My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale Part 1

My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale.

by Thomas Woolner.

INTRODUCTION.

"A ray has pierced me from the highest heaven-- I have believed in worth; and do believe."

So runs Mr. Woolner's song, as it proceeds to show the issue of a n.o.ble earthly love, one with the heavenly. Its issue is the life of high endeavour, wherein

"They who would be something more Than they who feast, and laugh and die, will hear The voice of Duty, as the note of war, Nerving their spirits to great enterprise, And knitting every sinew for the charge."

This Library is based on a belief in worth, and on a knowledge of the wide desire among men now to read books that are books, which "do," as Milton says, "contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them."

When, therefore, as now happens for the second time, a man of genius who has written with a hope to lift the hearts and minds of men by adding one more true book to the treasures of the land, honours us by such recognition of our aim, and fellow-feeling with it, that he gives up a part of his exclusive right to his own work, and offers to make it freely current with the other volumes of our series,--we take the gift, if we may dare to say so, in the spirit of the giver, and are the happier for such evidence that we are not working in vain.

Such evidence comes in other forms: as in letters from remote readers in lonely settlements, from the far West, from sheep-farms in Australia, from farthest India, from places to which these little volumes make their way as pioneers; being almost the first real books that have there been seen. To send a true voice over, for delight and support of earnest workers who open their hearts wide to a good book in a way that we can hardly understand,--we who live wastefully in the midst of plenty, and are apt sometimes to leave to feed on the fair mountain and batten on the moor,--is worth the while of any man of genius who puts his soul into his work, as Mr. Woolner does.

Books in the "National Library" that come like those of Mr. Patmore and Mr. Woolner are here as friends and companions. If they were not esteemed highly they would not be here. Beyond that implied opinion there is nothing to be said. He would be an ill-bred host who criticised his guest, or spoke loud praise of him before his face. Nor does a well- known man of our own day need personal introduction. It is only said, in consideration that this book will be read by many who cannot know what is known to those who have access to the works of artists, that Mr. Thomas Woolner is a Royal Academician, and one of the foremost sculptors of our day. For a couple of years, from 1877 to 1879, he was Professor of Sculpture at the Royal Academy. A colossal statue by him in bronze of Captain Cook was designed for a site overlooking Sydney Harbour. A poet's mind has given life to his work on the marble, and when he was an a.s.sociate with Mr. Millais, Mr. Holman Hunt, and others, who, in 1850, were endeavouring to bring truth and beauty of expression into art, by the bold reaction against tame and insincere conventions for which Mr.

Ruskin pleaded and which the time required, Mr. Woolner joined in the production by them of a magazine called "The Germ," to which some of the verses in this volume were contributed.

There is no more to say; but through another page let Wordsworth speak the praise of Books:

Yet is it just That here, in memory of all books which lay Their sure foundations in the heart of man, Whether by native prose, or numerous verse.

That in the name of all inspired souls-- From Homer the great thunderer, from the voice That roars along the bed of Jewish song, And that more varied and elaborate, Those trumpet tones of harmony that shake Our sh.o.r.es in England--from those loftiest notes, Down to the low and wren-like warblings, made For cottagers and spinners at the wheel And sunburnt travellers resting their tired limbs Stretched under wayside hedgerows, ballad tunes Food for the hungry ears of little ones And of old men who have survived their joys-- 'Tis just that in behalf of these, the works, And of the men that framed them, whether known Or sleeping nameless in their scattered graves, That I should here a.s.sert their rights, attest Their honours, and should, once for all, p.r.o.nounce Their benediction; speak of them as Powers For ever to be hallowed; only less, For what we are and what we may become, Than Nature's self, which is the breath of G.o.d, Or His pure Word by miracle revealed.

_Prelude, Book V_.

H. M.

MY BEAUTIFUL LADY. INTRODUCTION.

In some there lies a sorrow too profound To find a voice or to reveal itself Throughout the strain of daily toil, or thought, Or during converse born of souls allied, As aught men understand. And though mayhap Their cheeks will thin or droop; and wane their eyes'

Frank l.u.s.tre; hair may lose its hue, or fall; And health may slacken low in force; and they Are older than the warrant of their years; Yet they to others seem to gild their lives With cheerfulness, and every duty tend, As if their aspects told the truth within.

