ON KINGSLEY’S “FAREWELL.”
Let’s climb the steeps, let’s drink of Kingsley’s fountain;
Let’s stand with him above the rabbled throng
Upon the sun-tipped top of his grand mountain
Of moral song.
Oh listen to the music of the river
Along the channeled valleys of his soul
As its threnode-throbbing echoes on us ever
Their Farewell roll:—
“Be good, sweet maid, and let who can be clever;
Do lovely things, not dream them, all day long,
And so make life, and death, and that vast forever
One grand, sweet song.”
THE TRANSFORMATION.
A PSYCHOLOGICAL MYSTERY.
I am not superstitious, not in the least. But that certain things which we cannot explain by any natural method may happen in the lives of us all, there is no longer a shadow of a doubt in my own mind.
I had gone to bed as usual and had been sleeping soundly one night, with only the faint glimmer of a sweet vision now and then flitting through my mind, when suddenly I was startled from my sleep into a lively consciousness of a strange presence, and weird, mournful sounds, as of a dirge, in my room. Moreover, there was a peculiar sensation in my head, a sensation that I have never before or since felt, a kind of pain, yet not a pain; for in some indefinable way it was mysteriously mingled with a peculiar, almost transporting rapture that seemed to permeate my whole being. Indeed, the pain, starting immediately between my brows and running back to my crown, seemed born of this pleasurable sensation, which had no local residence but was in every nerve and fibre, both together producing that indescribable exhilarating feeling that I imagine the truly happy in the next world possess. But, you say, surely the angels have no pain. I hope not; but this I have learned, that every pleasure of earth has its pain. And as I cannot say that this sensation was altogether that of a mortal, I cannot say from experience that there is a pleasure without a pain.
For a moment after awaking, I could not tell where I was or what was going on. But my senses being quickly roused to their fullest keenness, I soon saw I was in my own room. But the matter of the presence and the weird sound was not so easily solved.
I lay quietly for a time, trying to persuade myself that I had been dreaming and that my waking fancy was merely the hallucination of the dream that had not yet passed away. Have you never done the like? However, I soon realized that the presence and the sound, whoever or whatever they were, were not mere fancy. Still I tried to shake off the feeling that some one had entered my room; for, as is my custom, I had securely barred the front door, also my bed-room door, before retiring. Besides, no one could possibly have climbed in at my windows of the second story without my knowing it; for when I am so nervous as I was this night, the slightest sound will waken me. I turned over and looked out of the window. The moon was still shining, and the trees swayed with a soft murmur in answer to the light breeze that wantoned among the virgin May leaves just lately from the bud. There were the houses, the barns, the road, everything, in fact, just as it really was, and I knew I could not possibly be asleep.
Still, that consciousness of a presence in my room, stronger and stronger grown until it had reached conviction, I could not rid myself of; nor could I shut my ears to the mournful sounds that came from somewhere—everywhere, it seemed.
Suddenly—most wonderful to tell!—I saw the very faintest streak of light creep up the farther wall of my room.
All that I have related did not, perhaps, occupy more than a full minute, though I must confess it seemed much longer.
The thread of light, different from all lights I have ever before seen, moved toward the ceiling rapidly, and held me in breathless attention. What could it be!—A ray of the moon through a slit in the curtain that was gently moved by the breeze blowing through the window? Wait! It reached the ceiling. Then with such a delicate light that it was almost imperceptible, it crept along the ceiling diagonally toward me. When it got immediately above my head, it stopped. What in the world could it be!
I lay almost breathless, wondering. Wouldn’t you, my friend, if you should see such a thing in your room? You may not know what you would do in such case. Possibly you say you would investigate at once. So, too, had I said many a time,—I would investigate whatever was strange, doubtful, or inexplicable. But if your hands would not move, if your feet lay motionless, and if your whole being were thrilled with a thralling rapture and pain all at once, you would probably do just as I did,—lie there fascinated.
