Volume I Part 28 (1/2)

Within those secret walls what do I see?

Where first she set the taper down she stands: Not Pallas: Hebe shamed! Thoughts black as death Like a stirred pool in suns.h.i.+ne break. Her wrists I catch: she faltering, as she half resists, 'You love . . .? love . . .? love . . .?' all on an indrawn breath.

XLIII

Mark where the pressing wind shoots javelin-like Its skeleton shadow on the broad-backed wave!

Here is a fitting spot to dig Love's grave; Here where the ponderous breakers plunge and strike, And dart their hissing tongues high up the sand: In hearing of the ocean, and in sight Of those ribbed wind-streaks running into white.

If I the death of Love had deeply planned, I never could have made it half so sure, As by the unblest kisses which upbraid The full-waked sense; or failing that, degrade!

'Tis morning: but no morning can restore What we have forfeited. I see no sin: The wrong is mixed. In tragic life, G.o.d wot, No villain need be! Pa.s.sions spin the plot: We are betrayed by what is false within.

XLIV

They say, that Pity in Love's service dwells, A porter at the rosy temple's gate.

I missed him going: but it is my fate To come upon him now beside his wells; Whereby I know that I Love's temple leave, And that the purple doors have closed behind.

Poor soul! if, in those early days unkind, Thy power to sting had been but power to grieve, We now might with an equal spirit meet, And not be matched like innocence and vice.

She for the Temple's wors.h.i.+p has paid price, And takes the coin of Pity as a cheat.

She sees through simulation to the bone: What's best in her impels her to the worst: Never, she cries, shall Pity soothe Love's thirst, Or foul hypocrisy for truth atone!

XLV

It is the season of the sweet wild rose, My Lady's emblem in the heart of me!

So golden-crowned s.h.i.+nes she gloriously, And with that softest dream of blood she glows; Mild as an evening heaven round Hesper bright!

I pluck the flower, and smell it, and revive The time when in her eyes I stood alive.

I seem to look upon it out of Night.

Here's Madam, stepping hastily. Her whims Bid her demand the flower, which I let drop.

As I proceed, I feel her sharply stop, And crush it under heel with trembling limbs.

She joins me in a cat-like way, and talks Of company, and even condescends To utter laughing scandal of old friends.

These are the summer days, and these our walks.

XLVI

At last we parley: we so strangely dumb In such a close communion! It befell About the sounding of the Matin-bell, And lo! her place was vacant, and the hum Of loneliness was round me. Then I rose, And my disordered brain did guide my foot To that old wood where our first love-salute Was interchanged: the source of many throes!

There did I see her, not alone. I moved Toward her, and made proffer of my arm.

She took it simply, with no rude alarm; And that disturbing shadow pa.s.sed reproved.

I felt the pained speech coming, and declared My firm belief in her, ere she could speak.

A ghastly morning came into her cheek, While with a widening soul on me she stared.

XLVII

We saw the swallows gathering in the sky, And in the osier-isle we heard them noise.

We had not to look back on summer joys, Or forward to a summer of bright dye: But in the largeness of the evening earth Our spirits grew as we went side by side.

The hour became her husband and my bride.

Love, that had robbed us so, thus blessed our dearth!

The pilgrims of the year waxed very loud In mult.i.tudinous chatterings, as the flood Full brown came from the West, and like pale blood Expanded to the upper crimson cloud.

Love, that had robbed us of immortal things, This little moment mercifully gave, Where I have seen across the twilight wave The swan sail with her young beneath her wings.

XLVIII

Their sense is with their senses all mixed in, Destroyed by subtleties these women are!