it is much that you see that to her
     You owe too much to think of yourself.  You must stir
     And arouse yourself Alfred, for her sake.  Who knows?
     Something yet may be saved from this wreck.  I suppose
     We shall make him disgorge all he can, at the least.

     "O Jack, I have been a brute idiot! a beast!
     A fool! I have sinn'd, and to HER I have sinn'd!
     I have been heedless, blind, inexcusably blind!
     And now, in a flash, I see all things!"
                                              As though
     To shut out the vision, he bow'd his head low
     On his hands; and the great tears in silence roll'd on
     And fell momently, heavily, one after one.
     John felt no desire to find instant relief
     For the trouble he witness'd.
                                    He guess'd, in the grief
     Of his cousin, the broken and heartfelt admission
     Of some error demanding a heartfelt contrition:
     Some oblivion perchance which could plead less excuse
     To the heart of a man re-aroused to the use
     Of the conscience God gave him, than simply and merely
     The neglect for which now he was paying so dearly.
     So he rose without speaking, and paced up and down
     The long room, much afflicted, indeed, in his own
     Cordial heart for Matilda.
                                 Thus, silently lost
     In his anxious reflections, he cross'd and re-cross'd
     The place where his cousin yet hopelessly hung
     O'er the table; his fingers entwisted among
     The rich curls they were knotting and dragging: and there,
     That sound of all sounds the most painful to hear,
     The sobs of a man!  Yet so far in his own
     Kindly thoughts was he plunged, he already had grown
     Unconscious of Alfred.
                             And so for a space
     There was silence between them.

     VII.

                                      At last, with sad face
     He stopp'd short, and bent on his cousin awhile
     A pain'd sort of wistful, compassionate smile,
     Approach'd him,--stood o'er him,--and suddenly laid
     One hand on his shoulder--
                                "Where is she?" he said.
     Alfred lifted his face all disfigured with tears
     And gazed vacantly at him, like one that appears
     In some foreign language to hear himself greeted,
     Unable to answer.
                        "Where is she?" repeated
     His cousin.
                  He motioned his hand to the door;
     "There, I think," he replied.  Cousin John said no more,
     And appear'd to relapse to his own cogitations,
     Of which not a gesture vouchsafed indications.
     So again there was silence.
                                  A timepiece at last
     Struck the twelve strokes of midnight.
                                             Roused by them, he cast
     A half-look to the dial; then quietly threw
     His arm round the neck of his cousin, and drew
     The hands down from his face.
                                    "It is time she should know
     What has happen'd," he said,... "let us go to her now."
     Alfred started at once to his feet.
                                          Drawn and wan
     Though his face, he look'd more than his wont was--a man.
     Strong for once, in his weakness.  Uplifted, fill'd through
     With a manly resolve.
                            If that axiom be true
     Of the "Sum quia cogito," I must opine
     That "id sum quod cogito;"--that which, in fine
     A man thinks and feels, with his whole force of thought
     And feeling, the man is himself.
                                       He had fought
     With himself, and rose up from his self-overthrow
     The survivor of much which that strife had laid low
     At his feet, as he rose at the name of his wife,
     Lay in ruins the brilliant unrealized life
     Which, though yet unfulfill'd, seem'd till then, in that name,
     To be his, had he claim'd it.  The man's dream of fame
     And of power fell shatter'd before him; and only
     There rested the heart of the woman, so lonely
     In all save the love he could give her.  The lord
     Of that heart he arose.  Blush not, Muse, to record
     That his first thought, and last, at that moment was not
     Of the power and fame that seem'd lost to his lot,
     But the love that was left to it; not of the pelf
     He had cared for, yet squander'd; and not of himself,
     But of her; as he murmur'd,
                                  "One moment, dear jack!
     We have grown up from boyhood together.  Our track
     Has been through the same meadows in childhood: in youth
     Through the same silent gateways, to manhood.  In truth,
     There is none that can know me as you do; and none
     To whom I more wish to believe myself known.
     Speak the truth; you are not wont to mince it, I know.
     Nor I, shall I shirk it, or shrink from it now.
     In despite of a wanton behavior, in spite
     Of vanity, folly, and pride, Jack, which might
     Have turn'd from me many a heart strong and true
     As your own, I have never turn'd round and miss'd YOU
     From my side in one hour of affliction or doubt
     By my own blind and heedless self-will brought about.
     Tell me truth.  Do I owe this alone to the sake
     Of those old recollections of boyhood that make
     In your heart yet some clinging and crying appeal
     From a judgment more harsh, which I cannot but feel
     Might have sentenced our friendship to death long ago?
     Or is it... (I would I could deem it were so!)
     That, not all overlaid by a listless exterior,
     Your heart has divined in me something superior
     To that which I seem; from my innermost nature
     Not wholly expell'd by the world's usurpature?
     Some instinct of earnestness, truth, or desire
     For truth?  Some one spark of the soul's native fire
     Moving under the ashes, and cinders, and dust
     Which life hath heap'd o'er it?  Some one fact to trust
     And to hope in?  Or by you alone am I deem'd
     The mere frivolous fool I so often have seem'd
     To my own self?"

     JOHN.

                       No, Alfred! you will, I believe,
     Be true, at the last, to what now makes you grieve
     For having belied your true nature so long.
     Necessity is a stern teacher.  Be strong!

     "Do you think," he resumed,... "what I feel while I speak
     Is no more than a transient emotion, as weak
     As these weak tears would seem to betoken it?"

     JOHN.

                                                     No!

     ALFRED.

     Thank you, cousin! your hand then.  And now I will go
     Alone, Jack.  Trust to me.

     VIII.

     JOHN.

                                 I do.  But 'tis late.
     If she sleeps, you'll not wake her?

     ALFRED.

                                          No, no! it will wait
     (Poor infant!) too surely, this mission of sorrow;
     If she sleeps, I will not mar her dreams of tomorrow.
     He open'd the door, and pass'd out.
                                          Cousin John
     Watch'd him wistful, and left him to seek her alone.

     IX.

     His heart beat so loud when he knock'd at her door,
     He could hear no reply from within.  Yet once more
     He knock'd lightly.  No answer.  The handle he tried:
     The door open'd: he enter'd the room undescried.

     X.

     No brighter than is that dim circlet of light
     Which enhaloes the moon when rains form on the night,
     The pale lamp an indistinct radiance shed
     Round the chamber, in which at her pure snowy bed
     Matilda was kneeling; so wrapt in deep prayer
     That she knew not her husband stood watching her there.
     With the lamplight the moonlight had mingled a faint
     And unearthly effulgence which seem'd to acquaint
     The whole place with a sense of deep peace made secure
     By the presence of something angelic and pure.
     And not purer some angel Grief carves o'er the tomb
     Where Love lies, than the lady that kneel'd in that gloom.
     She had put off her dress; and she look'd to his eyes
     Like a young soul escaped from its earthly disguise;
     Her fair neck and innocent shoulders were bare,
     And over them rippled her soft golden hair;
     Her simple and slender white bodice unlaced
     Confined not one curve of her delicate waist.
     As the light that, from water reflected, forever,
     Trembles up through the tremulous reeds of a river,
     So the beam of her beauty went trembling in him,
     Through the thoughts it suffused with a sense soft and dim.
     Reproducing itself in the broken and bright
     Lapse and pulse of a million emotions.
                                             That sight
     Bow'd his heart, bow'd his knee.  Knowing scarce what he did,
     To her side through the chamber he silently slid,
     And knelt down beside her--and pray'd at her side.

     XI.

