The Poetical Works of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart. M.P Part 5

With this doubtful threat He turn'd, was gone!--that look of stern despair, The uncertain footstep tottering down the stair, The clapping door; and then that void and chill, Which would be silence, were the conscience still; That sense of something gone, we would recall; The soul's dim stun before it feels its fall.

VII.

"Next day, the sire my n.o.ble kinsman sought; One ruling senates must be just, he thought.

What chanced, untold--what follow'd may declare: } Behold me summon'd to my uncle's chair! } See his cold eye--_I_ saw my ruin there! } I saw and shrunk not, for a sullen pride Embraced alike the kinsman and the bride: Scorn'd here, the seeming snare by cunning set; And there, coa.r.s.e thraldom, with rebellion met.

"Brief was my Lord--

'An old man tells me, sir, You woo his child, to wed her you demur; Who knows, perhaps (and such his shrewd surmise), The noose is knit--you but conceal the ties!

Please to inform me, ere I go to court, How stands the matter?--sir, my time is short.'

"'My Lord,' I answer'd, with unquailing brow, 'Not to such ears should youth its faults avow; And grant me pardon if I boldly speak, Youth may have secrets honour shuns to seek.

I own I love, proclaim that love as pure!

If this be sin--its sentence I endure.

All else belongs unto that solemn shrine, In the veil'd heart, which manhood holds divine.

Men's hearths are sacred, so our laws decree; Are hearts less sacred? mine at least is free.

Suspect, disown, forsake me, if thou wilt; I prize the freedom where thou seest the guilt.'

My kinsman's hand half-shaded the keen eye, Which glanced askant;--he paused in his reply.

At length, perchance, his practised wit foresaw Threats could not shake where interest fail'd to awe; And judged it wise to construe for the best The all I hid, the little I confess'd; Calmly he answer'd--

'Sir, I like this heat; Duper or duped, a well-bred man's discreet; Take but this hint (one can't have all in life), You lose the uncle if you win the wife.

In this, you choose Rank, Station, Power, Career; In that, Bills, Babies,--and the Bench, I fear.

Hush;--'the least said' (old proverb, sir, but true!)-- As yet your fault indulgently I view.

Words,--notes (sad stuff!)--some promise rashly made-- Action for breach--_that_ scandal must be stay'd.

I trust such sc.r.a.pes will teach you to beware; 'Twill cost some hundreds--that be my affair.

Depart at once--to-morrow--nay, to-day: When fairly gone, there will be less to pay!'

So spoke the Statesman, whom experience told The weight of pa.s.sion in the scales of gold.

Pleased I escape, but how reprieve enjoy?

One word from her distrusted could destroy!

Yet that distrust the whispering heart belied, Self ceased, and anger into pity died; I thought of Mary in her desolate hour, And shudder'd at the blast, and trembled for the flower.

Why not go seek her?--chide the impatient snare; } Or if faith linger'd, win it to forbear? } Now was the time, no jealous father there! } Swift as the thought impell'd me, I obey'd!

'Tis night; once more I greet the moonlit shade; Once more I see the happy murmuring rill; The white cot bower'd beneath the pastoral hill!

An April night, when, after sparkling showers, The dewy gems betray the cradled flowers, As if some sylphid, startled from her bed In the rath blossom by the mortal's tread, Had left behind her pearly coronal.-- Bright shone the stars on Earth's green banquet-hall; You seem'd, abroad, to see, to feel, to hear The new life flus.h.i.+ng through the virgin year; The visible growth--the freshness and the balm; The pulse of Nature throbbing through the calm; As wakeful, over every happy thing, Watch'd through the hush the Earth's young mother--Spring!

Calm from the lattice shot a steady ray; } Calm on the sward its silvery l.u.s.tre lay; } And reach'd, to glad the glancing waves at play. } I stood and gazed within the quiet room;-- Gazed on her cheek;--_there_, spring had lost its bloom!

Alone she sate! _Alone!_--that worn-out word, So idly spoken, and so coldly heard; Yet all that poets sing, and grief hath known, Of hope laid waste, knells in that word--ALONE!

"Who contemplates, aspires, or dreams, is not Alone: he peoples with rich thoughts the spot.

The only loneliness--how dark and blind!-- Is that where fancy cannot dupe the mind; Where the heart, sick, despondent, tired with all, Looks joyless round, and sees the dungeon wall; When even G.o.d is silent, and the curse Of torpor settles on the universe; When prayer is powerless, and one sense of dearth Abysses all, _save_ solitude, on earth!

