THE SORROWFUL SIDE.
MARGARET.
The admirers of Goethe’s immortal tragedy “Faust” will remember the passage in which poor Margaret says to her lover:
Kiss me?—canst no longer do it?
My friend, so short a time thou’rt missing,
And hast unlearned thy kissing?
Why is my heart so anxious on thy breast?
Where once a heaven thy glances did create me,
A heaven thy loving words expressed,
And thou didst kiss, as thou would suffocate me—
Kiss me!
Or I’ll kiss thee.
(She embraces him.)
Ah, woe! thy lips are chill
And still.
How changed in fashion
Thy passion!
Who has done me this ill?
Nor can they forget the simple song in which, while seated at her spinning-wheel, she gives utterance to her grief. The closing verses are these:
And the magic flow
Of his talk, the bliss
In the clasp of his hand,
And, ah, his kiss!
My peace is gone,
My heart is sore;
I never shall find it,
Ah, nevermore!
My bosom yearns
For him alone;
Ah! dared I clasp him,
And hold, and own,
And kiss his mouth
To heart’s desire,
And on his kisses
At last expire!
THE WELCOME HOME.
For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care;
No children run to lisp their sire’s return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.
Gray: Elegy.
Evidently the poet Gray had in his mind’s eye the following passage from Lucretius:
“Non domus accipiet te læta, neque uxor
Optima, nec dulces occurrent oscula nati
Præripere, et tacita pectus dulcedine tangent.”
[No joyous home shall receive thee, nor excellent wife, nor will any dear children of thine run out to meet thee and vie with each other in snatching kisses from thee, and raise a tumult of sweet but unutterable affection in thy breast.]
AFTER THE BALL.
[The sisters return from the ball to their chamber, gayly laugh and chat over the reminiscences of the night, lay aside “the robe of satin and Brussels lace,” “comb out their braids and curls,” and as the fire goes out, and the winter chill is gathering, they seek repose. “Curtained away from the chilly night, after the revel is done,” they “float along in a splendid dream,” which the poet recounts, and then addresses them thus:]
Oh, Maud and Madge, dream on together,
With never a pang of jealous fear!
For, ere the bitter St. Agnes weather
Shall whiten another year,
Robed for the bridal, and robed for the tomb,
Braided brown hair, and golden tress,
There’ll be only one of you left for the bloom
Of the bearded lips to press,—
Only one for the bridal pearls,
The robe of satin and Brussels lace,—
Only one to blush through her curls
At the sight of a lover’s face.
Oh, beautiful Madge, in your bridal white,
For you the revel has just begun;
But for her who sleeps in your arms to-night,
The revel of life is done!
But, robed and crowned with your saintly bliss,
Queen of heaven and bride of the sun,
Oh, beautiful Maud, you’ll never miss
The kisses another hath won!
AFTER THE WEDDING.
All alone in my room, at last;
I wonder how far they have travelled now?
They’ll be very far when the night is past;
And so would I, if I knew but how.
How lovely she looked in her wreath and dress!
She is queenlier far than the village girls;
Those were roses, too, in the wreath, I guess—
’Twas they made the crimson amongst her curls.
She’s good as beautiful, too, they say;
Her heart is as gentle as any dove’s;
She’ll be all that she can to him alway—
Dear! I am tearing my new white gloves.
How calm she is, with her saint-like face!
Her eyes are violet—mine are blue;
How careless I am with my mother’s lace!—
Her hands are whiter, and softer, too.
They’ve gone to the city beyond the hill,
They must never come back to this place again!
I’m almost afraid to be here so still;
I wish it would thunder! and lighten! and rain!
Oh, no! for some may not be abed,
Some few, perhaps, may be out to-night;
I hope that the moon will come instead,
And heaven be starry, and earth all light.
’Tis only a summer that she’s been here—
It’s been my home for seventeen years!—
But her name is a testament far and near,
And the poor have embalmed it in priceless tears.
I remember the day when another came—
There! at last, I have tied my hair—
Her curls and mine were nearly the same,
But hers are longer, and mine less fair.
They’re going across the sea, I know,
Across the ocean—will that be far?—
Did I have my comb a moment ago?
I seem to forget where my things all are.
When ships are wrecked, do the people drown?
Is there never a boat to save the crew?
Poor ships! If ever my ship goes down,
I’ll want a grave in the ocean, too.
Good-night, good-night—it is striking one!—
Good-night to bride, and good-night to groom.
The light of my candle is almost done—
I wish my bed was in mother’s room!