     Upstarting, she then for the first time descried
     That her husband was near her; suffused with the blush
     Which came o'er her soft pallid cheek with a gush
     Where the tears sparkled yet.
                                    As a young fawn uncouches,
     Shy with fear from the fern where some hunter approaches,
     She shrank back; he caught her, and circling his arm
     Round her waist, on her brow press'd one kiss long and warm.
     Then her fear changed in impulse; and hiding her face
     On his breast, she hung lock'd in a clinging embrace
     With her soft arms wound heavily round him, as though
     She fear'd, if their clasp was relaxed, he would go:
     Her smooth, naked shoulders, uncared for, convulsed
     By sob after sob, while her bosom yet pulsed
     In its pressure on his, as the effort within it
     Lived and died with each tender tumultuous minute.
     "O Alfred, O Alfred! forgive me," she cried--
     "Forgive me!"
                    "Forgive you, my poor child!" he sigh'd;
     "But I never have blamed you for aught that I know,
     And I have not one thought that reproaches you now."
     From her arms he unwound himself gently.  And so
     He forced her down softly beside him.  Below
     The canopy shading their couch, they sat down.
     And he said, clasping firmly her hand in his own,
     "When a proud man, Matilda, has found out at length,
     That he is but a child in the midst of his strength,
     But a fool in his wisdom, to whom can he own
     The weakness which thus to himself hath been shown?
     From whom seek the strength which his need of is sore,
     Although in his pride he might perish, before
     He could plead for the one, or the other avow
     'Mid his intimate friends?  Wife of mine, tell me now,
     Do you join me in feeling, in that darken'd hour,
     The sole friend that CAN have the right or the power
     To be at his side, is the woman that shares
     His fate, if he falter; the woman that bears
     The name dear for HER sake, and hallows the life
     She has mingled her own with,--in short, that man's wife?"
     "Yes," murmur'd Matilda, "O yes!"
                                        "Then," he cried,
     "This chamber in which we two sit, side by side,
     (And his arm, as he spoke, seem'd more softly to press her),
     Is now a confessional--you, my confessor!"
     "I?" she falter'd, and timidly lifted her head.
     "Yes! but first answer one other question," he said:
     "When a woman once feels that she is not alone:
     That the heart of another is warm'd by her own;
     That another feels with her whatever she feel
     And halves her existence in woe or in weal;
     That a man, for her sake, will, so long as he lives,
     Live to put forth the strength which the thought of her gives;
     Live to shield her from want, and to share with her sorrow;
     Live to solace the day, and provide for the morrow:
     Will that woman feel less than another, O say,
     The loss of what life, sparing this, takes away?
     Will she feel (feeling this), when calamities come,
     That they brighten the heart, though they darken the home?"
     She turn'd, like a soft rainy heav'n, on him
     Eyes that smiled through fresh tears, trustful, tender, and dim.
     "That woman," she murmur'd, "indeed were thrice blest!"
     "Then courage, true wife of my heart!" to his breast
     As he folded and gather'd her closely, he cried.
     "For the refuge, to-night in these arms open'd wide
     To your heart, can be never closed to it again,
     And this room is for both an asylum!  For when
     I pass'd through that door, at the door I left there
     A calamity sudden and heavy to bear.
     One step from that threshold, and daily, I fear,
     We must face it henceforth; but it enters not here,
     For that door shuts it out, and admits here alone
     A heart which calamity leaves all your own!"
     She started... "Calamity, Alfred, to you?"
     "To both, my poor child, but 'twill bring with it too
     The courage, I trust, to subdue it."
                                           "O speak!
     Speak!" she falter'd in tones timid, anxious, and weak.
     "O yet for a moment," he said, "hear me on!
     Matilda, this morn we went forth in the sun,
     Like those children of sunshine, the bright summer flies,
     That sport in the sunbeam, and play through the skies
     While the skies smile, and heed not each other: at last,
     When their sunbeam is gone, and their sky overcast,
     Who recks in what ruin they fold their wet wings?
     So indeed the morn found us,--poor frivolous things!
     Now our sky is o'ercast, and our sunbeam is set,
     And the night brings its darkness around us.  Oh yet
     Have we weather'd no storm through those twelve cloudless hours?
     Yes; you, too, have wept!
                                "While the world was yet ours,
     While its sun was upon us, its incense stream'd to us,
     And its myriad voices of joy seem'd to woo us,
     We stray'd from each other, too far, it may be,
     Nor, wantonly wandering, then did I see
     How deep was my need of thee, dearest, how great
     Was thy claim on my heart and thy share in my fate!
     But, Matilda, an angel was near us, meanwhile,
     Watching o'er us to warn, and to rescue!
                                               "That smile
     Which you saw with suspicion, that presence you eyed
     With resentment, an angel's they were at your side
     And at mine; nor perchance is the day all so far,
     When we both in our prayers, when most heartfelt they are,
     May murmur the name of that woman now gone
     From our sight evermore.
                               "Here, this evening, alone,
     I seek your forgiveness, in opening my heart
     Unto yours,--from this clasp be it never to part!
     Matilda, the fortune you brought me is gone,
     But a prize richer far than that fortune has won
     It is yours to confer, and I kneel for that prize,
     'Tis the heart of my wife!"  With suffused happy eyes
     She sprang from her seat, flung her arms wide apart,
     And tenderly closing them round him, his heart
     Clasp'd in one close embrace to her bosom; and there
     Droop'd her head on his shoulder; and sobb'd.
                                                    Not despair,
     Not sorrow, not even the sense of her loss,
     Flow'd in those happy tears, so oblivious she was
     Of all save the sense of her own love!  Anon,
     However, his words rush'd back to her.  "All gone,
     The fortune you brought me!"
                                   And eyes that were dim
     With soft tears she upraised; but those tears were for HIM.
     "Gone! my husband?" she said," tell me all! see! I need,
     To sober this rapture, so selfish indeed,
     Fuller sense of affliction."
                                   "Poor innocent child!"
     He kiss'd her fair forehead, and mournfully smiled,
     As he told her the tale he had heard--something more,
     The gain found in loss of what gain lost of yore.
     "Rest, my heart, and my brain, and my right hand, for you;
     And with these, my Matilda, what may I not do?
     And know not, I knew not myself till this hour,
     Which so sternly reveal'd it, my nature's full power."
     "And I too," she murmur'd, "I too am no more
     The mere infant at heart you have known me before.
     I have suffer'd since then.  I have learn'd much in life.
     O take, with the faith I have pledged as a wife,
     The heart I have learn'd as a woman to feel!
     For I--love you, my husband!"
                                    As though to conceal
     Less from him, than herself, what that motion express'd,
     She dropp'd her bright head, and hid all on his breast.
     "O lovely as woman, beloved as wife!
     Evening star of my heart, light forever my life!
     If from eyes fix'd too long on this base earth thus far
     You have miss'd your due homage, dear guardian star,
     Believe that, uplifting those eyes unto heaven,
     There I see you, and know you, and bless the light given
     To lead me to life's late achievement; my own,
     My blessing, my treasure, my all things in one!"

     XII.

     How lovely she look'd in the lovely moonlight,
     That stream'd thro' the pane from the blue balmy night!
     How lovely she look'd in her own lovely youth,
     As she clung to his side, full of trust and of truth!
     How lovely to HIM, as he tenderly press'd
     Her young head on his bosom, and sadly caress'd
     The glittering tresses which now shaken loose
     Shower'd gold in his hand, as he smooth'd them!

     XIII.

                                                     O Muse,
     Interpose not one pulse of thine own beating heart
     Twixt these two silent souls!  There's a joy beyond art,
     And beyond sound the music it makes in the breast.

     XIV.

