Part 38 (1/2)

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 pa.s.s'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 pa.s.sing, 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 m.u.f.fled. 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) G.o.d's dread office and right Of punis.h.i.+ng 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, pa.s.sing, wild travellers paused, over-night, To quaff and carouse; in each socket each light Is extinct; crash'd the gla.s.ses, 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 pa.s.s'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 pa.s.sing 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.