The Haunted Hour Part 15

Our little lives are kept in equipoise By opposite attractions and desires: The struggle of the instinct that enjoys, And the more n.o.ble instinct that aspires.

These perturbations, this perpetual jar Of earthly wants and aspirations high, Come from the influence of an unseen star, An undiscovered planet in our sky.

And as the moon from some dark gate of cloud Throws o'er the sea a floating bridge of light, Across whose trembling planks our fancies crowd Into the realm of mystery and night--

So from the world of spirits there descends, A bridge of light, connecting it with this, O'er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends, Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss.

THE BELEAGUERED CITY: HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

I have read in some old marvellous tale, Some legend strange and vague, That a midnight host of spectres pale Beleaguered the walls of Prague.

Beside the Moldau's rus.h.i.+ng stream, With the wan moon overhead, There stood, as in an awful dream, The army of the dead.

White as a sea-fog, landward bound, The spectral band was seen, And with a sorrowful deep sound, The river flowed between.

No other voice nor sound was there, No drum nor sentry's pace, The mist-like banners clasped the air As clouds with clouds embrace.

And when the old cathedral bell Proclaimed the morning prayer, The white pavilions rose and fell On the alarmed air.

Down the broad valley fast and far The troubled army fled: Up rose the glorious morning star, The ghastly host was dead.

I have read in the marvellous heart of man, That strange and mystic scroll, That an army of phantoms vast and wan Beleaguer the human soul.

Encamped beside Life's rus.h.i.+ng stream, In Fancy's misty light, Gigantic shapes and shadows gleam Portentous through the night.

Upon its midnight battle-ground The spectral camp is seen, And, with a sorrowful, deep sound, Flows the River of Life between.

No other voice nor sound is there, In the army of the grave; No other challenge breaks the air, But the rus.h.i.+ng of Life's wave.

And then the solemn and deep church-bell Entreats the soul to pray, The midnight phantoms feel the spell, The shadows sweep away.

Down the broad Vale of Tears afar The spectral camp is fled; Faith s.h.i.+neth as a morning star, Our ghastly fears are dead.

A NEWPORT ROMANCE: BRET HARTE

They say that she died of a broken heart (I tell the tale as 'twas told to me); But her spirit lives, and her soul is part Of this sad old house by the sea.

Her lover was fickle and fine and French; It was more than a hundred years ago When he sailed away from her arms,--poor wench!-- With the Admiral Rochambeau.

I marvel much what periwigged phrase Won the heart of this sentimental Quaker, At what gold-laced speech of those modish days She listened,--the mischief take her!

But she kept the posies of mignonette That he gave; and ever as their bloom failed And faded (though with her tears still wet) Her youth with their own exhaled.

Till one night when the sea fog wrapped a shroud Round spar and spire and tarn and tree, Her soul went up on that lifted cloud From this sad old house by the sea.

And ever since then, when the clock strikes two, She walks unbidden from room to room, And the air is filled as she pa.s.ses through With a subtle, sad perfume.

The delicate odor of mignonette, The ghost of a dead-and-gone bouquet, Is all that tells of her story; yet Could she think of a sweeter way?

I sit in the sad old house to-night-- Myself a ghost from a farther sea; And I trust that this Quaker woman might, In courtesy, visit me.

For the laugh is fled from the porch and lawn, And the bugle died from the fort on the hill, And the twitter of girls on the stairs is gone, And the grand piano is still.

Somewhere in the darkness a clock strikes two; And there is no sound in the sad old house, But the long veranda dripping with dew, And in the wainscot a mouse.

The light of my study-lamp streams out From the library door, but has gone astray In the depths of the darkened hall; small doubt But the Quakeress knows the way.

Was it the trick of a sense o'erwrought With outward watching and inward fret?

But I swear that the air just now was fraught With the odor of mignonette!

I open the window and seem almost-- So still lies the ocean--to hear the beat Of its great Gulf Artery off the coast, And to bask in its tropic heat.

In my neighbor's windows the gas lights flare As the dancers swing in a waltz from Strauss; And I wonder now could I fit that air To the song of this sad old house.

And no odor of mignonette there is, But the breath of morn on the dewy lawn; And maybe from causes as slight as this The quaint old legend was born.

But the soul of that subtle sad perfume, As the spiced embalmings, they say, outlast The mummy laid in his rocky tomb, Awakens my buried past.

And I think of the pa.s.sion that shook my youth, Of its aimless loves and its idle pains, And am thankful now for the certain truth That only the sweet remains.

And I hear no rustle of stiff brocade, And I see no face at my library door; For now that the ghosts of my heart are laid, She is viewless forevermore.

But whether she came as a faint perfume, Or whether a spirit in stole of white, I feel, as I pa.s.s from the darkened room, She has been with my soul to-night.

A LEGEND: MAY KENDALL

Ay, an old story, yet it might Have truth in it--who knows?

Of the heroine's breaking down one night Just ere the curtain rose.

And suddenly, when fear and doubt Had shaken every heart, There stepped an unknown actress out, To take the heroine's part.

But oh, the magic of her face, And oh the songs she sung, And oh the rapture of the place, And oh the flowers they flung!

But she never stooped: they lay all night, As when she turned away, And left them--and the saddest light Shone in her eyes of grey.

She gave a smile in glancing round, And sighed, one fancied, then-- But never they knew where she was bound, Or saw her face again,

But the old prompter, grey and frail, They heard him murmur low, "It only could be Meg Coverdale, Died thirty years ago,

"In that old part, who took the town; And she was fair, as fair As when they shut the coffin down On the gleam of her golden hair;

"And it wasn't hard to understand How a la.s.s as fair as she Could never rest in the Promised Land, Where none but angels be."