     Here were lovers twice wed, that were happy at least!
     No music, save such as the nightingales sung,
     Breath'd their bridals abroad; and no cresset, up-hung,
     Lit that festival hour, save what soft light was given
     From the pure stars that peopled the deep-purple heaven.
     He open'd the casement: he led her with him,
     Hush'd in heart, to the terrace, dipp'd cool in the dim
     Lustrous gloom of the shadowy laurels.  They heard
     Aloof, the invisible, rapturous bird,
     With her wild note bewildering the woodlands: they saw
     Not unheard, afar off, the hill-rivulet draw
     His long ripple of moon-kindled wavelets with cheer
     From the throat of the vale; o'er the dark sapphire sphere
     The mild, multitudinous lights lay asleep,
     Pastured free on the midnight, and bright as the sheep
     Of Apollo in pastoral Thrace; from unknown
     Hollow glooms freshen'd odors around them were blown
     Intermittingly; then the moon dropp'd from their sight,
     Immersed in the mountains, and put out the light
     Which no longer they needed to read on the face
     Of each other life's last revelation.
                                            The place
     Slept sumptuous round them; and Nature, that never
     Sleeps, but waking reposes, with patient endeavor
     Continued about them, unheeded, unseen,
     Her old, quiet toil in the heart of the green
     Summer silence, preparing new buds for new blossoms,
     And stealing a finger of change o'er the bosoms
     Of the unconscious woodlands; and Time, that halts not
     His forces, how lovely soever the spot
     Where their march lies--the wary, gray strategist, Time,
     With the armies of Life, lay encamp'd--Grief and Crime,
     Love and Faith, in the darkness unheeded; maturing,
     For his great war with man, new surprises; securing
     All outlets, pursuing and pushing his foe
     To his last narrow refuge--the grave.

     XV.

                                            Sweetly though
     Smiled the stars like new hopes out of heaven, and sweetly
     Their hearts beat thanksgiving for all things, completely
     Confiding in that yet untrodden existence
     Over which they were pausing.  To-morrow, resistance
     And struggle; to-night, Love his hallow'd device
     Hung forth, and proclaim'd his serene armistice.

CANTO V.

     I.

     When Lucile left Matilda, she sat for long hours
     In her chamber, fatigued by long overwrought powers,
     'Mid the signs of departure, about to turn back
     To her old vacant life, on her old homeless track.
     She felt her heart falter within her.  She sat
     Like some poor player, gazing dejectedly at
     The insignia of royalty worn for a night;
     Exhausted, fatigued, with the dazzle and light,
     And the effort of passionate feigning; who thinks
     Of her own meagre, rush-lighted garret, and shrinks
     From the chill of the change that awaits her.

     II.

                                                    From these
     Oppressive, and comfortless, blank reveries,
     Unable to sleep, she descended the stair
     That led from her room to the garden.
                                            The air,
     With the chill of the dawn, yet unris'n, but at hand,
     Strangely smote on her feverish forehead.  The land
     Lay in darkness and change, like a world in its grave:
     No sound, save the voice of the long river wave
     And the crickets that sing all the night!
                                                She stood still,
     Vaguely watching the thin cloud that curl'd on the hill.
     Emotions, long pent in her breast, were at stir,
     And the deeps of the spirit were troubled in her.
     Ah, pale woman! what, with that heart-broken look,
     Didst thou read then in nature's weird heart-breaking book?
     Have the wild rains of heaven a father? and who
     Hath in pity begotten the drops of the dew?
     Orion, Arcturus, who pilots them both?
     What leads forth in his season the bright Mazaroth?
     Hath the darkness a dwelling,--save there, in those eyes?
     And what name hath that half-reveal'd hope in the skies?
     Ay, question, and listen!  What answer?
                                              The sound
     Of the long river wave through its stone-troubled bound,
     And the crickets that sing all the night.
                                                There are hours
     Which belong to unknown, supernatural powers,
     Whose sudden and solemn suggestions are all
     That to this race of worms,--stinging creatures, that crawl,
     Lie, and fear, and die daily, beneath their own stings,--
     Can excuse the blind boast of inherited wings.
     When the soul, on the impulse of anguish, hath pass'd
     Beyond anguish, and risen into rapture at last;
     When she traverses nature and space, till she stands
     In the Chamber of Fate; where, through tremulous hands,
     Hum the threads from an old-fashion'd distaff uncurl'd,
     And those three blind old women sit spinning the world.

     III.

     The dark was blanch'd wan, overhead.  One green star
     Was slipping from sight in the pale void afar;
     The spirits of change and of awe, with faint breath,
     Were shifting the midnight, above and beneath.
     The spirits of awe and of change were around
     And about, and upon her.
                               A dull muffled sound,
     And a hand on her hand, like a ghostly surprise,
     And she felt herself fix'd by the hot hollow eyes
     Of the Frenchman before her: those eyes seemed to burn,
     And scorch out the darkness between them, and turn
     Into fire as they fix'd her.  He look'd like the shade
     Of a creature by fancy some solitude made,
     And sent forth by the darkness to scare and oppress
     Some soul of a monk in a waste wilderness.

     IV.

     "At last, then,--at last, and alone,--I and thou,
     Lucile de Nevers, have we met?
                                     "Hush! I know
     Not for me was the tryst.  Never mind--it is mine;
     And whatever led hither those proud steps of thine,
     They remove not, until we have spoken.  My hour
     Is come; and it holds me and thee in its power,
     As the darkness holds both the horizons.  'Tis well!
     The timidest maiden that e'er to the spell
     Of her first lover's vows listen'd, hush'd with delight,
     When soft stars were brightly uphanging the night,
     Never listen'd, I swear, more unquestioningly,
     Than thy fate hath compell'd thee to listen to me!"
     To the sound of his voice, as though out of a dream.
     She appear'd with a start to awaken.
                                           The stream,
     When he ceased, took the night with its moaning again,
     Like the voices of spirits departing in pain.
     "Continue," she answer'd, "I listen to hear."
     For a moment he did not reply.
                                     Through the drear
     And dim light between them, she saw that his face
     Was disturb'd.  To and fro he continued to pace,
     With his arms folded close, and the low restless stride
     Of a panther, in circles around her, first wide.
     Then narrower, nearer, and quicker.  At last
     He stood still, and one long look upon her he cast.
     "Lucile, dost thou dare to look into my face?
     Is the sight so repugnant? ha, well! canst thou trace
     One word of thy writing in this wicked scroll,
     With thine own name scrawl'd through it, defacing a soul?"
     In his face there was something so wrathful and wild,
     That the sight of it scared her.
                                       He saw it, and smiled,
     And then turn'd him from her, renewing again
     That short restless stride; as though searching in vain
     For the point of some purpose within him.
                                                "Lucile,
     You shudder to look in my face: do you feel
     No reproach when you look in your own heart?"
                                                    "No, Duke,
     In my conscience I do not deserve your rebuke:
     Not yours!" she replied.
                               "No," he mutter'd again,
     "Gentle justice! you first bid Life hope not, and then
     To Despair you say, 'Act not!'"

     V.

                                      He watch'd her awhile
     With a chill sort of restless and suffering smile.
     They stood by the wall of the garden.  The skies,
     Dark, sombre, were troubled with vague prophecies
     Of the dawn yet far distant.  The moon had long set,
     And all in a glimmering light, pale, and wet
     With the night-dews, the white roses sullenly loom'd
     Round about her.  She spoke not.  At length he resumed,
     "Wrecked creatures we are! I and thou--one and all!
     Only able to injure each other and fall,
     Soon or late, in that void which ourselves we prepare
     For the souls that we boast of! weak insects we are!
     O heaven! and what has become of them? all
     Those instincts of Eden surviving the Fall:
     That glorious faith in inherited things:
     That sense in the soul of the length of her wings;
     Gone! all gone! and the wail of the night wind sounds human,
     Bewailing those once nightly visitants!  Woman,
     Woman, what hast thou done with my youth?  Give again,
     Give me back the young heart that I gave thee... in vain!"
     "Duke!" she falter'd.
                            "Yes, yes!" he went on, "I was not
     Always thus! what I once was, I have not forgot."

     VI.

