Adela Cathcart Volume Ii Part 11

'And then?' 'More sea, more sea more land, And rivers deep and wide.'

"'And then?' 'Oh! rock and mountain and vale, Rivers and fields and men; Over and over--a weary tale-- And round to your home again.'

"'Is that the end? It is weary at best.'

'No, child; it is not the end.

On summer eves, away in the west, You will see a stair ascend;

"'Built of all colours of lovely stones-- A stair up into the sky; Where no one is weary, and no one moans, Or wants to be laid by.'

"'I will go.' 'But the steps are very steep: If you would climb up there, You must lie at its foot, as still as sleep, And be a step of the stair,

"'For others to put their feet on you, To reach the stones high-piled; Till Jesus comes and takes you too, And leads you up, my child!'"

"That is one of your parables, I am sure, Ralph," said the doctor, who was sitting, quite at his ease, on a footstool, with his back against the wall, by the side of the fire opposite to Adela, casting every now and then a glance across the fiery gulf, just as he had done in church when I first saw him. And Percy was there to watch them, though, from some high words I overheard, I had judged that it was with difficulty his mother had prevailed on him to come. I could not help thinking myself, that two pairs of eyes met and parted rather oftener than any other two pairs in the room; but I could find nothing to object.

"Now, Miss Cathcart, it is your turn to sing."

"Would you mind singing another of Heine's songs?" said the doctor, as he offered his hand to lead her to the piano.

"No," she answered. "I will not sing one of that sort. It was not liked last time. Perhaps what I do sing won't be much better though.

"The waters are rising and flowing Over the weedy stone-- Over and over it going: It is never gone.

"So joy on joy may go sweeping Over the head of pain-- Over and over it leaping: It will rise again."

"Very lovely, but not much better than what I asked for. In revenge, I will give you one of Heine's that my brother translated. It always reminds me, with a great difference, of one in In Memoriam, beginning: _Dark house_."

So spake Harry, and sang:

"The shapes of the days forgotten Out of their graves arise, And show me what once my life was, In the presence of thine eyes.

"All day through the streets I wandered, As in dreams men go and come; The people in wonder looked at me, I was so mournful dumb.

"It was better though, at night-fall, When, through the empty town, I and my shadow together Went silent up and down.

"With echoing, echoing footstep, Over the bridge I walk; The moon breaks out of the waters, And looks as if she would talk.

"I stood still before thy dwelling, Like a tree that prays for rain; I stood gazing up at thy window-- My heart was in such pain.

"And thou lookedst through thy curtains-- I saw thy s.h.i.+ning hand; And thou sawest me, in the moonlight, Still as a statue stand."

"Excuse me," said Mrs. Cathcart, with a smile, "but I don't think such sentimental songs good for anybody. They can't be _healthy_--I believe that is the word they use now-a-days."

"I don't say they are," returned the doctor; "but many a pain is relieved by finding its expression. I wish he had never written worse."

"That is not why I like them," said the curate. "They seem to me to hold the same place in literature that our dreams do in life. If so much of our life is actually spent in dreaming, there must be some place in our literature for what corresponds to dreaming. Even in this region, we cannot step beyond the boundaries of our nature. I delight in reading Lord Bacon now; but one of Jean Paul's dreams will often give me more delight than one of Bacon's best paragraphs. It depends upon the mood.

Some dreams like these, in poetry or in sleep, arouse individual states of consciousness altogether different from any of our waking moods, and not to be recalled by any mere effort of the will. All our being, for the moment, has a new and strange colouring. We have another kind of life. I think myself, our life would be much poorer without our dreams; a thousand rainbow tints and combinations would be gone; music and poetry would lose many an indescribable exquisiteness and tenderness.

You see I like to take our dreams seriously, as I would even our fun.

For I believe that those new mysterious feelings that come to us in sleep, if they be only from dreams of a richer gra.s.s and a softer wind than we have known awake, are indications of wells of feeling and delight which have not yet broken out of their hiding-places in our souls, and are only to be suspected from these rings of fairy green that spring up in the high places of our sleep."

"I say, Ralph," interrupted Harry, "just repeat that strangest of Heine's ballads, that--"

"Oh, no, no; not that one. Mrs. Cathcart would not like it at all."

"Yes, please do," said Adela.

"Pray don't think of me, gentlemen," said the aunt.

"No, I won't," said the curate.

"Then I will," said the doctor, with a glance at Adela, which seemed to say--"If you want it, you shall have it, whether they like it or not."

He repeated, with just a touch of the recitative in his tone, the following verses:

"Night lay upon mine eyelids; Upon my mouth lay lead; With withered heart and sinews, I lay among the dead.

"How long I lay and slumbered, I knew not in the gloom.

I wakened up, and listened To a knocking at my tomb.

"'Wilt thou not rise, my Henry?

Immortal day draws on; The dead are all arisen; The endless joy begun.'

"'My love, I cannot raise me; Nor could I find the door; My eyes with bitter weeping Are blind for evermore.'

"'But from thine eyes, dear Henry, I'll kiss away the night; Thou shall behold the angels, And Heaven's own blessed light.'

"'My love, I cannot raise me; The blood is flowing still, Where thou, heart-deep, didst stab me, With a dagger-speech, to kill.'

"'Oh! I will lay my hand, Henry, So soft upon thy heart; And that will stop the bleeding-- Stop all the bitter smart.'

"'My love, I cannot raise me; My head is bleeding too.

When thou wast stolen from me, I shot it through and through.'

"'With my thick hair, my Henry, I will stop the fountain red; Press back again the blood-stream, And heal thy wounded head.'

"She begged so soft, so dearly, I could no more say no; Writhing, I strove to raise me, And to the maiden go.

"Then the wounds again burst open; And afresh the torrents break From head and heart--life's torrents-- And lo! I am awake."

"There now, that is enough!" said the curate. "That is not nice--is it, Mrs. Cathcart?"

Mrs. Cathcart smiled, and said:

"I should hardly have thought your time well-spent in translating it, Mr. Armstrong."