Suddenly, like a flash, something struck me on the forehead, and instantly I sat bolt upright in bed. As I rose, whatever it was that struck me bounded off on the bed, then down on the floor, that mysterious filmy thread of light following it, and at the same time clinging to my forehead. I put my hand up to brush it away. But when I touched it (if I really did touch it, which I doubt, for my hand seemed suddenly arrested), my whole body trembled as if shaken by some supernatural power. It was something more than a light,—it was a film, a thread; and at my touch upon it, that sensation of mingled pain and rapture was almost beyond my power to survive. I let my hand drop from it, and unable to resist doing what I did, I rose from my bed and started to follow up that thread of light and film; for somehow it seemed attached to my brain, and I involuntarily obeyed the will of whoever or whatever it was that controlled it. Though fully conscious of all I was doing, I could not resist. Great beads of sweat stood on my body, caused partly, I suppose, by extreme nervous excitement and partly by this influence upon me.
I would have hastened from the room, screamed for help, or cried “murder!” but it was impossible. Even the rapidity of my steps was under control, and I marched slowly, deliberately, and solemnly, as to martial music of the dead.
I passed from my sleeping-room to my study, obedient to the slightest inclination of the supernatural power that controlled the thread by which I was led.
When I reached my study-chair at my desk, I obediently sat down. Then for the first time I beheld the object that was exerting this power over me. I have seen many an object before and since very similar to it, but never at any time another just like it.
As I sat in my chair, my eyes riveted on the thread of light, suddenly that object appeared at the other end of the thread on a pile of blank writing paper that lay on my desk, and eyed me intently. I was horrified, and if possible, less capable of resisting than before. What I beheld, and what was exerting this supernatural influence over me was nothing more nor less than a horrible, ugly spider!—a supernatural spider, most certainly; different, I tell you, from any I have ever before or since seen.
As I sat watching the spider, it began moving up and down, back and forth, and round and round on the paper in the most irregular motions imaginable. Being rather large and clumsy-looking, his movements, so very irregular though really not ungraceful, made the spider at first look awkward.
Wonder upon wonder! As the spider began moving, another one, somewhat smaller than the first, and more dimly seen, with even a finer thread of light (attached, too, to the first spider’s thread), made its appearance on another pile of paper. Could it be that a whole army of spiders had convened to work my destruction, and that these two were only the picket-guards? Yet it did seem that this one was not present, but only the vision of a spider, existing somewhere in reality, but present only to my mind. This, too, I am persuaded to believe, was really the case. But the other one, the larger one, I swear was there moving on my paper; and I still have the paper in my possession as proof. As this one began to move, the visionary one also began to move; as if each, unconscious of the acts of the other, was nevertheless controlled by the action of the other, and the influence upon each other was mutual. As they both moved, I noticed they left their shining, filmy thread upon the paper. But I was so intent upon every motion that I paid no attention to the web left behind, until each spider, having almost reached the right-hand side of the paper, cut his thread, went to the left, and began again to go through similar motions.
What could be the meaning of this mystic spider-dance? Such, indeed, it now seemed to be; for my first impression of irregularity and clumsiness had now worn away, and their motions now seemed to be in perfect unison, and measured with the grace and harmony of rhythm. The room was but dimly lighted by the rays of moon that slipped in under the curtains, yet I could see the spiders and their work plainly. I glanced at the glowing web the first spider had left, and—wonderful to relate!—as true as the sun shines above us, there at the top of the page in writing that, had it been in ink, I would have sworn was my own, the glowing web had been woven in and out so as to read, Happy Days of Yore!
Could it be possible?—was I not dreaming? I looked and read and read and looked again and again. But there it was, plain as day, in a style of writing, too, I say, that I would have sworn was my own had it been in ink instead of woven in a glowing web. But why those words? Could there be something in my life, past or present, that those words were to taunt me about? My whole life’s history trailed before my eyes, a galaxy of pleasant memories. No, nothing there that these words could make regretful. Could it then portend something of a dark future? God alone knows!
Thus meditating, my eye caught the less distinct glow of the web of the other spider. Heavens! what next! There, as distinct as if written by the hand of my old chum, were the words, Memories of the Past. Here was a mystery growing deeper and deeper each moment. I would willingly have taken my oath, and will to this day, that the handwriting was that of my boyhood chum and present dear old friend.
Happy Days of Yore,—Memories of the Past. How was I to solve the mystery of the weaving of these words and fathom their intended meaning? Both suggested to my mind a similar train of thought. But why this mysterious writing?
As I sat thus meditating, I again became conscious of that weird sound of which I have previously spoken, but which (my mind being so preoccupied with what was before it) I had not again noticed until I fell into this meditation.
