A Hidden Life and Other Poems Part 19

Time pa.s.sed. The shadow of a fear that hung Far off upon the horizon of her soul, Drew near with deepening gloom and clearing form, Till it o'erspread and filled her atmosphere, And lost all shape, because it filled all s.p.a.ce, Reaching beyond the bounds of consciousness; But ever in swift incarnations darting Forth from its infinite a stony stare, A blank abyss, an awful emptiness.

Ah, G.o.d! why are our souls, lone helpless seas, Tortured with such immitigable storm?

What is this love, that now on angel wing Sweeps us amid the stars in pa.s.sionate calm; And now with demon arms fast cincturing, Drops us, through all gyrations of keen pain, Down the black vortex, till the giddy whirl Gives fainting respite to the ghastly brain?

Not these the maiden's questions. Comes he yet?

Or am I widowed ere my wedding day?

Ah! ranged along our sh.o.r.es, on peak or cliff, Or stone-ribbed promontory, or pier head, Maidens have aye been standing; the same pain Deadening the heart-throb; the same gathering mist Dimming the eye that would be keen as death; The same fixed longing on the changeless face.

Over the edge he vanished--came no more: There, as in childhood's dreams, upon that line, Without a parapet to s.h.i.+eld the sense, Voidness went sheer down to oblivion: Over that edge he vanished--came no more.

O happy those for whom the Possible Opens its gates of madness, and becomes The Real around them! those to whom henceforth There is but one to-morrow, the next morn, Their wedding day, ever one step removed; The husband's foot ever upon the verge Of the day's threshold; whiteness aye, and flowers, Ready to meet him, ever in a dream!

But faith and expectation conquer still; And so her morrow comes at last, and leads The death-pale maiden-ghost, dazzled, confused, Into the land whose shadows fall on ours, And are our dreams of too deep blessedness.

May not some madness be a kind of faith?

Shall not the Possible become the Real?

Lives not the G.o.d who hath created dreams?

So stand we questioning upon the sh.o.r.e, And gazing hopeful towards the Unrevealed.

Long looked the maiden, till the visible Half vanished from her eyes; the earth had ceased That lay behind her, and the sea was all; Except the narrow sh.o.r.e, which yet gave room For her sea-haunting feet; where solid land, Where rocks and hills stopped, frighted, suddenly, And earth flowed henceforth on in trembling waves, A featureless, a half re-molten world, Halfway to the Unseen; the Invisible Half seen in the condensed and flowing sky Which lay so grimly smooth before her eyes And brain and shrinking soul; where power of man Could never heap up moles or pyramids, Or dig a valley in the unstable gulf Fighting for aye to make invisible, To swallow up, and keep her smooth blue smile Unwrinkled and unspotted with the land; Not all the changes on the restless wave, Saving it from a still monotony, Whose only utterance was a dreary song Of stifled wailing on the shrinking sh.o.r.e.

Such frenzy slow invaded the poor girl.

Not hers the hovering sense of marriage bells Tuning the air with fragrance of sweet sound; But the low dirge that ever rose and died, Recurring without pause or any close, Like one verse chaunted aye in sleepless brain.

Down to the sh.o.r.e it drew her from the heights, Like witch's demon-spell, that fearful moan.

She knew that somewhere in the green abyss His body swung in curves of watery force, Now in a circle slow revolved, and now Swaying like wind-swung bell, when surface waves Sank their roots deep enough to reach the waif, Hither and thither, idly to and fro, Wandering unheeding through the heedless sea.

A kind of fascination seized her brain, And drew her onward to the ridgy rocks That ran a little way into the deep, Like questions asked of Fate by longing hearts, Bound which the eternal ocean breaks in sighs.

Along their flats, and furrows, and jagged backs, Out to the lonely point where the green ma.s.s Arose and sank, heaved slow and forceful, she Went; and recoiled in terror; ever drawn, Ever repelled, with inward shuddering At the great, heartless, miserable depth.

She thought the ocean lay in wait for her, Enticing her with horror's glittering eye, And with the hope that in an hour sure fixed In some far century, aeons remote, She, conscious still of love, despite the sea, Should, in the was.h.i.+ng of perennial waves, Sweep o'er some stray bone, or transformed dust Of him who loved her on this happy earth, Known by a dreamy thrill in thawing nerves.

For so the fragments of wild songs she sung Betokened, as she sat and watched the tide, Till, as it slowly grew, it touched her feet; When terror overcame--she rose and fled Towards the sh.o.r.e with fear-bewildered eye; And, stumbling on the rocks with hasty steps, Cried, "They are coming, coming at my heels."

Perhaps like this the songs she used to wail In the rough northern tongue of Aberdeen:--

Ye'll hae me yet, ye'll hae me yet, Sae lang an' braid, an' never a hame!

Its nae the depth I fear a bit, But oh, the wideness, aye the same!

The jaws[1] come up, wi' eerie bark; Cryin' I'm creepy, cauld, an' green; Come doon, come doon, he's lyin' stark, Come doon an' steek his glowerin' een.

