X. FROM FREDERICK
I thought the worst had brought me balm:
Twas but the tempests central calm.
Vague sinkings of the heart aver
That dreadful wrong is come to her,
And oer this dream I brood and dote,
And learn its agonies by rote.
As if I loved it, early and late
I make familiar with my fate,
And feed, with fascinated will,
On very dregs of finishd ill.
I think, shes near him now, alone,
With wardship and protection none;
Alone, perhaps, in the hindering stress
Of airs that clasp him with her dress,
They wander whispering by the wave;
And haply now, in some sea-cave,
Where the ribbd sand is rarely trod,
They laugh, they kiss, Oh, God! oh, God!
There comes a smile acutely sweet
Out of the picturing dark; I meet
The ancient frankness of her gaze,
That soft and heart-surprising blaze
Of great goodwill and innocence.
And perfect joy proceeding thence!
Ah! made for earths delight, yet such
The mid-sea airs too gross to touch.
At thought of which, the soul in me
Is as the bird that bites a bee,
And darts abroad on frantic wing,
Tasting the honey and the sting;
And, moaning where all round me sleep
Amidst the moaning of the deep,
I start at midnight from my bed
And have no right to strike him dead.
What world is this that I am in,
Where chance turns sanctity to sin!
Tis crime henceforward to desire
The only good; the sacred fire
That sunnd the universe is hell!
I hear a Voice which argues well:
The Heaven hard has scornd your cry;
Fall down and worship me, and I
Will give you peace; go and profane
This pangful love, so pure, so vain.
And thereby win forgetfulness
And pardon of the spirits excess,
Which soard too nigh that jealous Heaven
Ever, save thus, to be forgiven.
No Gospel has come down that cures
With better gain a loss like yours.
Be pious! Give the beggar pelf,
And love your neighbour as yourself!
You, who yet love, though all is oer,
And shell neer be your neighbour more,
With soul which can in pity smile
That aught with such a measure vile
As self should be at all named love!
Your sanctity the priests reprove;
Your case of grief they wholly miss;
The Man of Sorrows names not this.
The years, they say, graft love divine
On the loppd stock of love like thine;
The wild tree dies not, but converts.
So be it; but the lopping hurts,
The graft takes tardily! Men stanch
Meantime with earth the bleeding branch.
Theres nothing heals one womans loss,
And lightens lifes eternal cross
With intermission of sound rest,
Like lying in anothers breast.
The cure is, to your thinking, low!
Is not life all, henceforward, so?
Ill Voice, at least thou calmst my mood:
Ill sleep! But, as I thus conclude,
The intrusions of her grace dispel
The comfortable glooms of hell.
A wonder! Ere these lines were dried,
Vaughan and my Love, his three-days Bride,
Became my guests. I lookd, and, lo,
In beauty soft as is the snow
And powerful as the avalanche,
She lit the deck. The Heavn-sent chance!
She smiled, surprised. They came to see
The ship, not thinking to meet me.
At infinite distance shes my day:
What then to him? Howbeit they say
Tis not so sunny in the sun
But men might live cool lives thereon!
Alls well; for I have seen arise
That reflex sweetness of her eyes
In his, and watchd his breath defer
Humbly its bated life to her,
His wife. My Love, shes safe in his
Devotion! What askd I but this?
They bade adieu; I saw them go
Across the sea; and now I know
The ultimate hope I rested on,
The hope beyond the grave, is gone,
The hope that, in the heavens high,
At last it should appear that I
Loved most, and so, by claim divine,
Should have her, in the heavens, for mine,
According to such nuptial sort
As may subsist in the holy court,
Where, if there are all kinds of joys
To exhaust the multitude of choice
In many mansions, then there are
Loves personal and particular,
Conspicuous in the glorious sky
Of universal charity,
As Phosphor in the sunrise. Now
Ive seen them, I believe their vow
Immortal; and the dreadful thought,
That he less honourd than he ought
Her sanctity, is laid to rest,
And blessing them I too am blest.
My goodwill, as a springing air,
Unclouds a beauty in despair;
I stand beneath the skys pure cope
Unburthend even by a hope;
And peace unspeakable, a joy
Which hope would deaden and destroy,
Like sunshine fills the airy gulf
Left by the vanishing of self.