     As the wind that heaps sand in a desert, there stirr'd
     Through his voice an emotion that swept every word
     Into one angry wail; as, with feverish change,
     He continued his monologue, fitful and strange.
     "Woe to him in whose nature, once kindled, the torch
     Of Passion burns downward to blacken and scorch!
     But shame, shame and sorrow, O woman, to thee
     Whose hand sow'd the seed of destruction in me!
     Whose lip taught the lesson of falsehood to mine!
     Whose looks made me doubt lies that look'd so divine!
     My soul by thy beauty was slain in its sleep:
     And if tears I mistrust, 'tis that thou too canst weep!
     Well!... how utter soever it be, one mistake
     In the love of a man, what more change need it make
     In the steps of his soul through the course love began,
     Than all other mistakes in the life of a man?
     And I said to myself, 'I am young yet: too young
     To have wholly survived my own portion among
     The great needs of man's life, or exhausted its joys;
     What is broken? one only of youth's pleasant toys!
     Shall I be the less welcome, wherever I go,
     For one passion survived?  No! the roses will blow
     As of yore, as of yore will the nightingales sing,
     Not less sweetly for one blossom cancell'd from Spring!
     Hast thou loved, O my heart? to thy love yet remains
     All the wide loving-kindness of nature.  The plains
     And the hills with each summer their verdure renew.
     Wouldst thou be as they are? do thou then as they do,
     Let the dead sleep in peace.  Would the living divine
     Where they slumber?  Let only new flowers be the sign!'

     "Vain! all vain!... For when, laughing, the wine I would quaff,
     I remember'd too well all it cost me to laugh.
     Through the revel it was but the old song I heard,
     Through the crowd the old footsteps behind me they stirr'd,
     In the night-wind, the starlight, the murmurs of even,
     In the ardors of earth, and the languors of heaven,
     I could trace nothing more, nothing more through the spheres,
     But the sound of old sobs, and the track of old tears!
     It was with me the night long in dreaming or waking,
     It abided in loathing, when daylight was breaking,
     The burthen of the bitterness in me!  Behold,
     All my days were become as a tale that is told.
     And I said to my sight, 'No good thing shalt thou see,
     For the noonday is turned to darkness in me.
     In the house of Oblivion my bed I have made.'
     And I said to the grave, 'Lo, my father!' and said
     To the worm, 'Lo, my sister!'  The dust to the dust,
     And one end to the wicked shall be with the just!"

     VII.

     He ceased, as a wind that wails out on the night
     And moans itself mute.  Through the indistinct light
     A voice clear, and tender, and pure with a tone
     Of ineffable pity, replied to his own.
     "And say you, and deem you, that I wreck'd your life?
     Alas! Duc de Luvois, had I been your wife
     By a fraud of the heart which could yield you alone
     For the love in your nature a lie in my own,
     Should I not, in deceiving, have injured you worse?
     Yes, I then should have merited justly your curse,
     For I then should have wrong'd you!"
                                          "Wrong'd! ah, is it so?
     You could never have loved me?"
                                      "Duke!"
                                               "Never? oh, no!"
     (He broke into a fierce, angry laugh, as he said)
     "Yet, lady, you knew that I loved you: you led
     My love on to lay to its heart, hour by hour,
     All the pale, cruel, beautiful, passionless power
     Shut up in that cold face of yours! was this well?
     But enough! not on you would I vent the wild hell
     Which has grown in my heart.  Oh, that man! first and last
     He tramples in triumph my life! he has cast
     His shadow 'twixt me and the sun... let it pass!
     My hate yet may find him!"
                                 She murmur'd, "Alas!
     These words, at least, spare me the pain of reply.
     Enough, Duc de Luvois! farewell.  I shall try
     To forget every word I have heard, every sight
     That has grieved and appall'd me in this wretched night
     Which must witness our final farewell.  May you, Duke,
     Never know greater cause your own heart to rebuke
     Than mine thus to wrong and afflict you have had!
     Adieu!"
              "Stay, Lucile, stay!"... he groaned, "I am mad,
     Brutalized, blind with pain!  I know not what I said.
     I mean it not.  But" (he moan'd, drooping his head)
     "Forgive me!  I--have I so wrong'd you, Lucile?
     I... have I... forgive me, forgive me!"
                                                    "I feel
     Only sad, very sad to the soul," she said, "far,
     Far too sad for resentment."
                                   "Yet stand as you are
     One moment," he murmur'd.  "I think, could I gaze
     Thus awhile on your face, the old innocent days
     Would come back upon me, and this scorching heart
     Free itself in hot tears.  Do not, do not depart
     Thus, Lucile! stay one moment.  I know why you shrink,
     Why you shudder; I read in your face what you think.
     Do not speak to me of it.  And yet, if you will,
     Whatever you say, my own lips shall be still.
     I lied.  And the truth, now, could justify nought.
     There are battles, it may be, in which to have fought
     Is more shameful than, simply, to fail.  Yet, Lucile,
     Had you help'd me to bear what you forced me to feel--"
     "Could I help you," she murmur'd, "but what can I say
     That your life will respond to?"  "My life?" he sigh'd.  "Nay,
     My life hath brought forth only evil, and there
     The wild wind hath planted the wild weed: yet ere
     You exclaim, 'Fling the weed to the flames,' think again
     Why the field is so barren.  With all other men
     First love, though it perish from life, only goes
     Like the primrose that falls to make way for the rose.
     For a man, at least most men, may love on through life:
     Love in fame; love in knowledge; in work: earth is rife
     With labor, and therefor, with love, for a man.
     If one love fails, another succeeds, and the plan
     Of man's life includes love in all objects!  But I?
     All such loves from my life through its whole destiny
     Fate excluded.  The love that I gave you, alas!
     Was the sole love that life gave to me.  Let that pass!
     It perish'd, and all perish'd with it.  Ambition?
     Wealth left nothing to add to my social condition.
     Fame?  But fame in itself presupposes some great
     Field wherein to pursue and attain it.  The State?
     I, to cringe to an upstart?  The Camp?  I, to draw
     From its sheath the old sword of the Dukes of Luvois
     To defend usurpation?  Books, then?  Science, Art?
     But, alas! I was fashion'd for action: my heart,
     Wither'd thing though it be, I should hardly compress
     'Twixt the leaves of a treatise on Statics: life's stress
     Needs scope, not contraction! what rests? to wear out
     At some dark northern court an existence, no doubt,
     In wretched and paltry intrigues for a cause
     As hopeless as is my own life!  By the laws
     Of a fate I can neither control nor dispute,
     I am what I am!"

     VIII.

                       For a while she was mute.
     Then she answer'd, "We are our own fates.  Our own deeds
     Are our doomsmen.  Man's life was made not for men's creeds
     But men's actions.  And, Duc de Luvois, I might say
     That all life attests, that 'the will makes the way.'
     Is the land of our birth less the land of our birth,
     Or its claim the less strong, or its cause the less worth
     Our upholding, because the white lily no more
     Is as sacred as all that it bloom'd for of yore?
     Yet be that as it may be; I cannot perchance
     Judge this matter.  I am but a woman, and France
     Has for me simpler duties.  Large hope, though, Eugene
     De Luvois, should be yours.  There is purpose in pain,
     Otherwise it were devilish.  I trust in my soul
     That the great master hand which sweeps over the whole
     Of this deep harp of life, if at moments it stretch
     To shrill tension some one wailing nerve, means to fetch
     Its response the truest, most stringent, and smart,
     Its pathos the purest, from out the wrung heart,
     Whose faculties, flaccid it may be, if less
     Sharply strung, sharply smitten, had fail'd to express
     Just the one note the great final harmony needs.
     And what best proves there's life in a heart?--that it bleeds?
     Grant a cause to remove, grant an end to attain,
     Grant both to be just, and what mercy in pain!
     Cease the sin with the sorrow!  See morning begin!
     Pain must burn itself out if not fuel'd by sin.
     There is hope in yon hill-tops, and love in yon light.
     Let hate and despondency die with the night!"