Syne wisht! they haud their weary roar, An' slide awa', an' I grow sleepy: Or lang, they're up aboot my door, Yowlin', I'm cauld, an' weet, an' creepy!

O dool, dool! ye are like the tide-- Ye mak' a feint awa' to gang; But lang awa' ye winna bide,-- An' better greet than aye think lang.

[Footnote 1: Jaws: _English_, breakers.]

Where'er she fled, the same voice followed her; Whisperings innumerable of water-drops Growing together to a giant voice; That sometimes in hoa.r.s.e, rus.h.i.+ng undertones, Sometimes in thunderous peals of billowy shouts, Called after her to come, and make no stay.

From the dim mists that brooded seaward far, And from the lonely tossings of the waves, Where rose and fell the raving wilderness, Voices, pursuing arms, and beckoning hands, Reached sh.o.r.ewards from the shuddering mystery.

Then sometimes uplift, on a rocky peak, A lonely form betwixt the sea and sky, Watchers on sh.o.r.e beheld her fling wild arms High o'er her head in tossings like the waves; Then fix them, with clasped hands of prayer intense, Forward, appealing to the bitter sea.

Then sudden from her shoulders she would tear Her garments, one by one, and cast them far Into the roarings of the heedless surge, A vain oblation to the hungry waves.

Such she did mean it; and her pitying friends Clothed her in vain--their gifts did bribe the sea.

But such a fire was burning in her brain, The cold wind lapped her, and the sleet-like spray Flashed, all unheeded, on her tawny skin.

As oft she brought her food and flung it far, Reserving scarce a morsel for her need-- Flung it--with naked arms, and streaming hair Floating like sea-weed on the tide of wind, Coal-black and l.u.s.treless--to feed the sea.

But after each poor sacrifice, despair, Like the returning wave that bore it far, Rushed surging back upon her sickening heart; While evermore she moaned, low-voiced, between-- Half-muttered and half-moaned: "Ye'll hae me yet; Ye'll ne'er be saired, till ye hae ta'en mysel'."

And as the night grew thick upon the sea, Quenching it all, except its voice of storm; Blotting it from the region of the eye, Though still it tossed within the haunted brain, Entering by the portals of the ears,-- She step by step withdrew; like dreaming man, Who, power of motion all but paralysed, With an eternity of slowness, drags His earth-bound, lead-like, irresponsive feet Back from a living corpse's staring eyes; Till on the narrow beach she turned her round.

Then, clothed in all the might of the Unseen, Terror grew ghostly; and she shrieked and fled Up to the battered base of the old tower, And round the rock, and through the arched gap, Cleaving the blackness of the vault within; Then sank upon the sand, and gasped, and raved.

This was her secret chamber, this her place Of refuge from the outstretched demon-deep, All eye and voice for her, Argus more dread Than he with hundred lidless watching orbs.

There, cowering in a nook, she sat all night, Her eyes fixed on the entrance of the cave, Through which a pale light s.h.i.+mmered from the sea, Until she slept, and saw the sea in dreams.

Except in stormy nights, when all was dark, And the wild tempest swept with slanting wing Against her refuge; and the heavy spray Shot through the doorway serpentine cold arms To seize the fore-doomed morsel of the sea: Then she slept never; and she would have died, But that she evermore was stung to life By new sea-terrors. Sometimes the sea-gull With clanging pinions darted through the arch, And flapped them round her face; sometimes a wave, If tides were high and winds from off the sea, Rushed through the door, and in its watery mesh Clasped her waist-high, then out again to sea!

Out to the devilish laughter and the fog!

While she clung screaming to the bare rock-wall; Then sat unmoving, till the low grey dawn Grew on the misty dance of spouting waves, That mixed the grey with white; picture one-hued, Seen in the framework of the arched door: Then the old fascination drew her out, Till, wrapt in misty spray, moveless she stood Upon the border of the dawning sea.

And yet she had a chamber in her soul, The innermost of all, a quiet place; But which she could not enter for the love That kept her out for ever in the storm.

Could she have entered, all had been as still As summer evening, or a mother's arms; And she had found her lost love sleeping there.

Thou too hast such a chamber, quiet place, Where G.o.d is waiting for thee. Is it gain, Or the confused murmur of the sea Of human voices on the rocks of fame, That will not let thee enter? Is it care For the provision of the unborn day, As if thou wert a G.o.d that must foresee, Lest his great sun should chance forget to rise?

Or pride that thou art some one in the world, And men must bow before thee? Oh! go mad For love of some one lost; for some old voice Which first thou madest sing, and after sob; Some heart thou foundest rich, and leftest bare, Choking its well of faith with thy false deeds; Not like thy G.o.d, who keeps the better wine Until the last, and, if He giveth grief, Giveth it first, and ends the tale with joy.

Madness is nearer G.o.d than thou: go mad, And be enn.o.bled far above thyself.

Her brain was ill, her heart was well: she loved.

