The Poetical Works of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart. M.P Part 13

Farewell; and if a soul, where hatred's gall Melts into pardon that embalmeth all, Can with forgiveness bless thee;--from remorse Can pluck the stone which interrupts the course Of thought to G.o.d;--and bid the waters rest Calm in Heaven's smile,--poor fellow-man, be blest!

I, that can aid no more, now need an aid Against myself; by mine own thoughts dismay'd: I dare not face thy child--I may not dare To commune with my heart--thy child is there!

I hear a voice that whispers hope, and start In shame, to shun the tempter and depart.

How vile the pardon that I yield would seem, If shaped and colour'd from the egoist's dream; A barter'd compromise with thoughts that take The path of conscience but for pa.s.sion's sake-- If with the pardon I could say--'The Tomb Devours the Past, so let the Moment bloom, And see Calantha's brother reconciled, Kneel to Calantha's lover, for his child!'

It may not be; sad sophists were our vain Desires, if Right were not a code so plain; In good or ill leave casusits on the shelf, 'He never errs who sacrifices self!'"

Great Natures, Arden, thy strange lot to know And lose!--twin souls thy mistress and thy foe!

How flash'd they, high and starry, through the dull World's reeking air--earnest and beautiful!

Erring perchance, and yet divinely blind, Such hero errors purify our kind!

One n.o.ble fault that springs from SELF'S disdain May oft more grace in Angel eyes obtain, Than a whole life, without a seeming flaw, Which served but Heaven, because of Earth in awe, Which in each act has loss or profit weigh'd, And kept with Virtue the accounts of Trade!

He too was born, lost Idler, to be great, The sins that dwarf'd, he had a soul to hate.

Ambition, Ease, Example had beguiled, And our base world in fawning had defiled; Yet still, contrasting all he _did_, he _dream'd_; And through the Wordling's life the Poet gleam'd.

His eye not blind to Virtue; to his ear Still spoke the music of the banish'd sphere; Still in his thought the Ideal, though obscured, Shamed the rank meteor which his sense allured.

Wreck if he was, the ruin yet betray'd The shatter'd fane for G.o.ds departed made; And still, through weeds neglected and o'erthrown, The blurr'd inscription show'd the altar-stone.

So scorn'd he not, as folly or as pride, The lofty code which made the Indian's guide; But from that hour a subtle change came o'er The thoughts he veil'd, the outward mien he wore; A mournful, weary gloom, a pall'd distaste Of all the joys so warmly once embraced.

His eye no more _looks onward_. but its gaze Rests where Remorse a life misspent surveys: What costly treasures strew that waste behind; What whirlwinds daunt the soul that sows the wind!

By the dark shape of what he _is_, serene Stands the bright ghost of what he might have been: Here the vast loss, and there the worthless gain-- Vice scorn'd, yet woo'd, and Virtue loved in vain.

'Tis said, the Nightingale, who hears the thrill Of some rich lute, made vocal by sweet skill, To match the music strains its wild essay, Feels its inferior art, and envying, pines away: So, waked at last, and scarcely now confest, Pined the still Poet in the Worldling's breast!

So with the Harmony of Good, compared Its lesser self--so languish'd and despair'd.

Awhile, from land to land he idly roved, And join'd life's movement with a heart unmoved.

No more loud cities ring with Arden's name, Applaud his faults, and call his fashion "Fame!"

Disgust with all things robes him as he goes, In that pale virtue, Vice, when weary, knows.

Yet his, at least, one rescue from the past; His, one sweet comfort--Lucy's love at last!

That bed of pain o'er which she had watch'd and wept-- That grave, where Love forgot its wrongs and slept-- That touching sorrow and that still remorse Unlock'd her heart, and gave the stream its course.

From her own grief, by griefs more dark beguiled, Rose the consoling Angel in the Child!

Yet still the calm disease, whose mute decay No leech arrests, crept gradual round its prey.

Death came, came gently, on his daughter's breast, Murm'ring, "Remember where this dust should rest."

They bear the last Lord of that haughty race Where winds the wave round Mary's dwelling-place; And side by side (oh, be it in the sky As in the earth!)--the long-divided lie!

Doth life's last act one wrong at least repair-- His nameless child to wealth at least the heir?

So Arden's will decreed--so sign'd the hand; So ran the text--not so Law rules the land: "I do bequeath unto my _child_,"[Y]--that word Alone on strangers has the wealth conferr'd.

O'erjoy'd Law's heirs the legal blunder read, And Justice cancels Nature from the deed.

O moral world! deal sternly if thou wilt With the warm weakness as the wily guilt, But spare the harmless! Wherefore shall the child Be from the pale which shelters Crime exiled?

Why heap such barriers round the sole redress Which sin can give to sinless wretchedness?

Why must the veriest stranger thrust aside Our flesh--our blood, because a name's denied?

Give all thou hast to whomsoe'er thou please, Foe, alien, knave, as whim so Law decrees; But if thy heart speaks, if thy conscience cries-- "I give my child"--the law thy voice belies; Chicanery balks all effort that atones, And Justice robs the wretch that Nature owns!

So abject, so despoil'd, so penniless, Stood thy love-born in the world's wilderness, O Lord of lands and towers, and princely sway!

O Dust, from whom with breath has pa.s.s'd away The humblest privilege the beggar finds In rags that wrap his infant from the winds!

In the poor hamlet where her grandsire died, Where sleeps her mother by the magnate's side, The orphan found a home. Her story known, Men's hearts allow the right men's laws disown.

Though lost the birthright, and denied the name, Her pastor-grandsire's virtues shield from shame; Pity seeks kind pretext to pour its balms, And yields light toils that saves the pride from alms.