     He was moved by her words.  As some poor wretch confined
     In cells loud with meaningless laughter, whose mind
     Wanders trackless amidst its own ruins, may hear
     A voice heard long since, silenced many a year,
     And now, 'mid mad ravings recaptured again,
     Singing through the caged lattice a once well-known strain,
     Which brings back his boyhood upon it, until
     The mind's ruin'd crevices graciously fill
     With music and memory, and, as it were,
     The long-troubled spirit grows slowly aware
     Of the mockery round it, and shrinks from each thing
     It once sought,--the poor idiot who pass'd for a king,
     Hard by, with his squalid straw crown, now confess'd
     A madman more painfully mad than the rest.--
     So the sound of her voice, as it there wander'd o'er
     His echoing heart, seem'd in part to restore
     The forces of thought: he recaptured the whole
     Of his life by the light which, in passing, her soul
     Reflected on his: he appear'd to awake
     From a dream, and perceived he had dream'd a mistake:
     His spirit was soften'd, yet troubled in him:
     He felt his lips falter, his eyesight grow dim,
     But he murmur'd...
                       "Lucile, not for me that sun's light
     Which reveals--not restores--the wild havoc of night.
     There are some creatures born for the night, not the day.
     Broken-hearted the nightingale hides in the spray,
     And the owl's moody mind in his own hollow tower
     Dwells muffled.  Be darkness henceforward my dower.
     Light, be sure, in that darkness there dwells, by which eyes
     Grown familiar with ruins may yet recognize
     Enough desolation."

     IX.

                           "The pride that claims here
     On earth to itself (howsoever severe
     To itself it may be) God's dread office and right
     Of punishing sin, is a sin in heaven's sight,
     And against heaven's service.
                                    "Eugene de Luvois,
     Leave the judgment to Him who alone knows the law.
     Surely no man can be his own judge, least of all
     His own doomsman."
                         Her words seem'd to fall
     With a weight of tears in them.
                                      He look'd up, and saw
     That sad serene countenance, mournful as law
     And tender as pity, bow'd o'er him: and heard
     In some thicket the matinal chirp of a bird.

     X.

     "Vulgar natures alone suffer vainly.
                                           "Eugene,"
     She continued, "in life we have met once again,
     And once more life parts us.  Yon day-spring for me
     Lifts the veil of a future in which it may be
     We shall meet nevermore.  Grant, oh grant to me yet
     The belief that it is not in vain we have met!
     I plead for the future.  A new horoscope
     I would cast: will you read it?  I plead for a hope:
     I plead for a memory; yours, yours alone,
     To restore or to spare.  Let the hope be your own,
     Be the memory mine.
                          "Once of yore, when for man
     Faith yet lived, ere this age of the sluggard began,
     Men aroused to the knowledge of evil, fled far
     From the fading rose-gardens of sense, to the war
     With the Pagan, the cave in the desert, and sought
     Not repose, but employment in action or thought,
     Life's strong earnest, in all things! oh, think not of me,
     But yourself! for I plead for your own destiny:
     I plead for your life, with its duties undone,
     With its claims unappeased, and its trophies unwon;
     And in pleading for life's fair fulfilment, I plead
     For all that you miss, and for all that you need."

     XI.

     Through the calm crystal air, faint and far, as she spoke,
     A clear, chilly chime from a church-turret broke;
     And the sound of her voice, with the sound of the bell,
     On his ear, where he kneel'd, softly, soothingly fell.
     All within him was wild and confused, as within
     A chamber deserted in some roadside inn,
     Where, passing, wild travellers paused, over-night,
     To quaff and carouse; in each socket each light
     Is extinct; crash'd the glasses, and scrawl'd is the wall
     With wild ribald ballads; serenely o'er all,
     For the first time perceived, where the dawn-light creeps faint
     Through the wrecks of that orgy, the face of a saint,
     Seen through some broken frame, appears noting meanwhile
     The ruin all round with a sorrowful smile.
     And he gazed round.  The curtains of Darkness half drawn
     Oped behind her; and pure as the pure light of dawn
     She stood, bathed in morning, and seem'd to his eyes
     From their sight to be melting away in the skies
     That expanded around her.

     XII.

                                There pass'd through his head
     A fancy--a vision.  That woman was dead
     He had loved long ago--loved and lost! dead to him,
     Dead to all the life left him; but there, in the dim
     Dewy light of the dawn, stood a spirit; 'twas hers;
     And he said to the soul of Lucile de Nevers:
     "O soul to its sources departing away!
     Pray for mine, if one soul for another may pray.
     I to ask have no right, thou to give hast no power,
     One hope to my heart.  But in this parting hour
     I name not my heart, and I speak not to thine.
     Answer, soul of Lucile, to this dark soul of mine,
     Does not soul owe to soul, what to heart heart denies,
     Hope, when hope is salvation?  Behold, in yon skies,
     This wild night is passing away while I speak:
     Lo, above us, the day-spring beginning to break!
     Something wakens within me, and warms to the beam:
     Is it hope that awakens? or do I but dream?
     I know not.  It may be, perchance, the first spark
     Of a new light within me to solace the dark
     Unto which I return; or perchance it may be
     The last spark of fires half extinguish'd in me.
     I know not.  Thou goest thy way: I my own;
     For good or for evil, I know not.  Alone
     This I know; we are parting.  I wish'd to say more,
     But no matter! 'twill pass.  All between us is o'er.
     Forget the wild words of to-night.  'Twas the pain
     For long years hoarded up, that rush'd from me again.
     I was unjust: forgive me.  Spare now to reprove
     Other words, other deeds.  It was madness, not love,
     That you thwarted this night.  What is done is now done.
     Death remains to avenge it, or life to atone.
     I was madden'd, delirious!  I saw you return
     To him--not to me; and I felt my heart burn
     With a fierce thirst for vengeance--and thus... let it pass!
     Long thoughts these, and so brief the moments, alas!
     Thou goest thy way, and I mine.  I suppose
     'Tis to meet nevermore.  Is it not so?  Who knows,
     Or who heeds, where the exile from Paradise flies?
     Or what altars of his in the desert may rise?
     Is it not so, Lucile?  Well, well!  Thus then we part
     Once again, soul from soul, as before heart from heart!"

     XIII.

     And again clearer far than the chime of a bell,
     That voice on his sense softly, soothingly fell.
     "Our two paths must part us, Eugene; for my own
     Seems no more through that world in which henceforth alone
     You must work out (as now I believe that you will)
     The hope which you speak of.  That work I shall still
     (If I live) watch and welcome, and bless far away.
     Doubt not this.  But mistake not the thought, if I say
     That the great moral combat between human life
     And each human soul must be single.  The strife
     None can share, though by all its results may be known.
     When the soul arms for battle, she goes forth alone.
     I say not, indeed, we shall meet nevermore,
     For I know not.  But meet, as we have met of yore,
     I know that we cannot.  Perchance we may meet
     By the death-bed, the tomb, in the crowd, in the street,
     Or in solitude even, but never again
     Shall we meet from henceforth as we have met, Eugene.
     For we know not the way we are going, nor yet
     Where our two ways may meet, or may cross.  Life hath set
     No landmarks before us.  But this, this alone,
     I will promise: whatever your path, or my own,
     If, for once in the conflict before you, it chance
     That the Dragon prevail, and with cleft shield, and lance
     Lost or shatter'd, borne down by the stress of the war,
     You falter and hesitate, if from afar
     I, still watching (unknown to yourself, it may be)
     O'er the conflict to which I conjure you, should see
     That my presence could rescue, support you, or guide,
     In the hour of that need I shall be at your side,
     To warn, if you will, or incite, or control;
     And again, once again, we shall meet, soul to soul!"

