Lucile Part 10

They are felling the masts--they are cutting the sails; Some are working, some weeping, and some wrangling o'er Their gold in the ingots, their silk in the bales.

"Souls of men are on board; wealth of man in the hold; And the storm-wind Euroclydon sweeps to his prey; And who heeds the bird? 'Save the silk and the gold!'

And the bird from her shelter the gust sweeps away!

"Poor Paradise Bird! on her lone flight once more Back again in the wake of the wind she is driven-- To be 'whelmed in the storm, or above it to soar, And, if rescued from ocean, to vanish in heaven!

"And the s.h.i.+p rides the waters and weathers the gales: From the haven she nears the rejoicing is heard.

All hands are at work on the ingots, the bales, Save a child sitting lonely, who misses--the bird!"

CANTO III.

I.

With stout iron shoes be my Pegasus shod!

For my road is a rough one: flint, stubble, and clod, Blue clay, and black quagmire, brambles no few, And I gallop up-hill, now.

There's terror that's true In that tale of a youth who, one night at a revel, Amidst music and mirth lured and wiled by some devil, Follow'd ever one mask through the mad masquerade, Till, pursued to some chamber deserted ('tis said), He unmasked, with a kiss, the strange lady, and stood Face to face with a Thing not of flesh nor of blood.

In this Mask of the Pa.s.sions, call'd Life, there's no human Emotion, though mask'd, or in man or in woman, But, when faced and unmask'd, it will leave us at last Struck by some supernatural aspect aghast.

For truth is appalling and eldrich, as seen By this world's artificial lamplights and we screen From our sight the strange vision that troubles our life.

Alas! why is Genius forever at strife With the world, which, despite the world's self, it enn.o.bles?

Why is it that Genius perplexes and troubles And offends the effete life it comes to renew?

'Tis the terror of truth! 'tis that Genius is true!

II.

Lucile de Nevers (if her riddle I read) Was a woman of genius: whose genius, indeed, With her life was at war. Once, but once, in that life The chance had been hers to escape from this strife In herself; finding peace in the life of another From the pa.s.sionate wants she, in hers, failed to smother.

But the chance fell too soon, when the crude restless power Which had been to her nature so fatal a dower, Only wearied the man it yet haunted and thrall'd; And that moment, once lost, had been never recall'd.

Yet it left her heart sore: and, to shelter her heart From approach, she then sought, in that delicate art Of concealment, those thousand adroit strategies Of feminine wit, which repel while they please, A weapon, at once, and a s.h.i.+eld to conceal And defend all that women can earnestly feel.

Thus, striving her instincts to hide and repress, She felt frighten'd at times by her very success: She pined for the hill-tops, the clouds, and the stars: Golden wires may annoy us as much as steel bars If they keep us behind prison windows: impa.s.sion'd Her heart rose and burst the light cage she had fas.h.i.+on'd Out of glittering trifles around it.

Unknown To herself, all her instincts, without hesitation, Embraced the idea of self-immolation.

The strong spirit in her, had her life been but blended With some man's whose heart had her own comprehended, All its wealth at his feet would have lavishly thrown.

For him she had struggled and striven alone; For him had aspired; in him had transfused All the gladness and grace of her nature; and used For him only the spells of its delicate power: Like the ministering fairy that brings from her bower To some maze all the treasures, whose use the fond elf, More enrich'd by her love, disregards for herself.

But standing apart, as she ever had done, And her genius, which needed a vent, finding none In the broad fields of action thrown wide to man's power, She unconsciously made it her bulwark and tower, And built in it her refuge, whence lightly she hurl'd Her contempt at the fas.h.i.+ons and forms of the world.

And the permanent cause why she now miss'd and fail'd That firm hold upon life she so keenly a.s.sail'd, Was, in all those diurnal occasions that place Say--the world and the woman opposed face to face, Where the woman must yield, she, refusing to stir, Offended the world, which in turn wounded her.

As before, in the old-fas.h.i.+on'd manner, I fit To this character, also, its moral: to wit, Say--the world is a nettle; disturb it, it stings: Grasp it firmly, it stings not. On one of two things, If you would not be stung, it behoves you to settle Avoid it, or crush it. She crush'd not the nettle; For she could not; nor would she avoid it: she tried With the weak hand of woman to thrust it aside, And it stung her. A woman is too slight a thing To trample the world without feeling its sting.

III.

One lodges but simply at Luchon; yet, thanks To the season that changes forever the banks Of the blossoming mountains, and s.h.i.+fts the light cloud O'er the valley, and hushes or rouses the loud Wind that wails in the pines, or creeps murmuring down The dark evergreen slopes to the slumbering town, And the torrent that falls, faintly heard from afar, And the blue-bells that purple the dapple-gray scaur, One sees with each month of the many-faced year A thousand sweet changes of beauty appear.

