That father's beard was long and white,
With love and truth his brow seemed bright;
I went back, all on fire with joy,
And, that same evening, bade the boy
Tell me, as lovers should, heart-free,
Something to prove his love of me.
He told me what he would not tell
For hope of heaven or fear of hell;
And I lay listening in such pride!
And, soon as he had left my side,
Tripped to the church by morning-light
To save his soul in his despite.
I told the father all his schemes,
Who were his comrades, what their dreams;
“And now make haste," I said, " to pray
The one spot from his soul away;
To-night he comes, but not the same
Will look!" At night he never came.
Nor next night on the after-morn,
went forth with a strength new-born.
The church was empty; something drew
My steps into the street; I knew
It led me to the market-place:
Where, lo, on high, the father's face!
That horrible black scaffold dressed,
That stapled block . . . God sink the rest!
That head strapped back, that blinding vest,
Those knotted hands and naked breast,
Till near one busy hangman pressed,
And, on the neck these arms caressed.
No part in aught they hope or fear!
No heaven with them, no hell! — and here,
No earth, not so much space as pens
My body in their worst of dens
But shall bear God and man my cry,
Lies - lies, again—and still, they lie!
She should never have looked at me
If she meant I should not love her! There are plenty
All her soul to, if she pleases,
And yet leave much as she found them: But I'm not so, and she knew it
When she fixed me, glancing round them.
What? To fix me thus meant nothing?
But I can't tell (there's my weakness)
What her look said! - no vile cant, sure,
About "need to strew the bleakness Of some lone shore with its pearl-seed, That the sea feels "
That such souls have, most to lavish
Where there's chance of least returning."
Oh we 're sunk enough here, God knows!
But not quite so sunk that moments,
Sure though seldom, are denied us,
When the spirit's true endowments
Stand out plainly from its false ones,
And apprise it if pursuing
Or the right way or the wrong way,
To its triumph or undoing.
There are flashes struck from midnights,
There are fire-flames noondays kindle,
Whereby piled-up honors perish,
Whereby swollen ambitions dwindle, While just this or that poor impulse, Which for once had play unstifled, Seems the sole work of a lifetime, That away the rest have trifled.
Oh, observe! Of course, next moment,
The world's honors, in derision,
Trampled out the light forever:
Never fear but there's provision
Of the devil's to quench knowledge
Lest we walk the earth in rapture!
Making those who catch God's secret
Just so much more prize their capture!
Such am I the secret's mine now!
She has lost me, I have gained her;
Her soul's mine: and thus, grown perfect,
I shall pass my life's remainder.
Life will just hold out the proving
Both our powers, alone and blended:
And then, come the next life quickly!
This world's use will have been ended.
All's over, then: does truth sound bitter
As one at first believes?
Hark, 't is the sparrows' good-night twitter
About your cottage eaves!
And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly,
I noticed that, to-day;
One day more bursts them open fully
-You know the red turns gray.
To-morrow we meet the same then, dearest ?
May I take your hand in mine?
Mere friends are we, well, friends the merest Keep much that I resign:
For each glance of the eye so bright and black, Though I keep with heart's endeavor,
Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back, Though it stay in my soul forever ! –
Yet I will but say what mere friends say,
Or only a thought stronger;
I will hold your hand but as long as all may,
Or so very little longer!
See, as the prettiest graves will do in time,
Our poet's wants the freshness of its prime;
Spite of the sexton's browsing horse, the sods
Have struggled through its binding osier rods;
Headstone and half-sunk footstone lean awry,
Wanting the brick-work promised by-and-by;
How the minute gray lichens, plate o'er plate,
Have softened down the crisp-cut name and date!
So, the year's done with!
(Love me forever !)
All March begun with,
April's endeavor;
May-wreaths that bound me
June needs must sever;
Now snows fall round me,
Quenching June's fever-
(Love me forever !)
The gray sea and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low;
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed i' the slushy sand.
Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross tili a farm appears;
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, through its joys and fears,
Than the two hearts beating each to each!
Round the cape of a sudden came the sea,
And the sun looked over the mountain's rim:
And straight was a path of gold for him,
And the need of a world of men for me.
Nay but you, who do not love her,
Is she not pure gold, my mistress?
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