But they are not as others: not for them The bounding pulse, and ardour of desire, The rapture and the wonder in things new; The hope that palpitating enters where Perfection smiles on universal life; Nor do they with elastic enterprise Forecast delight in compa.s.sing results; Nor, having won their ends, fall G.o.dlike back And taste the calm completion of content.

But in a sober chilled grey atmosphere Work out their lives; more various though they are Than creatures in the unknown ocean depths, Yet each in whom this vital grief has root Is dull to what makes everything of worth.

And though, may be, a shallow bodily joy Oft tingles through them at the breathing spring, Or first-heard exultation of the lark; Still that deep weight draws ever steadily Their thoughts and pa.s.sions back to secret woe.

Though, if endowed with light, heroic deeds May be achieved; and if benignly bent They may be treasured blessings through their lives; Yet power and goodness are to them as dreams, And they heed vaguely, if their waking sight Be met with slanting storm against the pane, Or sunshine glittering on the leaves that play In purest blue of breezy summer morns.

Whence springs this well of mournfulness profound, Unfathomable to plummet cast by man?

Alas; for who can tell! Whence comes the wind Heaving the ocean into maddened arms That clutch and dash huge vessels on the rocks, And scatter them, as if compacted slight As little eggs boys star against a tree In wanton mischief? Whence, detestable, To man, who suffers from the monster-jaws, The power that in the logging crocodiles'

Outrageous bulk puts evil fire of life?

That spouts from mountain-pyramids a flood Of lava, overwhelming works and men In burning, fetid ruin?--The power that stings A city with a pestilence: or turns The pretty babe, who in his mother's lap Babbles her back the lavished kiss and laugh, Through l.u.s.ts and va.s.salage to obdurate sin, Into a knife-armed midnight murderer?

Our lives are mysteries, and rarely scanned As we read stories writ by mortal pen.

We can perchance but catch a straying weft And trace the hinted texture here or there, Of that stupendous loom weaving our fates.

Two parents, late in life, are haply blessed With one bright child, a wonder in his years, For loveliness and genius versatile: Some common ill destroys him; parents, both, Until their death, are left but living tombs That hold the one dead image of their joy.

A man, the flower of honour, who has found His well-beloved young daughter fled from home, Fallen from her maidenhood, a nameless thing Tainting his blood. A youth who throws the strength Of his whole being into love for one Answering him honeyed smiles, and leaves his land For some far country, seeking wealth he hopes Will grace her daintily with choice delights, And on returning sees the honeyed smiles Are sweetening other lips. A husband who Has found that household curse, a faithless wife.

A thinker whose far-piercing care perceives His nation goes the road that ends in shame.

A gracious woman whose reserve denies The power to utter what consumes her heart.

Such instances (and some a loss to know, Which steadfast reticence will shield from those, Debased or garrulous, whose hearts corrupt, But learn the gloomy secrets of their kind To poison-tip their wit, or grope and grin With pharisaic laughter at disgrace)-- Such instances as these demand no guide To thrid the dismal issues from their source!

But others are there, lying fast concealed, Dark, hopeless, and unutterably sad, Which have not been, and never may be known.

Then we may well call happy one whose grief, Mixed up with sacred memories of the past, Can tell to others how the tempest rose, That struck and left him lonely in the world; And who, narrating, feels his sorrow soothed, By that respect which love and sorrow claim.

It much behoves us all, but chiefly those Whom fate has favoured with an easy trust, To keep a bridle upon restless speech And thought: and not in flagrant haste prejudge The first presentment as the rounded truth.

For true it is, that rapid thoughts, and freak Of skimming word, and glance, more frequently Than either malice, settled hate, or scorn, Support confusion, and pervert the right; Set up the weakling in the strong man's place; And yoke the great one's strength to idleness; Pour gold into the squanderer's purse, and suck The wealth, which is a power, from their control Who would have turned it unto n.o.ble use.