It sounded like the sweet, sad blending of mournful voices singing, or chanting, rather, to the deep tones of a distant organ. I recalled myself and looked at the large spider, when I discovered that—mystery of mysteries!—the echo-like organ voice and solemn chanting music came from the spider alone as he moved across the paper, weaving his golden web into rhythmic words! There, as the music went on, I read in illuminated characters of the weaving spider’s web.—
Oh those happy days of yore
Will come back to me no more!
Ah no more, no more for aye!—
They have fled with time away,
And my heart is sad and lone
As I dream forevermore,
With a heaving sigh and groan,
Of those happy days of yore.
Most wonderful!—wonderful not in the words so much, for they were simple, plain, and as they moved to the music, graceful withal, seeming to be words that might come from a sincere and true but untutored poetic heart; wonderful, therefore, rather, that they should be woven by a spider, and that, too, with a web of light.
As in eager wonder I leaned my ear closer, the vision of the second and more delicate spider, likewise weaving, passed before my eyes, and I caught the distant strains of a deeper, sadder, sweeter melody, with these words woven in the finer, more delicate thread of light.—
Oh how sweet those days of boyhood,
Oh how dear those happy hours
When I rambled through the forests
’Mong the birds and trees and flowers!
Life lay smiling all before me,
No regrets, no cares behind;
All the earth seemed bright with beauty,
Life was freedom unconfined.
I rejoiced whene’er the sunlight
Scattered wide its golden beams,
Thinking not that I should ever
Miss its light or prize its gleams.
Still more wonderful and remarkable than anything before was the similarity of music as well as of thought: more wonderful and more remarkable because neither spider seemed conscious of the other’s action or presence. Indeed, as I have already said, only one really was present; the other existing in another place, and only psychologically present to me. This latter fact, shown in all that follows, I tell you, is the most remarkable psychological problem I have ever met—except one!—nor have I ever yet found sage or savant able to solve it. Many have tried it, wondered at it more and more as they got more and more into its depths and subtle intricacies, and finally in their weakness have given it up. Herbert Spencer, McCosh, and other lesser philosophers cannot satisfy themselves upon it.
My interest was now, if possible, even greater than before. Again I turned my attention to the present spider as in melody it wove.—
Oh those days of sweetest thought!
Oh those days with rapture fraught!
Had I known when but a child
What great blessings round me smiled,
With a wild, exulting leap
I’d have struck on wisdom’s door;
Piled up knowledge heap on heap
In those happy days of yore.
Both were weaving rapidly, as if their very lives were an ephemeral inspiration, and they were thus weaving it away in illuminated letters, that at least that inspiration might live, though the very weaving should cost both their lives. So I hastened again to look, and to listen to the other richer and deeper melody.—
Ah, those days are gone forever;
Time has wafted them away;
Happiness now seems a phantom
Of a joyous yesterday.
If I could but live them over,
All those careless, happy hours,
Start again in life’s fair morning
O’er life’s path of thorns and flowers,
Not a moment would be wasted
Chasing bubbles in the air—
I would seek the pearls of knowledge,
And the gems of wisdom wear.
Could it be that those two spiders were endowed with human faculties, and that those faculties were now working in unison, inspired by the same thought, the same feeling? I had little time to meditate this, for both wrote (I can’t help saying they wrote) as rapidly as slow music goes, or about as rapidly as I am writing this; and the first spider had already begun the third stanza.—
Could I live again those days
And could know of learning’s worth,
I’d not waste my time in mirth;—
I would climb the hill of fame
And on wisdom’s wings would soar
Till I caught the beacon flame
In those happy days of yore.
I then involuntarily turned to the other; but finding that it had completed a page, as indeed both had done, I removed the finished sheet of the visible one and at the same instant and by the same act removed that of the psychologically visible one; though how this latter was accomplished even psychologists are at their wits’ end to explain. Even to the close I continued thus to remove the finished sheets as soon as they were completed. And now from the second I heard.—
Had I known of wisdom’s power
In those days with pleasure fraught,
From the mines of truth and beauty
Golden trophies I’d have brought.
All the lore of bygone ages
From my books I would have learned;
O’er the bards I would have pondered
Tho’ my lamp till morning burned;
All the broad empire of Nature
With its wealth of laws divine
Should have shown to me the beauty
Of Omnipotent design.