So sate the bride!--the drooping form, the eye Vacant, yet fix'd,--that air which Misery, The heart's Medusa, hardens into stone, Sculptured the Death which dwelleth in the lone!

Oh, the wild burst of joy,--the life that came } Swift, brightening, bounding through the lips and frame, } When o'er the floors I stole, and whisper'd soft her name! } 'Come--come at last! Oh, rapture!'

Who can say Why meaner natures hold mysterious sway Over the n.o.bler? Why mine orb malign Ruled as a fate a spirit so divine; Giving or light or darkness all its own Unto a star so near the Sapphire Throne?

"'So thou art come!'

'Hus.h.!.+ say whose lips reveal'd All _these_ soft traitors swore to guard conceal'd-- Our love--my name?'

'Not I--not I--thy wife!

No, truth to thee more dear than fame, than life: A friend, my father's friend, the secret told; How guess'd I know not. Oh! if Love controll'd My heart that hour--that bitter hour--when, there Bent that old man who----Husband, hear my prayer Have mercy on my father!--break, oh, break This crus.h.i.+ng silence!--bid his daughter speak, And say, Thou'rt not dishonour'd?'

'If thou wilt, Tell all;--dishonour not alone in guilt!

Men's eyes dishonour in the fallen see;-- Speak, and dishonour thou inflict'st on me: The debt, the want, the beggary, and the shame,-- The pauper branded on the n.o.ble's name!

Speak and inflict--I still can spurn--the doom; Unveil the altar to prepare the tomb!

I, who already in my grasp behold, Bright from Hesperian fields, the fruit of gold, By which alone the glorious prize we gain, Foil'd of the goal will die upon the plain.

I own two brides, both dear alike, and see In one Ambition--in the other Thee: Destroy thy rival, and to her destroy'd Succeeds despair to make the world a void.'

Then, with stern frankness to that shrinking ear, I told my hopes,--in her my only fear; Told, with a cheek no humbling blushes dyed, How met the sire--how unavow'd the bride!

'Thus have I wrong'd--this cruel silence mine; And now be truth, and truth is vengeance, thine!'

I ceased to speak; lo, she had ceased to weep; Her white lips writhed, as Suffering in its sleep; And o'er the frame a tremulous shudder went, As every life-stream to the source was sent: The very sense seem'd absent from the look, And with the Heart, its temple, Reason shook!

So there was silence; such a silence broods In winter nights, o'er frost-bound solitudes, Darkness, and ice, and stillness all in one,-- The silence without life, the withering without sun.

But o'er that silence, as at night's full noon, Through breathless cloud, s.h.i.+mmers the sudden moon; A sad but heavenly smile a moment stirr'd, And heralded the martyr's patient word: 'Fear not; pursue thy way to fortune, fame; I will not soil thy glory with my shame.

Betray! avenge!--For ever, until thou Proclaim the bond and ratify the vow, Closed in this heart, as lamps within the tomb, Shall waste the light, that lives amidst the gloom,-- That lives, for oh! the day _shall_ come at length, Though late, though slow,--(give hope, for hope is strength!)-- When, from a father's breast no more exiled, The wife may ask forgiveness for the child?'"

VIII.

"And so you parted?" with a moisten'd eye, Said Morvale;--"nay, man, spare me the reply; Too much the Eve has moved me----"

"Not to feel That for the serpent which thy looks reveal,"

Said Arden, sadly smiling; "yet in truth, See how the grey world grafts its age on youth; See how we learn to prize the bullion Vice, Coin'd in all shapes, yet still but Avarice; The stamp may vary,--you the coin may call 'Ambition,' 'Power,' 'Success,'--but Gold is all.

Mine is the memoir of a selfish age: Turn every leaf--slight difference in the page; Through each, the same fierce struggle to secure Earth's one great end--distinction from the Poor; All our true wealth, like alchemists of old, Fused in the furnace--for a grain of gold.

IX.

"Well then, we parted,--to make brief the tale, I take my orders, and my leave, set sail; For weeks, for months, fond letters, long nor few, Keep hope alive with love for ever new: If she had suffer'd, she betray'd it not; All save one sweetness--'that we loved' forgot.

She never named her father;--once indeed The name _was_ writ, but blurr'd;--it was decreed That she should fill the martyr-measure,--hide Not the dart only, but the bleeding side, And, wholly generous in the offering made, Veil even sorrow, lest it should upbraid.