How calm it looks in the midnight shade—
Those curtains were hung there clean to-day:
They’re all too white for me, I’m afraid:
Perhaps I may soon be as white as they.
Dark!—all dark!—for the light is dead.
Father in heaven, may I have rest?
One hour of sleep for my weary head—
For this breaking heart in my poor, poor breast!
For his sweet sake do I kneel and pray,
O God! protect him from change and ill;
And render her worthier every way,
The older the purer, the lovelier still.
There! I knew I was going to cry;—
I have kept the tears in my soul too long:
Oh! let me say it, or I shall die,—
As heaven is witness, I mean no wrong.
He never shall hear from this secret room,
He never shall know in the after-years,
How seventeen summers of happy bloom
Fell dead, one night, in a moment of tears!
I loved him more than she understands.
For him I loaded my soul with truth;
For him I am kneeling, with lifted hands,
To lay at his feet my shattered youth!
I love, I adore him, still the same!
More than father, and mother, and life!
My hope of hopes was to bear his name—
My heaven of heavens to be his wife!
His wife—oh, name which the angels breathe,
Let it not crimson my cheek for shame—
’Tis her great glory that word to wreathe
In the princely heart from whose blood it came.
Oh, hush! again I behold them stand,
As they stood to-night, by the chancel wall:
I see him holding her white-gloved hand,
I hear his voice in a whisper fall.
I see the minister’s silver hair,
I see him kneel at the altar-stone,
I see him rise when the prayer is o’er,
He has taken their hands and made them one.
The fathers and mothers are standing near,
The friends are pressing to kiss the bride;
One of those kisses had birthplace here—
The dew of her lips has not yet dried.
His lips have touched hers before to-night—
Then I have a grain of his to keep!
This midnight blackness is flecked with light,
Some angel is singing my soul to sleep.
He knows full well why many a knave
So close to his lady’s lips would swim—
God only knows that the kiss I gave
Was set in her mouth to give to him!
W. L. Keese.
THE BALLAD OF CHEVY-CHASE.
In this popular ballad, believed to have been written about the year 1600, occur these familiar stanzas:
Next day did many widows come,
Their husbands to bewail;
They washed their wounds in brinish tears,
But all would not prevail.
Their bodies, bathed in purple blood,
They bore with them away;
They kissed them dead a thousand times,
Ere they were clad in clay.
THE OLD LOVE.
I met her; she was thin and old,
She stooped, and trod with tottering feet;
Her locks were gray that once were gold,
Her voice was harsh that once was sweet;
Her cheeks were sunken, and her eyes,
Robbed of their girlish light of joy,
Were dim: I felt a strange surprise
That I had loved her when a boy.
But yet a something in her air
Restored me to my youthful prime:
My heart grew young, and seemed to wear
The impress of that long-lost time.
I took her wilted hand in mine,
Its touch awoke a ghost of joy;
I kissed her with a reverent sigh,
For I had loved her when a boy.
EARL MARCH’S DAUGHTER.
The earl, smitten with grief over his broken-hearted and dying Ellen, is anxious to restore the lover he had exiled. But it is too late:
In vain he weeps, in vain he sighs;
Her cheek is cold as ashes;
Nor love’s own kiss shall wake those eyes
To lift their silken lashes.
Campbell.
THE KING OF FRANCE’S DAUGHTER.
His pale lyppes, alas!
Twenty times she kissed,
And his face did wash
With her trickling teares;
Every gaping wound
Tenderlye she pressed,
And did wipe it round’
With her golden haires.
“Speake, faire love,” quoth shee,
“Speake, faire prince, to mee;
One sweete word of comfort give:
Lift up thy deare eyes,
Listen to my cryes,
Thinke in what sad griefe I live.”
All in vaine she sued,
All in vaine she wooed;
The prince’s life was fled and gone.
Pepys Collection.
DYING INJUNCTION.
When our dear parents died, they died together;
One fate surprised them, and one grave received them.
My father with his dying breath bequeathed
Her to my love; my mother, as she lay
Languishing by him, called me to her side,
Took me in her fainting arms, wept, and embraced me;
Then pressed me close, and, as she observed my tears,
Kissed them away. Said she, Chamont, my son,
By this, and all the love I ever showed thee,
Be careful of Monimia, watch her youth,
Let not her wants betray her to dishonor;
Perhaps kind heaven may raise some friend; then sighed,
Kissed me again; so blessed us, and expired.
Otway: Orphan.
FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH.
