Volume II Part 35 (1/2)
I waited until the bier, bare of its gentle burden, stood lonely by the grave I waited until the wreaths, flung in, covered the treasure with their kisses that was a jewel for earth to hide I saw the torches thrown into the abyss, quenched by the kisses of the flowers, even as the earthly joy, the beauty, had been quenched in that abyss of light which to us is only darkness I watched the black shadows draw closer round the grave; one suffocating cry arose, as if all hearts were broken in that spashost _But Music never dies_ In reply to that sickening shout, as if, indeed, a heaven opened to receive me, a burst, a peal, a shock of transcendent n the while I heard, nor was it astrain Triumphant, jubilant, subliled into the ar, another strain made way, came forth to meet it, and melted into its embrace, as jubilant as blissful, but farther, fainter, ain it yielded to the echoes; but above those echoes swelled another, a softer, and yet another and a softer voice, that was but theof ly, till death drank distance up, the th, when the mystic spell was broken, and I could hear nothrough all the earth, beyondup to heaven frorave! All peace came there upon me; as a waveless deep it welled up and upwards froer sorrow: my love was dispossessed of fear, and the demon Despair, exorcised, fled as one ept and fain would hide his weeping And yet that hope, if hope it could be, that cooled my heart and cheered my spirit, was not a hope of earth My faith had fleeted as an angel into the light, and that hope alone stayed by , and then not early, that I visited that house and the spirit noithin it whose living voice had called er ti the valley, past the church which guarded now the spot on all this earth the most like heaven, and found the mansion, now untenanted, that Heaven itself had robbed Quiet stillness--not as of death, but ing balconies, the sunburst on the garden, the fresh carnations, the carved gateway, the shaded , and over all the cloudless sky, and around, all that breathed and lived,--it was a lay beyond all poetry, and such a melancholy may never music utter Thone took me in, and I believe she had waited for me at the door She spoke not, and I spoke not; she led me only forwards with the air of one who feels all words are lost between those who understand but cannot benefit each other She led me to a room in which she left me; but I was not to be alone I saw Clara instantly,--she caed as the summer-land without by the tension or the touch of trouble I could not possibly believe, as I saw her, and seeing her felt e flow back, my life resume its current, that she had ever really suffered Her face so calm was not pale; her eye so clear was tearless Nor was there that writhing s than any tears It was entirely in vain I tried to speak,--had she required coed at my will; but if any there required coitation, which would work through all my silence, her sweet voice startled el I should never have listened
”If I had knoould be, I would never have been so rash as to send for you But he was so strange--for he did not suffer--that I could not think he was going to die I do not call it dying, nor would you if you had seen it I wish I couldfeel such death was better than to live”
I put a constraint upon ht , then?” said I; for I could only think of one as darling as well as king
”Poor Starwood! But you will be able to comfort him,--you are the only person who could”
”Perhaps it would not be kind to comfort him; perhaps he would rather suffer But I will dohih the sunny light that despite the shaded s streaain with Starwood He flew at round I have seen women--many--weep, and some fewas he wept Tears--as if tropic rains should drench our Northern gardens--seeentle temperament I could not rouse nor raise him His sodden hair, his hands as damp as death, his dreadful sobs, his moans of misery, his very crushed and helpless attitude, appealed toto do for him that he should be suffered to weep till he was satisfied, or till he could weep no more And yet his tears provoked not mine, but rather drove them inwards and froze them to my heart Nor did Clara weep; but I could not absolutely say whether she had already wept or not,--for where other eyes grow di--had she wept--had only cleared her heaven We sat for hours in that rooether,--that fair but dreadful room, its brilliant furniture unworn, its frescos delicate as any drealorious colors, all fresh as the face of Nature, with hoan towered, andin dark velvet its keys and pipes, reht no ,--the twilight tarried not It crept, it came, it fell upon the death-struck, woful valley O blessed hour,--the repose alike of passion and of grief! O blessed heaven! to have softened the e from day to darkness so that we can bear them both,--never so blessed as when the broken-hearted seek thy twilights and find refreshether by the glorious grave For the first ti I had myself put him in his bed, and rested beside him till he was asleep; then I had returned to Clara She rapped in black, waiting forour intentions to each other; but we both took the saether; and e had kissed the ground she spoke She had not spoken all the day,--rave and serious had been her air; she yet looked more as a child that had lost its father than a ife,--as if she had never been in air possessed her, an unserene reserve, for now her accents faltered
”I could not say to you till ere alone,” she said,--”and we could not be alone to-day,--how ; so many persons are to be here in a day or two, and I wish to consult with you”
”I will see theoing away?”
”Going away? And you to say so, too! I will never leave this place until I die!”
”You love him, then, thank God!”
”Love him! Shall I tell you how? You know best what it was to love him, for you loved him best,--better than I did; and yet I loved him with all love Do I look older, and nificance,--a s how young you look,--too young, almost You are so fresh, so child-like, and-- I think I have grown fairer e to confess, is it? But you areI have been with a spirit-angel,--no wonder I am fresh I have been in heaven,--no wonder I arow better hour by hour After I left you with him, when his arms were round me, when he kissed me, when his tenderness oppressed me,--I felt raised to God No heart ever was so pure, so overfloith the light of heaven I can only believe I have been in heaven, and have fallen here,--not that he has left me, and I must follow him to find him I will not follow yet, my friend! I have much to do that he has left me”
”Thank God, you will not leave us,--but more, because you love him, and made him happy!”
”You do not, perhaps, know that he was never anything but happy When I think of discontent and envy and hatred and anger and care, and see them painted upon other faces, I feel that he must have tasted heaven to have le taste of heaven, sir, lasting a whole life long”
She was his taste of heaven, as a foretaste even to me! But had she, indeed, never learned the secret of his ht?
”I wish to hear about the last”
”You know nearly as much as I do, or as I can tell you You reht? It was the last he wrote, and I found it and saved it, and had done with it what you heard”
But I cannot descant on death-beds; it is the only theme which I dare believe, if I were to touch, would scarehour I will not ta that if the time had been, and that, too, lately, when upon that brain fell the light in fever and the sun in fire, the tihtless, painless, deaf to the farewells of dying music, he, indeed, could not be said to _suffer_ death