While I listened to this, the first spider, apparently conscious of my abstraction, had waited; but on again bending my eyes in that direction, again the sad melody floated upwards and away to the heart-felt words.—
Oh, my heart grows weak and faint,
And it sighs in sad complaint
As it dreams its dreams of woe
And a pain is at my heart,
Not alone for wisdom’s lore,
For ’twas pierced by sorrow’s dart
In those happy days of yore.
What strange tale could this be I was listening to? I turned to the second weaver of words to mournful melody, and caught the same spirit in these similar words.—
I’d have read that revelation
Traced by our Creator’s hand
Over all our glorious planet,
In the sky and sea and land.
High and bright the lamp of knowledge
Shone for all who’d seek its light;
Ah, how oft I scorned to seek it
In the glare of pleasures bright!
Oft upon the dreary mountain
Have my weary footsteps strayed:—
But ’tis not for wisdom only
That my vain regrets are made.
So! what a train of unutterable sadness the last words of each called up, suggesting some strange sorrow that must force itself into expression of sorrowing strains of music, tuned to even sadder words. Ah yes! to the first, listen!—
She was like a radiant rose
That with sweetness overflows.
Her bright eyes were darkest blue
And her hair a golden hue.
She was lovely as the day,
And within her breast she bore
Heart as light and bright and gay
As those happy days of yore.
Breathlessly I turned to the cadence of the other.—
In those days of idle dreaming,
Ere life’s toils I’d entered in,
Fancy framed for me an image
Of the one I’d woo and win.
It was in an idle romance
My ideal played a part;
But that image, framed in fancy,
Soon was graven on my heart,
And I said, “That maiden only
Of my ideal’s charms complete
Shall have power to lead me captive
And to bring me to her feet.”
Ah, ’tis the old, old story that ever sings itself in the human heart, the story of love. But can it be these spiders are human that they should thus weave their gold-enlighted words to silver chords of harmony?
Once more!—To the first rhythmic weaver, a pleasing recollection.—
We were playmates, she and I,
In that happy time gone by:
Oft we’d walk the meadows over
Hunting for the four-leaved clover
As we’d seen the lovers do;
We the woods would oft explore
Where the fragrant flowers grew
In those happy days of yore.
And then to the second, the same image, lifting upward and away, above the clover-blooms and forest-flowers of sweet memory, comes like the peace of a benediction; and the words weave to quicker though to still sad notes.—
Time passed on and boyish fancies
Were by youth’s bright hopes replaced;
Gay companions were around me,—
Every pleasure we embraced.
And among those friends and schoolmates,
There was one surpassing fair:
Light her heart and light her footstep,
Blue her eyes and gold her hair.
Then her pure and gentle spirit
Shone abroad like smiles from heaven.—
Ah, such divine gifts of beauty
Seldom are to mortals given.
The first one had now finished two pages; the second, three. How much more they would weave I neither knew nor thought. I was too much fascinated by the weirdness and reality of it all to think of anything but the two stories that were being thus wonderfully—thus psychologically though not supernaturally—revealed to me in beauty by ugly spiders that wrought together; each, I knew, unconscious of the other. This fact of each being unconscious of the words, thoughts, and music of the other, and the fact that the web of one was woven into characters to represent my handwriting, while that of the other was the illuminated work of my old chum, gave the two songs an interest that no one else can even approach. No, not even if the same situation should present itself to him, and the spiders should be actually before him, as their work, robbed of all these fascinating features, now is.
Both now wove more and more rapidly, and it was only when the first had woven the following whole page of manuscript that I turned to the other.—
Oft when twilight slowly crept
Over hill and vale that slept,
We would wander side by side
In the golden eventide
By the school-house on the hill
Where so oft we’d been before,
Or beside the water-mill
Oh those days,—sweet, happy days!
Ever round my mind there plays
Fitful Fancy’s dear delight,
Bringing back the time so bright
When we wandered hand in hand
To the little country store,
And the mystic future planned
In those happy days of yore.
New years came as old ones went;
Childhood’s years at last were spent;
We from friends to lovers grew
And nor pain nor sorrow knew.
Oh how fondly did I dream
Folding close my fond Lenore
As we sailed adown life’s stream
In those happy days of yore!