’Tis she,—far off, through moonlight dim,
He knew his own betrothèd bride,
She who would rather die with him
Than live to gain the world beside!
Her arms are round her lover now,
His livid cheek to hers she presses,
And dips, to bind his burning brow,
In the cool lake her loosened tresses.
...
One struggle, and his pain is past,
Her lover is no longer living!
One kiss the maiden gives, one last,
Long kiss, which she expires in giving!
Moore: Lalla Rookh.
THE LAST OBSERVANCE.
Oh, may I view thee with life’s parting ray,
And thy dear hand with dying ardor press;
Sure thou wilt weep, and on thy lover’s clay
With breaking heart print many a tender kiss.
...
On my cold lips thy kisses thou wouldst fix,
While flowing tears with thy dear kisses mix.
Tibullus: Elegy I.
THE EXILES.
With louder plaints the mother spoke her woes,
And blest the cot where every pleasure rose;
And kissed her thoughtless babes with many a tear,
And clasped them close, in sorrow doubly dear.
Goldsmith: Deserted Village.
“ORATE HIC PRO ME.”
They went with speed to the dungeon-door;
The air was chill and damp;
And the pale girl lay on the marble floor,
Beside the dying lamp;
They kissed her lips, they called her name,
No kiss returned, no answer came.
Motionless, lifeless, there she lay,
Like a statue rent from its base away.
Praed.
JEPHTHAH’S DAUGHTER.
It comforts me in this one thought to dwell,
That I subdued me to my father’s will;
Because the kiss he gave me, ere I fell,
Sweetens the spirit still.
Tennyson: Dream of Fair Women.
THE MAY QUEEN.
I have been wild and wayward, but you’ll forgive me now;
You’ll kiss me, my own mother, and forgive me ere I go;
Nay, nay, you must not weep, nor let your grief be wild;
You should not fret for me, mother, you have another child.
Tennyson.
ENOCH ARDEN.
My children, too! must I not speak to these?
They know me not; I should betray myself.
Never; no father’s kiss for me,—the girl
So like her mother, and the boy, my son.
Tennyson.
ŒNONE.
Oh, mother, hear me yet before I die!
Hath he not sworn his love a thousand times,
In this green valley, under this green hill,
Ev’n on this hand, and sitting on this stone?
Sealed it with kisses? watered it with tears?
Tennyson.
QUARREL AND RECONCILIATION.
As through the land at eve we went,
And plucked the ripened ears,
We fell out, my wife and I,
Oh, we fell out, I know not why,
And kissed again with tears.
For when we came where lies the child
We lost in other years,
There above the little grave,
Oh, there above the little grave
We kissed again with tears.
Tennyson: Princess.
EVANGELINE.
Vainly he strove to whisper her name, for the accents unuttered
Died on his lips, and their motion revealed what his tongue would have spoken.
Vainly he strove to rise; and Evangeline, kneeling beside him,
Kissed his dying lips, and laid his head on her bosom.
Longfellow.
OVER THE STARRY WAY.
Gone to sleep with the tender smile
Froze on her silent lips
By the farewell kiss of the angel Death,
Like the last fair bud of a faded wreath
Whose bloom the white frost nips.
DEATH OF AN INFANT.
Oh, fairest flower, no sooner blown but blasted,
Soft silken primrose fading timelessly,
Summer’s chief honor, if thou hadst outlasted
Bleak Winter’s force that made thy blossom dry;
For he being amorous on that lovely dye
That did thy cheek envermeil, thought to kiss,
But killed, alas, and then bewailed his fatal bliss.
Milton.
ON THE DEATH OF A FRIEND’S CHILD.
If Death
More near approaches, meditates, and clasps
Even now some dearer, more reluctant hand,
God, strengthen Thou my faith, that I may see
That ’tis Thine angel, who, with loving haste,
Unto the service of the inner shrine
Doth waken Thy beloved with a kiss.
Lowell.
HIGHLAND MARY.
Oh, pale, pale now, those rosy lips,
I aft hae kissed sae fondly,
And closed for aye the sparkling glance
That dwelt on me sae kindly!
Burns.
CONSUMPTION.
Oh, then, when the spirit is taking wing,
How fondly her thoughts to her dear one cling,
As if she would blend her soul with his
In a deep and long-imprinted kiss!
Percival.
BARBARA.
Oh, that pallid face!
Those sweet, earnest eyes of grace!
When last I saw them, dearest, ’twas in another place;
You came running forth to meet me, with my love-gift on your wrist,
And a cursed river killed thee, aided by a murderous mist.
