A Hidden Life and Other Poems Part 18

"I have waited for thee, because The poor had not to wait; And I stood beside thee all the time, In the crowd at the convent-gate."

But it seems to me, though the story Sayeth no word of this, If the monk had stayed, the Lord would have stayed, Nor crushed that heart of his.

For out of the far-off times A word sounds tenderly: "The poor ye have always with you, And ye have not always me."

THE TREE'S PRAYER.

Alas! 'tis cold and dark; The wind all night has sung a wintry tune; Hail from black clouds that swallowed up the moon Has beat against my bark.

Oh! when will it be spring?

The sap moves not within my withered veins; Through all my frozen roots creep numbing pains, That they can hardly cling.

The sun shone out last morn; I felt the warmth through every fibre float; I thought I heard a thrush's piping note, Of hope and sadness born.

Then came the sea-cloud driven; The tempest hissed through all my outstretched boughs, Hither and thither tossed me in its snows, Beneath the joyless heaven.

O for the sunny leaves!

Almost I have forgot the breath of June!

Forgot the feathery light-flakes from the moon!

The praying summer-eves!

O for the joyous birds, Which are the tongues of us, mute, longing trees!

O for the billowy odours, and the bees Abroad in scattered herds!

The blessing of cool showers!

The gratefulness that thrills through every shoot!

The children playing round my deep-sunk root, Shadowed in hot noon hours!

Alas! the cold clear dawn Through the bare lattice-work of twigs around!

Another weary day of moaning sound On the thin-shadowed lawn!

Yet winter's noon is past: I'll stretch my arms all night into the wind, Endure all day the chill air and unkind; My leaves _will_ come at last.

A STORY OF THE SEA-Sh.o.r.e.

INTRODUCTION.

I sought the long clear twilights of the North, When, from its nest of trees, my father's house Sees the Aurora deepen into dawn Far northward in the East, o'er the hill-top; And fronts the splendours of the northern West, Where sunset dies into that ghostly gleam That round the horizon creepeth all the night Back to the jubilance of gracious morn.

I found my home in homeliness unchanged; For love that maketh home, unchangeable, Received me to the rights of sons.h.i.+p still.

O vaulted summer-heaven, borne on the hills!

Once more thou didst embrace me, whom, a child, Thy drooping fulness nourished into joy.

Once more the valley, pictured forth with sighs, Rose on my present vision, and, behold!

In nothing had the dream bemocked the truth: The waters ran as garrulous as before; The wild flowers crowded round my welcome feet; The hills arose and dwelt alone in heaven; And all had learned new tales against I came.

Once more I trod the well-known fields with him Whose fatherhood had made me search for G.o.d's; And it was old and new like the wild flowers, The waters, and the hills, but dearer far.

Once on a day, my cousin Frank and I, Drove on a seaward road the dear white mare Which oft had borne me to the lonely hills.

Beside me sat a maiden, on whose face I had not looked since we were boy and girl; But the old friends.h.i.+p straightway bloomed anew.

The heavens were sunny, and the earth was green; The harebells large, and oh! so plentiful; While b.u.t.terflies, as blue as they, danced on, Borne purposeless on pulses of clear joy, In sportive time to their Aeolian clang.

That day as we talked on without restraint, Brought near by memories of days that were, And therefore are for ever--by the joy Of motion through a warm and s.h.i.+ning air, By the glad sense of freedom and like thoughts, And by the bond of friends.h.i.+p with the dead, She told the tale which I would mould anew To a more lasting form of utterance.

For I had wandered back to childish years; And asked her if she knew a ruin old, Whose masonry, descending to the waves, Faced up the sea-cliff at whose rocky feet The billows fell and died along the coast.

'Twas one of my child marvels. For, each year, We turned our backs upon the ripening corn, And sought the borders of the desert sea.

O joy of waters! mingled with the fear Of a blind force that knew not what to do, But spent its strength of waves in las.h.i.+ng aye The rocks which laughed them into foam and flight.

But oh, the varied riches of that port!

For almost to the beach, but that a wall Inclosed them, reached the gardens of a lord, His shady walks, his ancient trees of state; His river, which, with course indefinite, Wandered across the sands without the wall, And lost itself in finding out the sea: Within, it floated swans, white splendours; lay Beneath the fairy leap of a wire bridge; Vanished and reappeared amid the shades, And led you where the peac.o.c.k's plumy heaven Bore azure suns with green and golden rays.

Ah! here the skies showed higher, and the clouds More summer-gracious, filled with stranger shapes; And when they rained, it was a golden rain That sparkled as it fell, an odorous rain.

But there was one dream-spot--my tale must wait Until I tell the wonder of that spot.

It was a little room, built somehow--how I do not know--against a steep hill-side, Whose top was with a circular temple crowned, Seen from far waves when winds were off the sh.o.r.e-- So that, beclouded, ever in the night Of a luxuriant ivy, its low door, Half-filled with rainbow hues of deep-stained gla.s.s, Appeared to open right into the hill.