Here the sad-voiced dreamer paused a moment, then glided to the top of the page and waited for me to remove the leaf, while I read and half aloud chanted from the illuminated page of the other this master-melody:—
When she came, ’twas like the sunbeam
Shedding gladness o’er the lea;
When she’d gone, ’twas like the ceasing
Of enchanting melody.
Oft when daily tasks were over,
She and I together strolled
From the hamlet to the seaside
Where the restless billows rolled.
Hours and hours we’d wander, gathering
Treasures from the shifting sand
As each ebbing tide receding
Left its wonders on the strand.
Long we’d watch the stately vessels
Riding proudly o’er the foam,
Some for distant countries steering,
Some returning—bound for home.
Then we’d seek the peaceful harbor
Where our little sail-boat lay,
And while skimming o’er the waters
Laugh and sing the hours away.
Then at twilight, when all nature
Save the sea was hushed and still,
We would turn our footsteps homeward
To the hamlet on the hill.
So pleasing was this recollection that I could not yet turn away, but listened rather than read, as the musician continued on the next page; for he had finished this, and the harmony continued unbroken.
And that image framed in boyhood
Of the one I’d woo and win,
Ah, my ideal!—I had found her
In my darling Evylyn.
But the dim, uncertain future!—
Oh that we could raise the veil
And by gazing down the valley
Know what fortune would prevail;
Whether joy or blinding sorrow,
Gladness or unending woe,
Should forever be our portion
While we linger here below.
Two short summers I had known her,
Years that seemed like one bright day;
But at last the spell was broken,
And my gladness fled away:
Duty called me from that hamlet
Where youth’s happy days were spent
Out into the great, free, wide world,
And with brightest hopes I went.
Ah, that parting by the seaside
One bright evening in the spring
By the dear old friendly ocean—
There I gave the engagement ring.
Just here a sharp pain in my right forefinger interrupted the music, and reminded me that I had not removed the completed page of the first harmony-breathing minstrel. I immediately did so, and at once the billows of subdued music swept through the room to the perfect time of the weaver’s words in portentous minstrelsy.—
In the bright and merry spring,
Then I gave the engagement ring;
And in sweet and holy bliss
Sealed our vow with Love’s own kiss.
Heart and hope and thought were one
As we walked as heretofore
Where the brooklet used to run
In those happy days of yore.
But the future none can tell
And, or weal or woe, ’tis well;
For, if it were otherwise,
When the mystic veil should rise
And reveal what is to come,
Happiness would be no more;—
Hearts would call to hearts but dumb
In those happy days of yore.
Could we gaze on life’s emprise,
Frozen tears would dim our eyes;
Rippling laughs on lips would freeze
As the future’s death-cold breeze
Chilled the life of loving hearts;
Happy days would come no more,
And we’d sigh with fitful starts
For those happy days of yore.
Here I noticed the striking difference (the only difference throughout the two poems) between the wishes of the two, both passionately and beautifully put, and paused a moment to grasp the full meaning. But only a moment, for I was too interested in this enchanting symphony to wait longer. Already the poet in spider’s form that was the more delicate, beautiful, and pathetic was continuing.—
In a distant western city
Far away from that loved spot,
I began the strife in earnest,
Not complaining of my lot;
For in two years from our parting
I’d return and claim my own.
So I worked and dreamed and waited,
Cheered by that one thought alone.
Fortune smiled on my endeavors,
And each week a message brought
From that one beside the seashore
Who was ever in my thought.
But at last the darkness gathered,—
Clouds as dark as Ethiop’s land.
One dark day there came a letter
Written by a stranger’s hand.
Evylyn, it said, was drooping,
Drooping, fading very fast;
Though she would admit no danger,
Her short life would soon be past.
Many months, the message stated,
She had faded day by day;
Yet to me each cherished letter
Had been cheerful, bright, and gay.
I found myself so in sympathy with the two spiders—or poets and musicians, rather, in spider form—that I pitied them deeply, and—shall I say?—loved them. The first melodist continued more mournfully, and to slower, sad, and muffled music.—
All the spring and summer long
But when autumn came around
With a sighing, mournful sound,
My sweet blossom faded fast;
And my radiant, fond Lenore
Yielded to the chilling blast
In those autumn days of yore!
As the flowers fade and die
’Neath the cold and cloudless sky,
So my Darling drooped and died!