     XIV.

     The voice ceased.
                        He uplifted his eyes.
                                               All alone
     He stood on the bare edge of dawn.  She was gone,
     Like a star, when up bay after bay of the night,
     Ripples in, wave on wave, the broad ocean of light.
     And at once, in her place was the Sunrise!  It rose
     In its sumptuous splendor and solemn repose,
     The supreme revelation of light.  Domes of gold,
     Realms of rose, in the Orient! and breathless, and bold,
     While the great gates of heaven roll'd back one by one,
     The bright herald angel stood stern in the sun!
     Thrice holy Eospheros!  Light's reign began
     In the heaven, on the earth, in the heart of the man.
     The dawn on the mountains! the dawn everywhere!
     Light! silence! the fresh innovations of air!
     O earth, and O ether!  A butterfly breeze
     Floated up, flutter'd down, and poised blithe on the trees.
     Through the revelling woods, o'er the sharp-rippled stream,
     Up the vale slow uncoiling itself out of dream,
     Around the brown meadows, adown the hill-slope,
     The spirits of morning were whispering, "HOPE!"

     XV.

     He uplifted his eyes.  In the place where she stood
     But a moment before, and where now roll'd the flood
     Of the sunrise all golden, he seem'd to behold,
     In the young light of sunrise, an image unfold
     Of his own youth,--its ardors--its promise of fame--
     Its ancestral ambition; and France by the name
     Of his sires seem'd to call him.  There, hover'd in light,
     That image aloft, o'er the shapeless and bright
     And Aurorean clouds, which themselves seem'd to be
     Brilliant fragments of that golden world, wherein he
     Had once dwelt, a native!
                                There, rooted and bound
     To the earth, stood the man, gazing at it!  Around
     The rims of the sunrise it hover'd and shone
     Transcendent, that type of a youth that was gone;
     And he--as the body may yearn for the soul,
     So he yearn'd to embody that image.  His whole
     Heart arose to regain it.
                                "And is it too late?"
     No! for Time is a fiction, and limits not fate.
     Thought alone is eternal.  Time thralls it in vain.
     For the thought that springs upward and yearns to regain
     The true source of spirit, there IS no TOO LATE.
     As the stream to its first mountain levels, elate
     In the fountain arises, the spirit in him
     Arose to that image.  The image waned dim
     Into heaven; and heavenward with it, to melt
     As it melted, in day's broad expansion, he felt
     With a thrill, sweet and strange, and intense--awed, amazed--
     Something soar and ascend in his soul, as he gazed.

CANTO VI.

     I.

     Man is born on a battle-field.  Round him, to rend
     Or resist, the dread Powers he displaces attend,
     By the cradle which Nature, amidst the stern shocks
     That have shatter'd creation, and shapen it, rocks.
     He leaps with a wail into being; and lo!
     His own mother, fierce Nature herself, is his foe.
     Her whirlwinds are roused into wrath o'er his head:
     'Neath his feet roll her earthquakes: her solitudes spread
     To daunt him: her forces dispute his command:
     Her snows fall to freeze him: her suns burn to brand:
     Her seas yawn to engulf him: her rocks rise to crush:
     And the lion and leopard, allied, lurk to rush
     On their startled invader.
                                 In lone Malabar,
     Where the infinite forest spreads breathless and far,
     'Mid the cruel of eye and the stealthy of claw
     (Striped and spotted destroyers!) he sees, pale with awe,
     On the menacing edge of a fiery sky,
     Grim Doorga, blue-limb'd and red-handed, go by,
     And the first thing he worships is Terror.
                                                 Anon,
     Still impell'd by necessity hungrily on,
     He conquers the realms of his own self-reliance,
     And the last cry of fear wakes the first of defiance.
     From the serpent he crushes its poisonous soul;
     Smitten down in his path see the dead lion roll!
     On toward Heaven the son of Alcmena strides high on
     The heads of the Hydra, the spoils of the lion:
     And man, conquering terror, is worshipp'd by man.

     A camp has the world been since first it began!
     From his tents sweeps the roving Arabian; at peace,
     A mere wandering shepherd that follows the fleece;
     But, warring his way through a world's destinies,
     Lo from Delhi, from Bagdadt, from Cordova, rise
     Domes of empiry, dower'd with science and art,
     Schools, libraries, forums, the palace, the mart!

     New realms to man's soul have been conquer'd.  But those
     Forthwith they are peopled for man by new foes!
     The stars keep their secrets, the earth hides her own,
     And bold must the man be that braves the Unknown!
     Not a truth has to art or to science been given,
     But brows have ached for it, and souls toil'd and striven;
     And many have striven, and many have fail'd,
     And many died, slain by the truth they assail'd,
     But when Man hath tamed Nature, asserted his place
     And dominion, behold! he is brought face to face
     With a new foe--himself!
                               Nor may man on his shield
     Ever rest, for his foe is ever afield,
     Danger ever at hand, till the armed Archangel
     Sound o'er him the trump of earth's final evangel.

     II.

     Silence straightway, stern Muse, the soft cymbals of pleasure,
     Be all bronzen these numbers, and martial the measure!
     Breathe, sonorously breathe, o'er the spirit in me
     One strain, sad and stern, of that deep Epopee
     Which thou, from the fashionless cloud of far time,
     Chantest lonely, when Victory, pale, and sublime
     In the light of the aureole over her head,
     Hears, and heeds not the wound in her heart fresh and red.
     Blown wide by the blare of the clarion, unfold
     The shrill clanging curtains of war!
                                           And behold
     A vision!
                The antique Heraclean seats;
     And the long Black Sea billow that once bore those fleets,
     Which said to the winds, "Be ye, too, Genoese!"
     And the red angry sands of the chafed Cheronese;
     And the two foes of man, War and Winter, allied
     Round the Armies of England and France, side by side
     Enduring and dying (Gaul and Briton abreast!)
     Where the towers of the North fret the skies of the East.

     III.

     Since that sunrise which rose through the calm linden stems
     O'er Lucile and Eugene, in the garden of Ems,
     Through twenty-five seasons encircling the sun,
     This planet of ours on its pathway hath gone,
     And the fates that I sing of have flowed with the fates
     Of a world, in the red wake of war, round the gates
     Of that doom'd and heroical city, in which
     (Fire crowning the rampart, blood bathing the ditch!),
     At bay, fights the Russian as some hunted bear,
     Whom the huntsmen have hemm'd round at last in his lair.

     IV.

     A fang'd, arid plain, sapp'd with underground fire,
     Soak'd with snow, torn with shot, mash'd to one gory mire!
     There Fate's iron scale hangs in horrid suspense,
     While those two famished ogres--the Siege, the Defence,
     Face to face, through a vapor frore, dismal, and dun,
     Glare, scenting the breath of each other.
                                                The one
     Double-bodied, two-headed--by separate ways
     Winding, serpent-wise, nearer; the other, each day's
     Sullen toil adding size to,--concentrated, solid,
     Indefatigable--the brass-fronted, embodied,
     And audible [Greek text omitted] gone sombrely forth
     To the world from that Autocrat Will of the north!

     V.

     In the dawn of a moody October, a pale
     Ghostly motionless vapor began to prevail
     Over city and camp; like the garment of death
     Which (is formed by) the face it conceals.
                                                 'Twas the breath
     War, yet drowsily yawning, began to suspire;
     Wherethrough, here and there, flash'd an eye of red fire,
     And closed, from some rampart beginning to bellow
     Hoarse challenge; replied to anon, through the yellow
     And sulphurous twilight: till day reel'd and rock'd
     And roar'd into dark.  Then the midnight was mock'd
     With fierce apparitions.  Ring'd round by a rain
     Of red fire, and of iron, the murtherous plain
     Flared with fitful combustion; where fitfully fell
     Afar off the fatal, disgorged scharpenelle,
     And fired the horizon, and singed the coil'd gloom
     With wings of swift flame round that City of Doom.