"At length one letter came--the _last_; more blest In faith, in love, false hope, than all the rest; But at the close some hastier lines appear, Tremblingly writ, and stain'd with many a tear, In which, less said than timorously implied (The maid still blus.h.i.+ng through the secret bride), I heard her heart through that far distance beat: The hour Eve's happiest daughter dreads to meet,-- The hour of Nature's agony was nigh,-- Husband and father, false one, where was I?

"Slow day on slow day, unrevealing, crept, And still its ice the freezing silence kept: Fear seized my soul, I could no longer brook The voiceless darkness which the daylight took.

I feign'd excuse for absence;--left the sh.o.r.e: Fair blow the winds;--behold her home once more!

"Her home! a desert! Still, though rank and wild, On the rank gra.s.s the heedless floweret smiled; Still by the porch you heard the ungrateful bee; Still brawl'd the brooklet's unremembering glee; But they--the souls of the sweet pastoral ground?

Green o'er the father rose the sullen mound!

Amidst his poor he slept; _his_ end was known,-- Life's record rounded with the funeral stone: But she?--but Mary?--but my child?--what dews Fall on _their_ graves?--what herbs which heaven renews Pall their pure clay?--Oh! were it mine at least To weep, beloved, where your relics rest!-- Bear with me, Morvale,--pity if you can-- These thoughts unman me--no, they prove me man!"

"Man of the cities," with a mutter'd scorn, Groan'd the stern Nomad from the lands of Morn,-- "Man of the sleek, far-looking prudence, which Beggars life's May, life's Autumn to enrich; Which, the deed doing, halts not in its course, But, the deed done, finds comfort in remorse.

Man, in whom sentiment, the bloodless shade Of n.o.ble pa.s.sion, alternates with trade,-- Hard in his error--feeble in his tears, And huckstering love, yet prattling of the spheres!"

So mused the sombre savage, till the pale And self-gnaw'd worldling nerved him to his tale:-- "The hireling watch'd the bed where Mary lay, In stranger arms my first-born saw the day.

Below,--unseen _his_ travail, all unknown _His_ war with Nature, sate the sire alone: He had not thrust the one he still believed, If silent, sinless, or in sin deceived-- He had not thrust her from a father's door; So Shame came in, and cower'd upon the floor, And face to face with Shame, he sate to hear The groan above bring torture to his ear.

In that sad night, when the young mother slept, Forth from his door the elder mourner crept; Absent for days, none knowing whither bent, Till back return'd abruptly as he went.

With a swift tremulous stride he climb'd the stair, } Through the closed chamber gleam'd his silver hair, } And Mary heard his voice soft--pitying--as in prayer! } 'Child, child, I was too hard!--But woe is wild; Now I know all!--again I clasp my child!'

Within his arms, upon his heart again His Mary lay, and strove for words in vain; She strove for words, but better spoke through tears The love the heart through silence vents and hears.

"All this I gather'd from the nurse, who saw The scene, which dews from hireling eyes could draw; So far;--her sob the pastor heard, and turn'd, Waved his wan hand, nor what more chanced she learn'd.

"Next morn in death the happier father lay, From sleep to Heaven his soul had pa.s.s'd away; He had but lived to pardon and to bless His child;--emotion kills in its excess, And that task done, why longer on the rack Stretch the worn frame?--G.o.d's mercy call'd him back.

The day they buried him, while yet the strife Of sense and memory raged for death and life In Mary's shatter'd brain, her father's friend, Whose hand, perchance, had sped him to his end, Whose zeal officious had explored, reveal'd My name, the half, worse half, of all conceal'd, Sought her, and saw alone: When gone, a change Came o'er the victim, terrible and strange; All grief seem'd hush'd--a stern tranquillity Calm'd the wan brow and fix'd the gla.s.sy eye; She spoke not, moved not, wept not,--on her breast Slept Earth's new stranger--not more deep its rest.

They fear'd her in that mood--with noiseless tread Stole from the room; and, ere the morn, she fled.

Gone the young Mother with her babe!--no trace; As the wind goes, she vanish'd from the place; They search'd the darkness of the wood, they pried Into the secrets of the tempting tide, In vain,--unseen on earth as in the wave, Where life found refuge or despair a grave."

"And is this all?" said Morvale-- "No, my thought Guess'd at the clue; her father's friend I sought, A stern hard man, of Calvin's iron mould, And yet I moved him, and his tale he told.

It seem'd (by me unmark'd), amidst the rest, My uncle's board had known this homely guest.

Our evil star had led the guest, one day, Where through the lone glade wound our lovers' way, To view, with Age's hard, suspecting eyes, The high-born courtier in the student's guise.