And my dear intended bride
With a long and last farewell
Crossed the silent waters o’er
While we tolled her funeral knell
In those parting days of yore!
In the deepest dearth of night
When the starry dome was bright,
Came the angels round her bed;
And they numbered with the dead
My angelic, radiant Love
Whom the seraphs named Lenore,
Wafting here away above,—
Saddest, saddest days of yore!
I am not a man who easily gives way to feeling; but the plaintiveness of the music and the mournfulness of the simple words made me forget the mysterious bard that was weaving this tale of pathos, and I bowed my head in sorrow, with my heart full of pity and love for both the afflicted and the noble-hearted sweet departed. As I did so, the threnodic notes, as if dying away in the echoing distance of the blue dome above, thus came from the heart of the other minne-singer.—
With an aching heart I started
For her home beside the sea,
Once again to see my Darling
Ere Death snatched his prize from me.
But a cruel fate hung o’er me;
Ere I reached that eastern home,
Her angelic soul was wafted
Far beyond the starlit dome.
Through the distant shining portals,
Breathing of eternal love,
Passed my Evylyn, my treasure,
To the brighter world above.
Surely, surely, I thought, these breathers of harmony cannot be ugly spiders. They are too human—or shall I say too divine?—for that. I had been so absorbed in the two songs that, strange perhaps to say, though I think not, I had scarcely noticed the spiders themselves nor their illuminated web-woven words. I felt now that the songs were nearly ended; and through tear-dimmed eyes, I looked once more at the page on my desk. How strangely brighter the light seemed to be, yet so softer!
Could it be possible! Wasn’t this, after all, some dream?—I dashed the tears from my eyes with my left hand.—No, I was wide awake. No doubt about that. There, too, that light from the words was even brighter than when it was seen through my tears.
Surely, surely, these were not spiders; but spirits, rather, in this disguise. As this thought flew through my brain, I removed the fifth finished page of manuscript, when lo! I almost screamed for mercy that no more revelations be made to me. For the spider glided to the top of the new page, and as he did so, I saw and marveled how much smaller he had grown, as if he had spun his whole body away in his glowing web. But still stranger transformation: All about him, like a spirit embodying the body, was a dim halo of light, such as a star often forms of the mists, that doubtless had been forming from the first although I had not noticed it, having been too absorbed in the songs themselves.
As I looked steadily, transfixed by this new revelation, I saw that haloing light, as true as I live, shape itself in a half human form; and like a light-enhaloed star moving across the scroll of the Almighty in spheric music set to angel words, this transformed being of light trembled across the page before me and trailed these gold-enlighted words through the solemn rhythm of the olden melody.—
By the babbling little brook,
In a quiet, shaded nook,
Sleeps my loved and lost one now.
Over pallid lip and brow
Grow the scented flowers wild
Bright as when I wandered o’er
This same spot when but a child
In those happy days of yore.
Many years have come and gone
Since that face I’ve looked upon;
Many weary paths I’ve trod
Since we laid her ’neath the sod.
Still I wander, sad and lone;
Still my heart is grieved and sore,
For she sleeps beneath the stone
Since those happy days of yore.
Thoughts of the dead always affect me beyond expression. The thought of the death of this darling girl, glorious in her own true heart, I can but feel, and glorified even more by the unfailing constancy and eternal love of him who, grown old and gray, still keeps her ever in his heart, so affected me that my own heart seemed almost broken. I could endure no more, and turned away. But as I did so,—O sweet angels of mercy! was there no escape?—there the other heaven-gifted musician, spirit-embodied, halo-enshrouded like the first, met my eyes, and I was forced against my will to listen to the most plaintive, most pathetic melody that had yet grieved my heart.—
In a grave down by the seashore,
She was laid by loving hands
Where old ocean sings a requiem
Evermore upon the sands.
There the summer tide is flowing
As I stand upon the shore,
And it calls up sacred mem’ries
Of the happy times of yore.
Fragments of a wreck are drifting
On the surface of a wave—
Emblem of my hopes and prospects,
Wrecked, and lying in her grave.
Many weary years have vanished,
Years of wand’ring, sad and lone,
Since that pure angelic spirit
Joined the seraphs round the throne.
O’er her grave beside the ocean,
Lovingly the stars still shine,
While the tide’s wild song of gladness
Seems to bear her voice divine.
