The Poetical Works of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart. M.P Part 17

Wherefore the change? _Within_, go, ask reply-- Thy heart hath given its winter to the sky!

Vainly the world revolves upon its pole;-- Light--Darkness--Seasons--these are in the soul!

II.

"Trite truth," thou sayest--well, if trite it be, Why seek we ever from ourselves to flee?

Pleased to deceive our sight, and loath to know, We bear the climate with us where we go!

To that immense Bethesda, whither still Each worse disease seeks cures for every ill; To that great well, in which the Heart at strife, Merges its own amidst the common life,-- Whatever name it take, or Public Zeal, Or Self-Ambition, still as sure to heal,-- From his sad hearth his sorrows Ruthven bore; Long shunn'd the strife of men, now sought once more.

Flock'd to his board the Magnates of the Hour Who clasp for Fame its spectre-likeness--Power!

The busy, babbling, talking, toiling race-- The Word-besiegers of the Fortress--Place!

Waves, each on each, in sunlight hurrying on, A moment gilded--in a moment gone; For Honours fool but with deluding light-- The place it glides through, _not the wave_, is bright![B]

The means, if not his ends, with these the same, In Ruthven, Party hail'd a Leader's name!

Night after night the listening Senate hung On that roused mind, by Grief to Action stung!

Night after night, when Action, spent and worn, Left yet more sad the soul it had upborne; The sight of Home the frown of Life renew'd-- The World gave Fame and Home a Solitude!

III.

And Constance? sever'd from a husband's side, No heart to cherish, and no hand to guide, Still, as if ev'n the very name of wife Drew her soul upward into loftier life, The solemn sense of woman's holiest tie Arm'd every thought against the memory.

'Mid shatter'd Lares stood the Marriage Queen-- As on a Roman's hearth, with marble smile serene: New to her sight that galaxy of mind Which moves round men who light and guide their kind, Where all shine equal in their joint degrees And rank's harsh outlines vanish into ease.

As Power and Genius interchange their hues So genial life the cla.s.sic charm renews; Some Scipio's wit a Terence may refine, Some Caesar's pomp exalt a Maro's line-- The polish'd have their flaws, but least espied Amongst the polish'd is the angle pride; And, howsoever Envy grudge their state, Their own bland laws democratize the great.

IV.

With those fair orbs which lit her common air } That which should be her guardian planet there } Now cold if radiant did the wife compare? } If so, alas we lose the Chaldee's power To shape the life if we neglect the hour.

And in the crowd was now their only meeting-- They who from crowds should so have hail'd retreating.

But in the crowd if eye encounter'd eye, Whence came her blush, or wherefore heaved his sigh?

Ah! woe when lost the Heavenly confidence, Man's gentle right, and woman's strong defence!-- Like the frank sunflower, Household Love to-day Must ope its leaves;--what shades it, brings decay.

V.

The world look'd on, and construed, as it still Interprets, all it knows not into ill.

"Man's home is sacred," flattering proverbs say; Yes, if you give the home to men's survey, But if that sanctum be obscured or screen'd, In every shadow doubt suggests a fiend: So churchyards seen beneath a daylight sky Are holy to the clown who saunters by; But vex his vision by the glimmering light, And straight the holiness expires in fright; He hears a goblin in the whispering gra.s.s, And cries "Heaven save us!"--at the Parson's a.s.s!

"Was ever Lord so newly wed so cold?

Poor thing!--forsaken ere a year be told!

Doubtless some wanton--whom we know not, true, But those proud sinners are so wary too!

Oh! for the good old days--one never heard Of men so shocking under George the Third!"

So ran the gossip. With the gossip came The brood it hatch'd--consolers to the dame.

The soft and wily wooers, who begin Through sliding pity, the smooth ways to sin.

My lord is absent at the great debate, Go, soothe his lady's unprotected state; Go, gallant,--go, and wish the cruel Heaven To thee such virtue, now so wrong'd, had given!

Yes, round her flock'd the young world's fairest ones, The soft Rose-Garden's incense-breathing sons: Roused from his calm, Lord Ruthven's watchful eye Mark'd the new clouds that darken'd round his sky; And raptured saw--though for his earth too far-- How fleets and fades each cloud before that stainless Star.

VI.

Now came the graver trial, though unseen By him who knew not where the grief had been-- He knew not that an earlier love had steel'd Her heart to his--that curse, at least conceal'd; Enough of sorrow in his lonely lot-- The why, what matter--that she loved him not?

One night, when Revel was in Ruthven's hall, He near'd the brilliant cynosure of all: "Deign" (thus he whisper'd) "to receive with grace Him who may hold the honours of my race:-- When the last Ruthven dies, behold his heir!"

He said, she turn'd--O Heaven!--and Harcourt there!

Harcourt the same as when her glance he charm'd, For surer conquest by compa.s.sion arm'd-- The same, save where a softer shadow, cast O'er his bright looks, reflected the sad Past!

Now, when unguarded and in crowds alone, The Future dark--the household G.o.ds o'erthrown; Now, when those looks (that seem, the while they grieve, Ne'er to reproach)--can pity best deceive; The sole affection she of right can claim-- Now, Virtue, tremble not--the Tempter came!

VII.