It was the unbroken cord between the twain That drew her ever to the ocean marge; Though to her feverous phantasy, unfit, 'Mid the tumultuous brood of shapes distort, To see one simple form, it was the fear Of fixed destiny, unavoidable, And not the longing for the well-known face, That drew her, drew her to the urgent sea.

Better to die, better to rave for love, Than to recover with sick sneering heart.

Or, if that thou art n.o.ble, in some hour, Maddened with thoughts of that which could not be, Thou mightst have yielded to the burning wind, That swept in tempest through thy scorching brain, And rushed into the thick cold night of the earth, And clamoured to the waves and beat the rocks; And never found the way back to the seat Of conscious rule, and power to bear thy pain; But G.o.d had made thee stronger to endure For other ends, beyond thy present choice: Wilt thou not own her story a fit theme For poet's tale? in her most frantic mood, Not call the maniac _sister_, tenderly?

For she went mad for love and not for gold.

And in the faded form, whose eyes, like suns Too fierce for freshness and for dewy bloom, Have parched and paled the hues of tender spring, Cannot thy love unmask a youthful shape Deformed by tempests of the soul and sea, Fit to remind thee of a story old Which G.o.d has in his keeping--of thyself?

But G.o.d forgets not men because they sleep.

The darkness lasts all night and clears the eyes; Then comes the morning and the joy of light.

O surely madness hideth not from Him; Nor doth a soul cease to be beautiful In His sight, when its beauty is withdrawn, And hid by pale eclipse from human eyes.

Surely as snow is friendly to the spring, A madness may be friendly to the soul, And s.h.i.+eld it from a more enduring loss, From the ice-spears of a heart-reaching frost.

So, after years, the winter of her life, Came the sure spring to her men had forgot, Closing the rent links of the social chain, And leaving her outside their charmed ring.

Into the chill wind and the howling night, G.o.d sent out for her, and she entered in Where there was no more sea. What messengers Ran from the door of love-contented heaven, To lead her towards the real ideal home?

The sea, her terror, and the wintry wind.

For, on a morn of suns.h.i.+ne, while the wind Yet blew, and heaved yet the billowy sea With memories of the night of deep unrest, They found her in a basin of the rocks, Which, buried in a firmament of sea When ocean winds heap up the tidal waves, Yet, in the respiration of the surge, Lifts clear its edge of rock, full to the brim With deep, clear, resting water, plentiful.

There, in the blessedness of sleep, which G.o.d Gives his beloved, she lay drowned and still.

O life of love, conquered at last by fate!

O life raised from the dead by Saviour Death!

O love unconquered and invincible!

The sea had cooled the burning of that brain; Had laid to rest those limbs so fever-tense, That scarce relaxed in sleep; and now she lies Sleeping the sleep that follows after pain.

'Twas one night more of agony and fear, Of shrinking from the onset of the sea; One cry of desolation, when her fear Became a fact, and then,--G.o.d knows the rest.

O cure of all our miseries--_G.o.d knows!_

O thou whose feet tread ever the wet sands And howling rocks along the wearing sh.o.r.e, Roaming the confines of the endless sea!

Strain not thine eyes across, bedimmed with tears; No sail comes back across that tender line.

Turn thee unto thy work, let G.o.d alone; He will do his part. Then across the waves Will float faint whispers from the better land, Veiled in the dust of waters we call storms, To thine averted ears. Do thou thy work, And thou shalt follow; follow, and find thine own.

O thou who liv'st in fear of the _To come!_ Around whose house the storm of terror breaks All night; to whose love-sharpened ear, all day, The Invisible is calling at thy door, To render up that which thou can'st not keep, Be it a life or love! Open thy door, And carry forth thy dead unto the marge Of the great sea; bear it into the flood, Braving the cold that creepeth to thy heart, And lay thy coffin as an ark of hope Upon the billows of the infinite sea.

Give G.o.d thy dead to keep: so float it back, With sighs and prayers to waft it through the dark, Back to the spring of life. Say--"It is dead, But thou, the life of life, art yet alive, And thou can'st give the dead its dear old life, With new abundance perfecting the old.

G.o.d, see my sadness; feel it in thyself."

Ah G.o.d! the earth is full of cries and moans, And dull despair, that neither moans nor cries; Thousands of hearts are waiting the last day, For what they know not, but with hope of change, Of resurrection, or of dreamless death.

Raise thou the buried dead of springs gone by In maidens' bosoms; raise the autumn fruits Of old men feebly mournful o'er the life Which scarce hath memory but the mournfulness.

There is no Past with thee: bring back once more The summer eves of lovers, over which The wintry wind that raveth through the world Heaps wretched leaves, half tombed in ghastly snow; Bring back the mother-heaven of orphans lone, The brother's and the sister's faithfulness; Bring forth the kingdom of the Son of Man.

They troop around me, children wildly crying; Women with faded eyes, all spent of tears; Men who have lived for love, yet lived alone; And worse than so, whose grief cannot be said.