Oft in dreams I see my lost one,
Hear her voice as soft and low
As a strain of far-off music;—
But the dawn brings back my woe.
Bowed with unutterable grief,—grief that was so severe that it choked back every tear into my heart,—I buried my head in my arms to shut out both sight and sound, and wept as tearless grief alone can weep. The angel-images of the two that had gone Home, forever to await the happier marriage in eternal union there, I saw looking down compassionately, while the two mourners left behind were constantly reaching upwards toward those loved ones beyond their ken in the dim unknown, and sometimes almost touching the finger-tips of the hands unseen! Yes; and the music! I heard it over, and over, and over again, sometimes near, sometimes far, always sweet and tremulous, sometimes sounding in my ear, sometimes dying away and echoing back from the dome of that Home above.
When again my fevered eyes looked upon the page, I wondered if it could be that these embodiments of both verse and music could be changing so rapidly, or if the change had been going on constantly without my notice. Both transformed—I know not now what to call them—had now become so small that I could scarcely distinguish their bodies through the spirit-like halo. And that halo every moment grew more and more human—no, not human; but, though an embodying spirit, it grew more and more like a disembodied human soul. Less and less visible became the body of each, more and more like a human soul became the halo of each as the first wove itself away into the final web.—
Oh, my heart is sad and lone
And it sighs with heaving groan
As it dreams its dreams of woe
Of the silent long ago.
But I’ve reached the river’s brink;
Soon I’ll dip the golden oar,
And beneath the waves will sink
All those happy days of yore.
Soon I’ll greet my bright Lenore
Where we’ll meet to part no more;
Soon I’ll reach the golden sands
Where I’ll clasp her angel hands;
Soon I’ll kiss her seraph brow
On that bright angelic shore,
Where I’ll dream no more, as now,
Of those happy days of yore.
The two spirits, thus transforming, were passing away, slipping, slipping away from me back into the mysteriousness whence they came, I felt, as both moved across the page to dirge-like yet a kind of happy and hope-inspiring music. The music of each was so blended with that of the other that I could scarcely distinguish the words of the two as the second soul-dreamer mused through the melody.—
Lost! ah lost!—But not forever:
I have reached the golden strand;
Soon beyond the crystal ocean
We will wander hand in hand;
Soon across the deep, dark waters
I will go to claim my own
From among the shining angels,
Where she waits for me alone.
We will part no more forever
Underneath that heavenly dome;
Love and joy shall reign together
In that bright eternal home.
But look—look!—there, there just before you. See! see it struggling to rise away. Oh, what wonderful transformation can this be!
As both neared the close, their bodies grew imperceptible, the web-woven words more and more brightly illuminated, and the haloing spirit larger, and larger, more and more distinct, yet more and more attenuated, until—no, no! it—but yes! I must believe it, must believe my eyes!—each took on the form of an angel! As the last word of each was woven, simultaneously, and as the low, faint, plaintive echoes of the music went trembling through the blue distance that still trembles in unison with the hearts of millions, the two meistersingers, perfect in angel form with a rarer beauty than I ever saw before, the rarest beauty I ever expect to see, shone radiantly in the night for a moment, like a glory struck out of darkness by a beam from heaven, and vanished like that glory passing out of darkness into heaven again. With my eyes following these disembodied embodiments of Beauty, and my palms out-reaching toward them, thus I sat until, when their passing glory at the same time closed the portals through which they vanished and gave the keys to memory, my nerves relaxed, the intense mingled pain and rapture, which had never ceased, seemed to snap my very heart-chords, and consciousness slid like lead into the lethean flow of the river of oblivion.
How long I sat there, drowned in unrefreshing forgetfulness allied to sleep, I have no recollection, and no possible means of knowing. When again I opened my eyes, the morning was far spent. There was a dull pain in my head, but the circumstances I have just related were all so vivid that the whole scene instantly flashed across my mind. I thought surely it must be a dream. Could it be? I was sitting in my night-dress. I got up from my chair and went to my bed-room. There was my bed, just as I had left it when I rose to follow the strange spirit that controlled me. I went to the wall where I had seen the spider. True enough, there was the thread, but no longer illuminated, just where I had seen it. I put my hand to my forehead as one often does in wondering. When I removed it, there, clinging to my forefinger, was the web that had clung to my forehead. No, I had not been asleep and dreamed all this; that was plain enough. I returned to my chair. There on my desk, as I involuntarily glanced at the well-remembered spot, I saw a still more remarkable confirmation of my having been awake; for there lay the whole poem that I had seen woven by the first spirit, as perfect in every way as if it had been written by human hand. But the characters were no longer illuminated. They had burnt into the paper, and were as black as my own ink. They were all made out, too, in my own style of handwriting, though I declare and affirm to all the world that never before this occurrence had I written one line of poetry. Perhaps it would have been better for me and for you if I had stopped with this—palmed it off as my own on account of the similarity of handwriting; and if I had never trifled with the tricks of the muses thereafter.