And oftentimes a man will strike his friend, By random verbiage, with sharper pain Than could a foe, yet scarcely mean him wrong; For none can strip this complex masquerade And know who languishes with secret wounds.

They whom the brunt of war has maimed in limb, Who lean on crutches to sustain their weight, Are manifest to all; and reverence For their misfortunes kindly gains them place: But wounds, sometimes more deep and dangerous, We may in careless jostle through the crowd, Gall and oppress, because to us unknown.

Then, howsoever by our needs impelled, Let us resolve to move in gentleness; Judge mildly when we doubt; and pause awhile Before injustice palpably proclaimed Ere we let fall the judgment stroke: against Their ignominious craft, who ever wait To filch another's right, we will maintain Majestic peace in silence; knowing well Their craft takes something richer from themselves.

It is but seemly to respect the great; But never let us fail toward lowly ones; Respecting more, in that they lack the force To claim it of the world. For souls there are Of poor capacities, whose purpose holds, Throughout their unregarded lives, a worth, And earnest law of fixed integrity, That were an honour even unto those Whose genius marks the boundaries of our race.

PART THE FIRST.

LOVE.

Love comes divinely, gladdening mortal life, As sunrise dawns upon the gaze of one Bewildered in some outland waste, and lost: Who, lonely faint and shuddering, through the night Heard savage creatures nigh; and far-off moan Of tempests on the wind.

Auroral joy Flushes the brow of childhood, warms his cheek To rosier redness at the name of Love; And earlier thoughts awake in darkness strive; As unfledged nestlings move their sightless heads At sound, toward a fair world to them unknown.

Young Hope scales azure mountain heights to gaze, In Love's first golden and delicious dream.

He sees the earth a maze of tempting paths, For blissful sauntering mid the crowded flowers And music of the rills. No ambushed wrongs, Or thwarting storms there baffle and surprise; But lingering, man treads long an odorous way; And at the close, with Love clasped hand in hand, Sets in proud glory: thence to rise anon With Love beyond the stars and rest in heaven.

Man, nerved by Love, can steadily endure Clash of opposing interests; perplexed web Of crosses that distracting clog advance: In thickest storm of contest waxes stronger At momentary thought of home, of her, His gracious wife, and bright-faced joys.

To him The wrinkled patriarch, who sits and suns His shrunken form beneath the boughs he climbed A lissom boy, whence comes that brooding smile, Whose secret lifts his cheeks, and overflows His sight with tender dew? What through his frame Melts languor sweeter than approaching sleep To one made weary by a hard day's toil?

It is the memory of primal love, Whose visionary splendour steeped his life In hues of heaven; and which grown open day, Revealing perilous falls, his steps confined Within the pathways to the n.o.blest end.

Now following this dimmed glory, tired, his soul Haunts ever the mysterious gates of Death; And waits in patient reverence till his doom Unfolding them fulfils immortal Love.

As from some height, on a wild day of cloud, A wanderer, chilled and worn, perchance beholds Move toward him through the landscape soaked in gloom A golden beam of light; creating lakes, And verdant pasture, farms, and villages; And touching spires atop to flickering flame; Disclosing herds of sober feeding kine; And brightening on its way the woods to song; As he, that wanderer, brightens when the shaft Suddenly falls on him. A moment warmed, He scarcely feels its loveliness before The light departing leaves his saddened soul More cold than ere it came.

Thus love once shone And blessed my life: so vanished into gloom.

I. MY BEAUTIFUL LADY.

I love My Lady; she is very fair; Her brow is wan, and bound by simple hair: Her spirit sits aloof, and high, But glances from her tender eye In sweetness droopingly.

As a young forest while the wind drives through, My life is stirred when she breaks on my view; Her beauty grants my will no choice But silent awe, till she rejoice My longing with her voice.

Her warbling voice, though ever low and mild, Oft makes me feel as strong wine would a child: And though her hand be airy light Of touch, it moves me with its might, As would a sudden fright.

A hawk high poised in air, whose nerved wing-tips Tremble with might suppressed, before he dips, In vigilance, hangs less intense Than I, when her voice holds my sense Contented in suspense.