     VI.

     So the day--so the night!  So by night, so by day,
     With stern patient pathos, while time wears away,
     In the trench flooded through, in the wind where it wails,
     In the snow where it falls, in the fire where it hails
     Shot and shell--link by link, out of hardship and pain,
     Toil, sickness, endurance, is forged the bronze chain
     Of those terrible siege-lines!
                                     No change to that toil
     Save the mine's sudden leap from the treacherous soil.
     Save the midnight attack, save the groans of the maim'd,
     And Death's daily obolus due, whether claim'd
     By man or by nature.

     VII.

                           Time passes.  The dumb,
     Bitter, snow-bound, and sullen November is come.
     And its snows have been bathed in the blood of the brave;
     And many a young heart has glutted the grave:
     And on Inkerman yet the wild bramble is gory,
     And those bleak heights henceforth shall be famous in story.

     VIII.

     The moon, swathed in storm, has long set: through the camp
     No sound save the sentinel's slow sullen tramp,
     The distant explosion, the wild sleety wind,
     That seems searching for something it never can find.
     The midnight is turning: the lamp is nigh spent:
     And, wounded and lone, in a desolate tent
     Lies a young British soldier whose sword...
                                               In this place,
     However, my Muse is compell'd to retrace
     Her precipitous steps and revert to the past.
     The shock which had suddenly shatter'd at last
     Alfred Vargrave's fantastical holiday nature,
     Had sharply drawn forth to his full size and stature
     The real man, conceal'd till that moment beneath
     All he yet had appear'd.  From the gay broider'd sheath
     Which a man in his wrath flings aside, even so
     Leaps the keen trenchant steel summon'd forth by a blow.
     And thus loss of fortune gave value to life.
     The wife gain'd a husband, the husband a wife,
     In that home which, though humbled and narrow'd by fate,
     Was enlarged and ennobled by love.  Low their state,
     But large their possessions.
                                   Sir Ridley, forgiven
     By those he unwittingly brought nearer heaven
     By one fraudulent act, than through all his sleek speech
     The hypocrite brought his own soul, safe from reach
     Of the law, died abroad.
                               Cousin John, heart and hand,
     Purse and person, henceforth (honest man!) took his stand
     By Matilda and Alfred; guest, guardian, and friend
     Of the home he both shared and assured, to the end,
     With his large lively love.  Alfred Vargrave meanwhile
     Faced the world's frown, consoled by his wife's faithful smile.
     Late in life he began life in earnest; and still,
     With the tranquil exertion of resolute will,
     Through long, and laborious, and difficult days,
     Out of manifold failure, by wearisome ways,
     Work'd his way through the world; till at last he began
     (Reconciled to the work which mankind claims for man),
     After years of unwitness'd, unwearied endeavor,
     Years impassion'd yet patient, to realize ever
     More clear on the broad stream of current opinion
     The reflex of powers in himself--that dominion
     Which the life of one man, if his life be a truth,
     May assert o'er the life of mankind.  Thus, his youth
     In his manhood renew'd, fame and fortune he won
     Working only for home, love, and duty.
                                             One son
     Matilda had borne him; but scarce had the boy,
     With all Eton yet fresh in his full heart's frank joy,
     The darling of young soldier comrades, just glanced
     Down the glad dawn of manhood at life, when it chanced
     That a blight sharp and sudden was breath'd o'er the bloom
     Of his joyous and generous years, and the gloom
     Of a grief premature on their fair promise fell:
     No light cloud like those which, for June to dispel,
     Captious April engenders; but deep as his own
     Deep nature.  Meanwhile, ere I fully make known
     The cause of this sorrow, I track the event.
     When first a wild war-note through England was sent,
     He, transferring without either token or word,
     To friend, parent, or comrade, a yet virgin sword,
     From a holiday troop, to one bound for the war,
     Had march'd forth, with eyes that saw death in the star
     Whence others sought glory.  Thus fighting, he fell
     On the red field of Inkerman; found, who can tell
     By what miracle, breathing, though shatter'd, and borne
     To the rear by his comrades, pierced, bleeding, and torn.
     Where for long days and nights, with the wound in his side,
     He lay, dark.

     IX.

                     But a wound deeper far, undescried,
     The young heart was rankling; for there, of a truth,
     In the first earnest faith of a pure pensive youth,
     A love large as life, deep and changeless as death,
     Lay ensheath'd: and that love, ever fretting its sheath,
     The frail scabbard of life pierced and wore through and through.
     There are loves in man's life for which time can renew
     All that time may destroy.  Lives there are, though, in love,
     Which cling to one faith, and die with it; nor move,
     Though earthquakes may shatter the shrine.
                                                 Whence or how
     Love laid claim to this young life, it matters not now.

     X.

     Oh is it a phantom? a dream of the night?
     A vision which fever hath fashion'd to sight?
     The wind wailing ever, with motion uncertain,
     Sways sighingly there the drench'd tent's tattered curtain,
     To and fro, up and down.
                               But it is not the wind
     That is lifting it now: and it is not the mind
     That hath moulded that vision.
                                     A pale woman enters,
     As wan as the lamp's waning light, which concenters
     Its dull glare upon her.  With eyes dim and dimmer
     There, all in a slumberous and shadowy glimmer,
     The sufferer sees that still form floating on,
     And feels faintly aware that he is not alone.
     She is flitting before him.  She pauses.  She stands
     By his bedside all silent.  She lays her white hands
     On the brow of the boy.  A light finger is pressing
     Softly, softly the sore wounds: the hot blood-stain'd dressing
     Slips from them.  A comforting quietude steals
     Through the rack'd weary frame; and, throughout it, he feels
     The slow sense of a merciful, mild neighborhood.
     Something smooths the toss'd pillow.  Beneath a gray hood
     Of rough serge, two intense tender eyes are bent o'er him,
     And thrill through and through him.  The sweet form before him,
     It is surely Death's angel Life's last vigil keeping!
     A soft voice says... "Sleep!"
                                       And he sleeps: he is sleeping.

     XI.

     He waked before dawn.  Still the vision is there.
     Still that pale woman moves not.  A minist'ring care
     Meanwhile has been silently changing and cheering
     The aspect of all things around him.
                                           Revering
     Some power unknown, and benignant, he bless'd
     In silence the sense of salvation.  And rest
     Having loosen'd the mind's tangled meshes, he faintly
     Sigh'd... "Say what thou art, blessed dream of a saintly
     And minist'ring spirit!"
                               A whisper serene
     Slid, softer than silence... "The Soeur Seraphine,
     A poor Sister of Charity.  Shun to inquire
     Aught further, young soldier.  The son of thy sire,
     For the sake of that sire, I reclaim from the grave.
     Thou didst not shun death: shun not life: 'Tis more brave
     To live than to die.  Sleep!"
                                    He sleeps: he is sleeping.

     XII.