He came, resolved to triumph and avenge-- Sure of a heart whose sorrow spoke no change; Pleased at the thought to bind again the chain-- For they who love not still can love to reign; Calm in the deeper and more fell design To sever those whom outward fetters join-- To watch the discord Scandal rumours round, Fret every sore, and fester every wound; Could he but make Dissension firm and sure, Success would render larger schemes secure; "Let Ruthven die but childless!" ran his prayer, And in the lover's sigh cold avarice prompts the heir.

He came and daily came, and daily schemed-- Soft, grave, and reverent, but the friend he seem'd.

These distant cousins, from their earliest days, To different goals had trod their varying ways: If Ruthven oft with generous hand supplied What were call'd luxuries, did Sh.o.r.editch decide, But what no Jury of Mayfair could doubt Are just the things life cannot live without; Yet gifts are sometimes as offences view'd, And envy is the mean man's grat.i.tude; And, truth to own, whate'er the one bestow'd, More from his own large, careless nature flow'd Than through the channels tenderer sources send, When Favour equals--since it asks a Friend.

But Ruthven loved not, in the days gone by, The cold, quick shrewdness of that stealthy eye, That spendthrift recklessness, which still was not The generous folly which itself forgot.

You love the prodigal; the miser loathe, Yet oft the clockwork is the same in both: Ope but the works--the penury and excess Chime from one point--the central selfishness:-- And though men said (for those, who wear with ease The vulgar vices, seldom much displease), "His follies injure but himself alone!"

His follies spared no welfare but his own: Mankind he deem'd the epitome of self, And never laid that volume on the shelf.

Somewhat of this, had Ruthven mark'd before-- Now he was less acute, or Harcourt more: The first absorb'd in sorrow or in thought; The last in craft's smooth lessons deeper taught.

Not over anxious to be undeceived Ruthven reform in what was rot believed; They held the same opinions on the state, And were congenial--in the last debate; Harcourt had wish'd to join the patriot crew Who botch our old laws with a patch of new; Ruthven the wish approved; and found the seat-- And so the Cousins' union grew complete.

Well then at board behold the constant guest, With love as yet by eyes alone exprest: From the past vows he dared not yet invoke The ancient Voice;--yet of the past he spoke.

Whene'er expected least, he seem'd to glide A faithful shadow to her haunted side.

But why relate how men their victims woo!-- He left undone no art that can undo.

VIII.

And what deem'd Constance now, that, face to face, She could the contrast of the Portraits trace?-- Could see the image of the soul in each By thought reflected on the waves of speech-- Could listen here (as when the Master's ease Glides with light touch along melodious keys) To those rich sounds which, flung to every gale, Genius awakes from Wisdom's music scale; And there admire when lively Fashion wound Its toy of small talk into jingling sound.

Like those French trifles, elegant enough, Which serve at once for music and for snuff, Some minds there are which men you ask to dine Take out, wind up, and circle with the wine.

Two tunes they boast; this Flattery--Scandal that; The one A sharp--the other something flat: Such was the mind that for display and use Cased in _ricoco_, Harcourt could produce-- Touch the one spring, an air that charm'd the town Tripp'd out and jigg'd some absent virtue down; Touch next the other, and the bauble plays "Fly from the world" or "Once in happier days."

For Flattery, when a Woman's heart its aim, Writes itself _Sentiment_--a prettier name.

And to be just to Harcourt and his art, Few Lauzuns better play'd a Werter's part; He dress'd it well, and Nature kindly gave His brow the paleness and his locks the wave.

Mournful his smile, unconscious seem'd his sigh; You'd swear that Goethe had him in his eye.

Well these had duped when young Romance surveys Life's outlines--lost amid its own soft haze.

Compared with Ruthven still doth Harcourt seem The true Hyperion of the Delian dream.

Ah, ofttimes Love its own wild choice will blame, Slip the blind bondage, yet doat on the same.

Was it thus wilful, Constance, still with thee, Or did the reason set the fancy free?

[B] Schiller.

PART THE FIFTH.

I.

The later summer in that second spring When the turf glistens with the fairy ring, When oak and elm a.s.sume a livelier green, And starry buds on water-flowers are seen; When parent nests the new-fledged goldfinch leaves, And earliest song in airiest meshes weaves; When fields wave undulous with golden corn, And August fills his Amalthaean horn-- The later summer shone on Ruthven's towers, And Lord and wife (with guests to cheer the hours, Not faced alone) to that grey pile return'd; Harcourt with these, and Seaton, who had learn'd Eno' to call him from his world of strife, To watch that Home which makes the Woman's life.

Not ev'n to Juliet Constance had betray'd Those griefs the House-G.o.ds if they cause should shade, Nor friendship now in truth the grief could share-- } A dying parent needed Juliet's care, } In climes where Death comes soft--in Tuscan air. } And least to Seaton would his child have shown One hidden wound; her heart still spared his own.

But when the father trembling at her side Saw the smooth tempter, not the watchful guide,-- Saw through the quicksands flow each sever'd life, Here the cold Lord and there the courted wife, Then fearful, wrathful--yet uncertain still; For warning ofttimes makes more sure the ill, Or fires suspicion to believe the worst, Or bids temptation be more fondly nurst;-- Nought ripens evil like too prompt a blame, And virtue totters if you sap its shame;-- Uncertain thus came Seaton, with the rest, His prudence watchful, and his fears supprest, Resolved to learn what fault, if fault were there, Had outlaw'd Constance from a husband's care, And left the heart (the soul's frail fort) unbarr'd, For youth to storm. "Well age," he sigh'd, "shall guard."

II.