Oh, a purple mark of agony was on the mouth I kissed
When last I saw thee, Barbara!
Alexander Smith.
“I WANT TO FIND MY PAPA.”
A lady while walking in a city street met a little girl between two and three years old, evidently lost, and crying bitterly. Taking her by the hand, the lady asked her where she was going.
“I am going down town to find my papa,” was the reply, between sobs, of the child.
“What is your papa’s name?” asked the lady.
“His name is papa,” replied the innocent little thing.
“But what is his other name?” queried the lady; “what does your mamma call him?”
“She calls him papa,” persisted the baby.
The lady then took the little one by the hand and led her along, saying,—
“You had better come with me; I guess you came from this way.”
“Yes, but I don’t want to go back; I want to find my papa,” replied the little girl, crying afresh as if her heart would break.
“What do you want of your papa?” asked the lady.
“I want to kiss him.”
Just then a sister of the child came along looking for her and led her away. From subsequent inquiries, it appeared that the little one’s papa, whom she was so earnestly in search of, had recently died. In her lonesomeness and love for him, she tired of waiting for him to come home, and had gone to find him and greet him with the accustomed kiss.
THE PENALTY OF HARSHNESS.
It seems a hard and cruel thing to make the affections of a child its means of punishment for slight juvenile offences. A sad occurrence may be quoted as evidence in point.
A little girl, who, although an affectionate little creature as ever lived, was very volatile and light-hearted, could not always remember to mind her mother. At the close of a winter day she had gone into the street, contrary to her mother’s injunction, to play with one of her little companions; when she came in, and was prepared to go to bed, she approached her mother for her good-night kiss.
“I cannot kiss you to-night, Mary,” said the mother; “you have been a very naughty little girl, and have disobeyed me. I cannot kiss you to-night.”
The little girl, her face streaming with tears, again begged her mother to kiss her; but she was a “strong-minded woman,” and was inexorable.
It was a sad lesson that she learned, for on that very night the child died of croup. She had asked her mother, the last thing as she went up to her little bed, if she would kiss her in the morning; but in the morning her innocent lips were cold.
VIRGINIA.
Macaulay, in his “Lays of Ancient. Rome,” includes the tragic incident which led to the downfall of the execrable government of Appius Claudius, who had made an attempt upon the chastity of a beautiful young girl of humble birth. The decemvir, unable to succeed by bribes and solicitations, resorted to an outrageous act of tyranny. A vile dependant of the Claudian house laid claim to the damsel as his slave. The cause was brought before the tribunal of Appius. The wicked magistrate, in defiance of the clearest proofs, gave judgment for the claimant; but the girl’s father, a brave soldier, saved her from servitude and dishonor by stabbing her to the heart in the sight of the whole forum. Virginius, in the course of a thrilling appeal to the people, says,—
“Have ye not graceful ladies, whose spotless lineage springs
From consuls, and high pontiffs, and ancient Alban kings?
Ladies who deign not on our paths to set their tender feet,
Who from their cars look down with scorn upon the wondering street;
Who in Corinthian mirrors their own proud smiles behold,
And breathe of Capuan odors and shine with Spanish gold?
Then leave the poor Plebeian his single tie to life,—
The sweet, sweet love of daughter, of sister, and of wife,
The gentle speech, the balm for all that his vexed soul endures,
The kiss in which he half forgets even such a yoke as yours;
Still let the maiden’s beauty swell the father’s breast with pride,
Still let the bridegroom’s arms enfold an unpolluted bride;
Spare us the inexpiable wrong, the unutterable shame,
That turns the coward’s heart to steel, the sluggard’s blood to flame,
Lest, when our latest hope is fled, ye taste of our despair,
And learn by proof, in some wild hour, how much the wretched dare.”
Having led the devoted maiden to the spot for sacrifice, he pours out in passionate language the wealth of his affection, closing thus:
“With all his wit, he little deems that, spurned, betrayed, bereft,
Thy father hath in his despair one fearful refuge left,
He little deems that in this hand I clutch what still can save
Thy gentle youth from taunts and blows, the portion of the slave;
Yea, and from nameless evil that passeth taunt and blow,—
Foul outrage which thou knowest not, which thou shalt never know.
Then clasp me round the neck once more, and give me one more kiss,
And now, mine own dear little girl, there is no way but this.’
With that he lifted high the steel and smote her in the side,
And in her blood she sank to earth, and with one sob she died.”