     He waken'd again, when the dawn was just steeping
     The skies with chill splendor.  And there, never flitting,
     Never flitting, that vision of mercy was sitting.
     As the dawn to the darkness, so life seemed returning
     Slowly, feebly within him.  The night-lamp yet burning,
     Made ghastly the glimmering daybreak.
                                            He said,
     "If thou be of the living, and not of the dead,
     Sweet minister, pour out yet further the healing
     Of that balmy voice; if it may be, revealing
     Thy mission of mercy; whence art thou?"
                                              "O son
     Of Matilda and Alfred, it matters not!  One
     Who is not of the living nor yet of the dead:
     To thee, and to others, alive yet"... she said...
     "So long as there liveth the poor gift in me
     Of this ministration; to them, and to thee,
     Dead in all things beside.  A French Nun, whose vocation
     Is now by this bedside.  A nun hath no nation.
     Wherever man suffers, or woman may soothe,
     There her land! there her kindred!"
                                          She bent down to smooth
     The hot pillow; and added... "Yet more than another
     Is thy life dear to me.  For thy father, thy mother,
     I know them--I know them."
                                 "Oh, can it be? you!
     My dearest dear father! my mother! you knew,'
     You know them?"
                      She bowed, half averting her head
     In silence.
                  He brokenly, timidly said,
     "Do they know I am thus?"
                                "Hush!"... she smiled, as she drew
     From her bosom two letters: and--can it be true?
     That beloved and familiar writing!
                                         He burst
     Into tears... "My poor mother--my father! the worst
     Will have reach'd them!"
                               "No, no!" she exclaimed, with a smile,
     "They know you are living; they know that meanwhile
     I am watching beside you.  Young soldier, weep not!"
     But still on the nun's nursing bosom, the hot
     Fever'd brow of the boy weeping wildly is press'd.
     There, at last, the young heart sobs itself into rest:
     And he hears, as it were between smiling and weeping,
     The calm voice say... "Sleep!"
                                        And he sleeps, he is sleeping.

     XIII.

     And day follow'd day.  And, as wave follow'd wave,
     With the tide, day by day, life, re-issuing, drave
     Through that young hardy frame novel currents of health.
     Yet some strange obstruction, which life's health by stealth
     Seemed to cherish, impeded life's progress.  And still
     A feebleness, less of the frame than the will,
     Clung about the sick man--hid and harbor'd within
     The sad hollow eyes: pinch'd the cheek pale and thin:
     And clothed the wan fingers with languor.
                                                And there,
     Day by day, night by night, unremitting in care,
     Unwearied in watching, so cheerful of mien,
     And so gentle of hand, sat the Soeur Seraphine!

     XIV.

     A strange woman truly! not young; yet her face,
     Wan and worn as it was, bore about it the trace
     Of a beauty which time could not ruin.  For the whole
     Quiet cheek, youth's lost bloom left transparent, the soul
     Seemed to fill with its own light, like some sunny fountain
     Everlastingly fed from far off in the mountain
     That pours, in a garden deserted, its streams,
     And all the more lovely for loneliness seems.
     So that, watching that face, you could scarce pause to guess
     The years which its calm careworn lines might express,
     Feeling only what suffering with these must have past
     To have perfected there so much sweetness at last.

     XV.

     Thus, one bronzen evening, when day had put out,
     His brief thrifty fires, and the wind was about,
     The nun, watchful still by the boy, on his own
     Laid a firm quiet hand, and the deep tender tone
     Of her voice moved the silence.
                                      She said... "I have heal'd
     These wounds of the body.  Why hast thou conceal'd,
     Young soldier, that yet open wound in the heart?
     Wilt thou trust NO hand near it?"
                                        He winced, with a start,
     As of one that is suddenly touched on the spot
     From which every nerve derives suffering.
                                                "What?
     Lies my heart, then, so bare?" he moaned bitterly.
                                                         "Nay,"
     With compassionate accents she hastened to say,
     "Do you think that these eyes are with sorrow, young man,
     So all unfamiliar, indeed, as to scan
     Her features, yet know them not?
                                       "Oh, was it spoken,
     'Go ye forth, heal the sick, lift the low, bind the broken!'
     Of the body alone?  Is our mission, then, done,
     When we leave the bruised hearts, if we bind the bruised bone?
     Nay, is not the mission of mercy twofold?
     Whence twofold, perchance, are the powers that we hold
     To fulfil it, of Heaven!  For Heaven doth still
     To us, Sisters, it may be, who seek it, send skill
     Won from long intercourse with affliction, and art
     Help'd of Heaven, to bind up the broken of heart.
     Trust to me!"  (His two feeble hands in her own
     She drew gently.)  "Trust to me!" (she said, with soft tone):
     "I am not so dead in remembrance to all
     I have died to in this world, but what I recall
     Enough of its sorrow, enough of its trial,
     To grieve for both--save from both haply!  The dial
     Receives many shades, and each points to the sun.
     The shadows are many, the sunlight is one.
     Life's sorrows still fluctuate: God's love does not.
     And His love is unchanged, when it changes our lot.
     Looking up to this light, which is common to all,
     And down to these shadows, on each side, that fall
     In time's silent circle, so various for each,
     Is it nothing to know that they never can reach
     So far, but what light lies beyond them forever?
     Trust to me!  Oh, if in this hour I endeavor
     To trace the shade creeping across the young life
     Which, in prayer till this hour, I have watch'd through its strife
     With the shadow of death, 'tis with this faith alone,
     That, in tracing the shade, I shall find out the sun.
     Trust to me!"
                    She paused: he was weeping.  Small need
     Of added appeal, or entreaty, indeed,
     Had those gentle accents to win from his pale
     And parch'd, trembling lips, as it rose, the brief tale
     Of a life's early sorrow.  The story is old,
     And in words few as may be shall straightway be told.

     XVI.

     A few years ago, ere the fair form of Peace
     Was driven from Europe, a young girl--the niece
     Of a French noble, leaving an old Norman pile
     By the wild northern seas, came to dwell for a while
     With a lady allied to her race--an old dame
     Of a threefold legitimate virtue, and name,
     In the Faubourg Saint Germain.
                                     Upon that fair child,
     From childhood, nor father nor mother had smiled.
     One uncle their place in her life had supplied,
     And their place in her heart: she had grown at his side,
     And under his roof-tree, and in his regard,
     From childhood to girlhood.
                                  This fair orphan ward
     Seem'd the sole human creature that lived in the heart
     Of that stern rigid man, or whose smile could impart
     One ray of response to the eyes which, above
     Her fair infant forehead, look'd down with a love
     That seem'd almost stern, so intense was its chill
     Lofty stillness, like sunlight on some lonely hill
     Which is colder and stiller than sunlight elsewhere.

     Grass grew in the court-yard; the chambers were bare
     In that ancient mansion; when first the stern tread
     Of its owner awaken'd their echoes long dead:
     Bringing with him this infant (the child of a brother),
     Whom, dying, the hands of a desolate mother
     Had placed on his bosom.  'Twas said--right or wrong--
     That, in the lone mansion, left tenantless long,
     To which, as a stranger, its lord now return'd,
     In years yet recall'd, through loud midnights had burn'd
     The light of wild orgies.  Be that false or true,
     Slow and sad was the footstep which now wander'd through
     Those desolate chambers; and calm and severe
     Was the life of their inmate.
                                    Men now saw appear
     Every morn at the mass that firm sorrowful face,
     Which seem'd to lock up in a cold iron case
     Tears harden'd to crystal.  Yet harsh if he were,
     His severity seem'd to be trebly severe
     In the rule of his own rigid life, which, at least,
     Was benignant to others.  The poor parish priest,
     Who lived on his largess, his piety praised.
     The peasant was fed, and the chapel was raised,
     And the cottage was built, by his liberal hand.
     Yet he seem'd in the midst of his good deeds to stand
     A lone, and unloved, and unlovable man.
     There appear'd some inscrutable flaw in the plan
     Of his life, that love fail'd to pass over.
                                                  That child
     Alone did not fear him, nor shrink from him; smiled
     To his frown, and dispell'd it.
                                      The sweet sportive elf
     Seem'd the type of some joy lost, and miss'd, in himself.
     Ever welcome he suffer'd her glad face to glide
     In on hours when to others his door was denied:
     And many a time with a mute moody look
     He would watch her at prattle and play, like a brook
     Whose babble disturbs not the quietest spot,
     But soothes us because we need answer it not.

     But few years had pass'd o'er that childhood before
     A change came among them.  A letter, which bore
     Sudden consequence with it, one morning was placed
     In the hands of the lord of the chateau.  He paced