I looked on my desk for the other poem, but alas! it could not be found; for, as I have said before, it was only psychologically present to me, while it was really present to some one else. In a few days I had the most remarkable confirmation of this—even more remarkable than what I have related in the preceding.
By the very next mail (I was teaching in the country and got my mail but once a week, on Saturday) I received a letter from my old chum, dated May 8, 1885. As I opened it, behold! that identical poem that I had in my mind seen wrought by the second spirit of beauty fell on my table. In a letter of sixteen quarto pages, he told one substantially the same experience of himself with two spirit-singers—one of them present, the other psychologically present, each unconscious of the other, yet each influencing the other in some indefinable way—as I have here related.
In speaking of the vanishing of the two spirit-forms, he wrote:—
“I firmly believe those two spirits were none other than the angel-forms of the two maidens the poems celebrate; that they have woven their spirits of beauty into these two embodiments of verse that we mortals may be the better for it; and that, when they vanished, they entered these two poems, where they still abide.”
Strange, but this is the same thought that I had had, and still do have. I most sincerely believe it is the only correct conclusion, though I cannot solve the mysteries that are connected with it. Indeed, it would be sacrilege to attempt it.
I still have these original manuscripts that were thus mysteriously wrought. They are lying here on the desk before me as I write; and as I glance across this page at them, the whole scene of that memorable night, more vivid, far, far more vivid than my pen has delineated it for you, comes flashing across my brain. In this quick, bright light of memory, reason marshals the long line of causes that produced this psychological phenomenon; I follow the approaching lines with my mind’s eye, until I am lost in the dim distance of their vanishing perspective, then return, follow again, only to lose myself in the same unfathomable mystery, and so again and again. Though I know some of the causes that produced it, I cannot reach the hidden ones. I could almost fancy still that I had dreamed all this did not these original manuscripts before me constantly remind me of the reality of what I have here set down. They are free for the inspection of all who wish to verify the facts I have related.
I challenge the world to produce two such similar poems, good, bad, or indifferent, written under such remarkable circumstances.
The events I have here recorded are the events of my boyhood, or early manhood, rather, faithfully told. I have long hesitated to publish them for fear that there might be a few in these days of fiction who would doubt their reality. But what makes them a hundredfold more wonderful to me is the truth of all their seemingly impossible facts.
My friend, you think this a strange, strange story, I know. Indeed, I think so too; far more strange to me than to you, for I have felt the truth of it and you have only read it. As true as these two poems exist, the circumstances under which they were written are far, far more strange to me than I can possibly make the story; far, far more strange to me than the weirdest, most wonderful story pen can write.
I have therefore published this account of an incident of my life that it may please some with the strange facts that they will take for mere fancy; that it may waken some to the knowledge that in our most rational moments we are by no means independent, our minds are by no means our own, but are influenced by circumstances, by the psychological action of the minds of our most intimate friends, and by the spiritual power within us and at the same time above us; that it may teach others that out of the most despised creatures of God’s making and care, the Soul of Beauty may come and wed itself to Use by weaving its life into an angel-image of Love that shall dwell in the human heart forever.
BOY BARDS.
TO E. L. H.
Together we thought,
Together we wrought;
And ever and ever
The golden days were fraught
With the light and life of Time
That dripped like dews
From the heart of our Muse
Between the buds of rhyme.
Oh never, no never
Such rainbow colors were caught
From the dripping clouds in pain—
So sweet distraught
With the iris wrought
Of the mingled shine and rain.
Oh never, no never
Such scent in the summer was caught
From the morning-glory’s bloom
Where the humming-bird
Has gently stirred
The leaves by the open room.