A soft respect the orphan's steps attends, And the sharp thorn at least the rose defends.

So flows o'ershadow'd, but not darksome by, Her life's lone stream--the banks admit the sky Day's quiet taskwork o'er, when Ev'ning grey Lists the last carol on the quivering spray, When lengthening shades reflect the distant hill, And the near spire, upon the lulled rill; Her sole delight with pensive step to glide Along the path that winds the wave beside, A moment pausing on the bridge, to mark Perchance the moonlight vista through the dark: Or watch the eddy where the wavelets play Round the chafed stone that checks their happy way, Then onward stealing, vanish from the view, Where the star shimmers on the solemn yew, As shade from earth and starlight from the sky Meet--and repose on Death's calm mystery.

Moons pa.s.s'd--Behold the blossom on the spray!

Hark to the linnet!--On the world is May!

Green earth below and azure skies above; May calling life to joy, and youth to love; While Age, charm'd back to rosy hours awhile, Hears the lost vow, and sees the vanish'd smile.

And does not May, lone Child, revive in thee, Blossom and bud and mystic melody; Does not the heart, like earth, imbibe the ray?

Does not the year's recal thy life's sweet May?

When like an altar to some happy bride, Shone all creation by the loved one's side?

Yes, Exile, yes--_that_ Empire is thine own, Rove where thou wilt, awaits thee still thy throne!

Lo, where the paling cheek, the unconscious sigh, The slower footstep, and the heavier eye, Betray the burthen of sweet thoughts and mute, The slight tree bows beneath the golden fruit!

'Tis eve. The orphan gains the holy ground, } And listening halts;--the boughs that circle round } Vex'd by no wind, yet rustle with a sound, } As if that gentle form had scared some lone Unwonted step more timid than its own!

All still once more; perchance some daunted bird, That loves the night, the murmuring leaves had stirr'd?

She nears the tomb--amaze!--what hand unknown Has placed those pious flowers upon the stone?

Why beats her heart? why hath the electric mind, Whose act, whose hand, whose presence there, divined?

Why dreading, yearning, turn those eyes to meet The adored, the lost?--Behold him at her feet!

His, those dark eyes that seek her own through tears, His hand that clasps, and his the voice she hears, Broken and faltering--"Is the trial past?

Here, by the dead, art thou made mine at last?

Far--in far lands I heard thy tale!--And thou Orphan and lone!--no bar between us now!

No Arden now calls up the wrong'd and lost; Lo, in this grave appeased the upbraiding ghost!

Orphan, I am thy father now!--Bereft Of all beside,--this heart at least is left.

Forgive, forgive--Oh, canst thou yet bestow One thought on him, to whom thou art all below?

Who could desert but to remember more?

Canst thou the Heaven, the exile lost, restore?

Canst thou----"

The orphan bow'd her angel head; Breath blent with breath--her soul her silence said; Eye unto eye, and heart to heart reveal'd;-- And lip on lip the eternal nuptials seal'd!

The Moon breaks forth--one silver stream of light Glides from its fount in heaven along the night-- Flows in still splendour through the funeral gloom Of yews,--and widens as it clasps the tomb-- Through the calm glory hosts as calm above Look on the grave--and by the grave is LOVE!

[S] "At best it _babies_ us."--YOUNG.

[T] "For, oh! he stood before me as my youth."--COLERIDGE'S _Wallenstein_.

[U] The beautiful story of Aimee--the delight of all children--is in the collection ent.i.tled "The Temple of the Fairies."

[V] According to the exploded hypothesis of Voltaire, that the Gipsies are a Syrian tribe, the remains of the long scattered fraternity of Isis.

[W] Whoever is well acquainted with the heathen learning must often have been deeply impressed with the mournful character of the mythological Elysium. Even the few admitted to the groves of asphodel, unpurified by death, retain the pa.s.sions and pine with the griefs of life; they envy the mortal whom the poet brings to their moody immortality; and, amidst the disdained repose, sigh for the struggle and the storm.

[X] Not only were the lofty and cheering notions of the soul, that were cherished by the more ill.u.s.trious philosophers of Greece, confined to a few, but even the grosser and dimmer belief in a future state, which the vulgar mythology implied, was not entertained by the mult.i.tude. Plato remarked that few, even in his day, had faith in the immortality of the soul; and indeed the Hades of the ancients was not for the Many. Amongst those condemned we find few criminals, except the old t.i.tans, and such as imitated them in the one crime--blasphemy to the fabled G.o.ds: and the dwellers of Elysium are chiefly confined to the poets and the heroes, the oligarchy of earth.

[Y] If a man wishes to leave a portion to his natural child, his lawyer will tell him to name the child as if it were a stranger to his blood. If he says, "I leave to John Tompson, of Baker-street, 10,000," John Tompson may probably get the legacy; if he says, "I leave to my son, John Tompson, of Baker-street, 10,000," and the said John Tompson _is_ his son (_a natural one_), it is a hundred to one if John Tompson ever touches a penny! Up springs the Inhuman Law, with its multiform obstacles, quibbles, and objections--proof of ident.i.ty--evidence of birth!--Many and many a natural child has thus been robbed and swindled out of his sole claim upon redress--his sole chance of subsistence. In most civilised countries a father is permitted to own the offspring, whom, unless he do so, he has wronged at its very birth--whom, if he do not so, he wrongs irremedially; with us the error is denied reparation, and the innocence is sentenced to outlawry. Our laws, with relation to illegitimate children, are more than unjust--they are inhuman.

CONSTANCE; OR, THE PORTRAIT.

PART THE FIRST.

I.