Never to sesame of mine that door Yielded that room; but through one undyed pane, Gazing with reverent curiosity, I saw a little chamber, round and high, Which but to see, was to escape the heat, And bathe in coolness of the eye and brain; For it was dark and green. Upon one side A window, unperceived from without, Blocked up by ivy manifold, whose leaves, Like crowded heads of gazers, row on row, Climbed to the top; and all the light that came Through the thick veil was green, oh, kindest hue!

But in the midst, the wonder of the place, Against the back-ground of the ivy bossed, On a low column stood, white, pure, and still, A woman-form in marble, cold and clear.

I know not what it was; it may have been A Silence, or an Echo fainter still; But that form yet, if form it can be called, So undefined and pale, gleams vision-like In the lone treasure-chamber of my soul, Surrounded with its mystic temple dark.

Then came the thought, too joyous to keep joy, Turning to very sadness for relief: To sit and dream through long hot summer days, Shrouded in coolness and sea-murmurings, Forgot by all till twilight shades grew dark; And read and read in the Arabian Nights, Till all the beautiful grew possible; And then when I had read them every one, To find behind the door, against the wall, Old volumes, full of tales, such as in dreams One finds in bookshops strange, in tortuous streets; Beside me, over me, soul of the place, Filling the gloom with calm delirium, That wondrous woman-statue evermore, White, radiant; fading, as the darkness grew, Into a ghostly pallour, that put on, To staring eyes, a vague and s.h.i.+fting form.

But the old castle on the shattered sh.o.r.e-- Not the green refuge from the summer heat-- Drew forth our talk that day. For, as I said, I asked her if she knew it. She replied, "I know it well;" and added instantly: "A woman used to live, my mother tells, In one of its low vaults, so near the sea, That in high tides and northern winds it was No more a castle-vault, but a sea-cave!"

"I found there," I replied, "a turret stair Leading from level of the ground above Down to a vault, whence, through an opening square, Half window and half loophole, you look forth Wide o'er the sea; but the dim-sounding waves Are many feet beneath, and shrunk in size To a great ripple. I could tell you now A tale I made about a little girl, Dark-eyed and pale, with long seaweed-like hair, Who haunts that room, and, gazing o'er the deep, Calls it her mother, with a childish glee, Because she knew no other." "This," said she, "Was not a child, but woman almost old, Whose coal-black hair had partly turned to grey, With sorrow and with madness; and she dwelt, Not in that room high on the cliff, but down, Low down within the margin of spring tides."

And then she told me all she knew of her, As we drove onward through the sunny day.

It was a simple tale, with few, few facts; A life that clomb one mountain and looked forth; Then sudden sank to a low dreary plain, And wandered ever in the sound of waves, Till fear and fascination overcame, And led her trembling into life and joy.

Alas! how many such are told by night, In fisher-cottages along the sh.o.r.e!

Farewell, old summer-day; I lay you by, To tell my story, and the thoughts that rise Within a heart that never dared believe A life was at the mercy of a sea.

THE STORY.

Aye as it listeth blows the listless wind, Filling great sails, and bending lordly masts, Or making billows in the green corn fields, And hunting lazy clouds across the blue: Now, like a vapour o'er the sunny sea, It blows the vessel from the harbour's mouth, Out 'mid the broken crests of seaward waves, And hovering of long-pinioned ocean birds, As if the white wave-spots had taken wing.

But though all s.p.a.ce is full of spots of white, The sailor sees the little handkerchief That flutters still, though wet with heavy tears Which draw it earthward from the sunny wind.

Blow, wind! draw out the cord that binds the twain, And breaks not, though outlengthened till the maid Can only say, _I know he is not here._ Blow, wind! yet gently; gently blow, O wind!

And let love's vision slowly, gently die; And the dim sails pa.s.s ghost-like o'er the deep, Lingering a little o'er the vanished hull, With a white farewell to the straining eyes.

For never more in morning's level beam, Will the wide wings of her sea-shadowing sails From the green-billowed east come dancing in; Nor ever, gliding home beneath the stars, With a faint darkness o'er the fainter sea, Will she, the ocean-swimmer, send a cry Of home-come sailors, that shall wake the streets With sudden pantings of dream-scaring joy.

Blow gently, wind! blow slowly, gentle wind!

Weep not, oh maiden! tis not time to weep; Torment not thou thyself before thy time; The hour will come when thou wilt need thy tears To cool the burning of thy desert brain.

Go to thy work; break into song sometimes, To die away forgotten in the lapse Of dreamy thought, ere natural pause ensue; Oft in the day thy time-outspeeding heart, Sending thy ready eye to scout the east, Like child that wearies of her mother's pace, And runs before, and yet perforce must wait.

The time drew nigh. Oft turning from her work, With bare arms and uncovered head she clomb The landward slope of the prophetic hill; From whose green head, as on the verge of time, Seer-like she gazed, shading her hope-rapt eyes From the bewilderment of work-day light, Far out on the eternity of waves; If from the Hades of the nether world Her prayers might draw the climbing skyey sails Up o'er the threshold of the horizon line; For when he came she was to be his wife, And celebrate with rites of church and home The apotheosis of maidenhood.