That I have known her; that she moves
Somewhere all-graceful; that she loves,
And is belovd, and that shes so
Most happy, and to heaven will go,
Where I may meet with her, (yet this
I count but accidental bliss,)
And that the full, celestial weal
Of all shall sensitively feel
The partnership and work of each,
And thus my love and labour reach
Her region, there the more to bless
Her last, consummate happiness,
Is guerdon up to the degree
Of that alone true loyalty
Which, sacrificing, is not nice
About the terms of sacrifice,
But offers all, with smiles that say,
Tis little, but it is for aye!
XI. FROM MRS. GRAHAM
You wanted her, my Son, for wife,
With the fierce need of life in life.
That nobler passion of an hour
Was rather prophecy than power;
And nature, from such stress unbent,
Recurs to deep discouragement.
Trust not such peace yet; easy breath,
In hot diseases, argues death;
And tastelessness within the mouth
Worse fever shows than heat or drouth.
Wherefore take, Frederick, timely fear
Against a different danger near:
Wed not one woman, oh, my Child,
Because another has not smiled!
Oft, with a disappointed man,
The first who cares to win him can;
For, after loves heroic strain,
Which tired the heart and brought no gain.
He feels consoled, relieved, and eased
To meet with her who can be pleased
To proffer kindness, amid compute
His acquiescence for pursuit;
Who troubles not his lonely mood;
And asks for love mere gratitude.
Ah, desperate folly! Yet, we know,
Who wed through love wed mostly so.
At least, my Son, when wed you do,
See that the woman equals you,
Nor rush, from having loved too high,
Into a worse humility.
A poor estates a foolish plea
For marrying to a base degree.
A woman grown cannot be traind,
Or, if she could, no love were gaind;
For, never was a mans heart caught
By graces he himself had taught.
And fancy not tis in the might
Of man to do without delight;
For, should you in her nothing find
To exhilarate the higher mind,
Your soul would deaden useless wings
With wickedness of lawful things,
And vampire pleasure swift destroy
Even the memory of joy.
So let no man, in desperate mood,
Wed a dull girl because shes good.
All virtues in his wife soon dim,
Except the power of pleasing him,
Which may small virtue be, or none!
I know my just and tender Son,
To whom the dangerous grace is given
That scorns a good which is not heaven;
My Child, who used to sit and sigh
Under the bright, ideal sky,
And pass, to spare the farmers wheat,
The poppy and the meadow-sweet!
He would not let his wifes heart ache
For what was mainly his mistake;
But, having errd so, all his force
Would fix upon the hard, right course.
Shes graceless, say, yet good and true,
And therefore inly fair, and, through
The veils which inward beauty fold,
Faith can her loveliness behold.
Ah, thats soon tired; faith falls away
Without the ceremonial stay
Of outward loveliness and awe.
The weightier matters of the law
She pays: mere mint and cumin not;
And, in the road that she was taught,
She treads, and takes for granted still
Natures immedicable ill;
So never wears within her eyes
A false report of paradise,
Nor ever modulates her mirth
With vain compassion of the earth,
Which made a certain happier face
Affecting, and a gayer grace
With pathos delicately edged!
Yet, though she be not privileged
To unlock for you your hearts delight,
(Her keys being gold, but not the right,)
On lower levels she may do!
Her joy is more in loving you
Than being loved, and she commands
All tenderness she understands.
It is but when you proffer more
The yoke weighs heavy and chafes sore.
Its weary work enforcing love
On one who has enough thereof,
And honour on the lowlihead
Of ignorance! Besides, you dread,
In Leahs arms, to meet the eyes
Of Rachel, somewhere in the skies,
And both return, alike relieved,
To life less loftily conceived.
Alas, alas!
Then wait the mood
In which a woman may be wood
Whose thoughts and habits are too high
For honour to be flattery,
And who would surely not allow
The suit that you could proffer now.
Her equal yoke would sit with ease;
It might, with wearing, even please,
(Not with a better word to move
The loyal wrath of present love);
She would not mope when you were gay,
For want of knowing aught to say;
Nor vex you with unhandsome waste
Of thoughts ill-timed and words ill-placed;
Nor reckon small things duties small,
And your fine sense fantastical;
Nor would she bring you up a brood
Of strangers bound to you by blood,
Boys of a meaner moral race,
Girls with their mothers evil grace.
But not her chance to sometimes find
Her critic past his judgment kind;
Nor, unaccustomd to respect,
Which men, where tis not claimd, neglect,