The chalet where dwelt the Comtesse de Nevers Rested half up the base of a mountain of firs, In a garden of roses, reveal'd to the road, Yet withdrawn from its noise: 'twas a peaceful abode.

And the walls, and the roofs, with their gables like hoods Which the monks wear, were built of sweet resinous woods.

The sunlight of noon, as Lord Alfred ascended The steep garden paths, every odor had blended Of the ardent carnations, and faint heliotropes, With the balms floated down from the dark wooded slopes: A light breeze at the window was playing about, And the white curtains floated, now in, and now out.

The house was all hush'd when he rang at the door, Which was open'd to him in a moment, or more, By an old nodding negress, whose sable head s.h.i.+ned In the sun like a cocoa-nut polished in Ind, 'Neath the snowy foulard which about it was wound.

IV.

Lord Alfred sprang forward at once, with a bound.

He remembered the nurse of Lucile. The old dame, Whose teeth and whose eyes used to beam when he came, With a boy's eager step, in the blithe days of yore, To pa.s.s, unannounced, her young mistress's door.

The old woman had fondled Lucile on her knee When she left, as an infant, far over the sea, In India, the tomb of a mother, unknown, To pine, a pale flow'ret, in great Paris town.

She had sooth'd the child's sobs on her breast, when she read The letter that told her, her father was dead.

An astute, shrewd adventurer, who, like Ulysses, Had studied men, cities, laws, wars, the abysses Of statecraft, with varying fortunes, was he.

He had wander'd the world through, by land and by sea, And knew it in most of its phases. Strong will, Subtle tact, and soft manners, had given him skill To conciliate Fortune, and courage to brave Her displeasure. Thrice s.h.i.+pwreck'd, and cast by the wave On his own quick resources, they rarely had fail'd His command: often baffled, he ever prevail'd, In his combat with fate: to-day flatter'd and fed By monarchs, to-morrow in search of mere bread The offspring of times trouble-haunted, he came Of a family ruin'd, yet n.o.ble in name.

He lost sight of his fortune, at twenty, in France, And, half statesman, half soldier, and wholly Freelance, Had wander'd in search of it, over the world Into India.

But scarce had the nomad unfurl'd His wandering tent at Mysore, in the smile Of a Rajah (whose court he controll'd for a while, And whose council he prompted and govern'd by stealth); Scarce, indeed, had he wedded an Indian of wealth, Who died giving birth to this daughter, before He was borne to the tomb of his wife at Mysore.

His fortune, which fell to his orphan, perchance Had secured her a home with his sister in France, A lone woman, the last of the race left. Lucile Neither felt, nor affected, the wish to conceal The half-Eastern blood, which appear'd to bequeath (Reveal'd now and then, though but rarely, beneath That outward repose that concealed it in her) A something half wild to her strange character.

The nurse with the orphan, awhile broken-hearted, At the door of a convent in Paris had parted.

But later, once more, with her mistress she tarried, When the girl, by that grim maiden aunt, had been married To a dreary old Count, who had sullenly died, With no claim on her tears--she had wept as a bride.

Said Lord Alfred, "Your mistress expects me."

The crone Oped the drawing-room door, and there left him alone.

V.

O'er the soft atmosphere of this temple of grace Rested silence and perfume. No sound reach'd the place.

In the white curtains waver'd the delicate shade Of the heaving acacias, through which the breeze play'd.

O'er the smooth wooden floor, polished dark as a gla.s.s, Fragrant white Indian matting allowed you to pa.s.s.

In light olive baskets, by window and door, Some hung from the ceiling, some crowding the floor, Rich wild flowers pluck'd by Lucile from the hill, Seem'd the room with their pa.s.sionate presence to fill: Blue aconite, hid in white roses, reposed; The deep belladonna its vermeil disclosed; And the frail saponaire, and the tender blue-bell, And the purple valerian,--each child of the fell And the solitude flourish'd, fed fair from the source Of waters the huntsman scarce heeds in his course Where the chamois and izard, with delicate hoof, Pause or flit through the pinnacled silence aloof.

VI.

Here you felt, by the sense of its beauty reposed, That you stood in a shrine of sweet thoughts. Half unclosed In the light slept the flowers; all was pure and at rest; All peaceful; all modest; all seem'd self-possess'd, And aware of the silence. No vestige nor trace Of a young woman's coquetry troubled the place.

He stood by the window. A cloud pa.s.s'd the sun.

A light breeze uplifted the leaves, one by one.

Just then Lucile enter'd the room, undiscern'd By Lord Alfred, whose face to the window was turned, In a strange revery.

The time was, when Lucile, In beholding that man, could not help but reveal The rapture, the fear, which wrench'd out every nerve In the heart of the girl from the woman's reserve.

And now--she gazed at him, calm, smiling,--perchance Indifferent.

VII.