Poems Part 9

EDWARD.

My hand is o'er my heart--and shall remain.-- Let the swift minutes run, red sink the sun, To-morrow will be rich with Violet.

WALTER.

So be it, large he sinks! Repentant Day Frees with his dying hand the pallid stars He held imprisoned since his young hot dawn.

Now watch with what a silent step of fear They'll steal out one by one, and overspread The cool delicious meadows of the night.

EDWARD.

And lo, the first one flutters in the blue With a quick sense of liberty and joy!

(_Two hours afterwards_), WALTER.

The rosy glow has faded from the sky, The rosy glow has faded from the sea.

A tender sadness drops upon my soul, Like the soft twilight dropping on the world.

EDWARD.

Behold yon shining symbol overhead, Clear Venus hanging in the mellow west, Jupiter large and sovereign in the east, With the red Mars between.

WALTER.

See yon poor star That shudders o'er the mournful hill of pines!

'Twould almost make you weep, it seems so sad.

'Tis like an orphan trembling with the cold Over his mother's grave among the pines.

Like a wild lover who has found his love Worthless and foul, our friend, the sea, has left His paramour the sh.o.r.e; naked she lies, Ugly and black and bare. Hark how he moans!

The pain is in his heart. Inconstant fool!

He will be up upon her breast to-morrow, As eager as to-day.

EDWARD.

Like man in that.

We cannot see the lighthouse in the gloom, We cannot see the rock; but look! now, now, It opes its ruddy eye, the night recoils, A crimson line of light runs out to sea, A guiding torch to the benighted ships.

[_After a long pause._ O G.o.d! 'mid our despairs and throbs and pains, What a calm joy doth fill great Nature's heart!

WALTER.

Thou look'st up to the night as to the face Of one thou lov'st; I know her beauty is Deep-mirrored in thy soul as in a sea.

What are thy thinkings of the earth and stars?

A theatre magnificently lit For sorry acting, undeserved applause?

Dost think there's any music in the spheres?

Or doth the whole creation, in thine ear, Moan like a stricken creature to its G.o.d, Fettered eternal in a lair of pain?

EDWARD.

I think--we are two fools: let us to bed.

What care the stars for us?

SCENE VIII.

_Evening_--_A Room in a Manor_--Mr. WILMOTT, ARTHUR, EDWARD--WALTER _seated a little apart._

WALTER.

She grows on me like moonrise on the night-- My life is shaped in spite of me, the same As ocean by his sh.o.r.es. Why am I here?

The weary sun was lolling in the west, Edward and I were sauntering on the sh.o.r.e Yawning with idleness; and so we came To kill the tedium of slow-creeping days.

On such slight hinges an existence turns!

How frequent in the very thick of life We rub clothes with a fate that hurries past!

A tiresome friend detains us in the street, We part, and turning, meet fate in the teeth.

A moment more or less had 'voided it.

Yet through the subtle texture of our souls, From circ.u.mstance each draws a different hue.

The sunlight falls upon a bed of flowers, From the same sunlight one draws crimson deep, Another azure pale. Edward and I See Violet each day, her silks brush both, She smiles on both alike--My heart! she comes.

[VIOLET _enters and crosses the room._ O G.o.d! I'd be the very floor that bears Such a majestic thing! Now feed, my eyes, On beauteous poison, Nightshade, honey sweet.

[_A silence._

VIOLET.

There is a ghastly chasm in the talk, As if a fate hung in the midst of us, Its shadow on each heart. Why, this should be A dark and l.u.s.trous night of wit and wine, Rich with quick bouts of merry argument, And witty sallies quenched in laughter sweet, Yet my voice trembles in a solitude, Like a lone man in a great wilderness.

MR. WILMOTT.

Arthur, you once could sing a roaring song, That to the chorus drew our voices out; 'Twere no bad plan to sing us one to-night.

Come, wash the roughness from your throat with wine.

ARTHUR.

What sort of song, Sirs, shall I sing to you-- Dame Venus panting on her bed of flowers, Or Bacchus purple-mouthed astride his tun?

Now for a headlong song of blooded youth, Give 't such a welcome as shall lift the roof off-- Sweet friends, be ready with a hip hurrah!

ARTHUR _sings._

A fig for a draught from your crystalline fountains, Your cold sunken wells, In mid forest dells, Ha! bring me the fiery bright dew of the mountains, When yellowed with peat-reek, and mellowed with age, O, richest joy-giver!

Rare warmer of liver!

Diviner than kisses, thou droll and thou sage!

Fine soul of a land struck with brightest sun-tints, Of dark purple moors, Of sleek ocean-floors, Of hills stained with heather like b.l.o.o.d.y footprints; In sunshine, in rain, a flask shall be nigh me, Warm heart, blood and brain, Fine Sprite deify me!

I've drunk 'mong slain deer in a lone mountain shieling, I've drunk till delirious, While rain beat imperious, And rang roof and rafter with bagpipes and reeling.

I've drunk in Red Rannoch, amid its grey boulders: Where, fain to be kist, Through his thin scarf of mist, Ben-More to the sun heaves his wet shining shoulders!

I've tumbled in hay with the fresh ruddy la.s.ses, I've drunk with the reapers, I've roared with the keepers, And scared night away with the ring of our gla.s.ses!

In sunshine, in rain, a flask shall be nigh me, Warm heart, blood, and brain, Fine Sprite deify me!

Come, string bright songs upon a thread of wine, And let the coming midnight pa.s.s through us, Like a dusk prince crusted with gold and gems!

Our studious Edward from his Lincoln fens, And home quaint-gabled hid in rooky trees, Seen distant is the sun in the arch of noon, Seen close at hand, the same sun large and red, His day's work done, within the lazy west Sitting right portly, staring at the world With a round, rubicund, wine-bibbing face-- Ha! like a dove, I see a merry song Pluming itself for flight upon his lips.

EDWARD _sings._

My heart is beating with all things that are, My blood is wild unrest; With what a pa.s.sion pants yon eager star Upon the water's breast!