XXX
Love’s like a great musician, whose deft fingers
Control the hidden pow’r of organ-keys;
He plays upon the soul with mastery,
And uses all the stops of melody,
Of deepest sorrow, highest ecstacies,
Of stormy fugues, or tune that softly lingers.
Thus did he play upon Sordino’s heart,
When to himself he suddenly was left;
A flood of passion overwhelmed his soul,
In which he heard himself her name to call,
And spent, did leave him painfully bereft,
Yea, caused unmanly, bitter tears to start.
He wiped away the furtive tear, and went
Into the bar-room, where he called for wine,
And freely drank, then entering the street,
The sailor of last night he chanced to meet,
Who told him, for a drink he sore did pine,
And had, alas! his very farthings spent.
Sordino handed him sufficient coin
To make him happy for another night;
He thanked him most profusely, and betook
Himself into the tavern’s pleasant nook,
Where he did find his life’s supreme delight,—
A cup of sack and others it to join.
Sordino sauntered carelessly along,
And with no aim but to assuage his mind,
Which wandered twixt a ray of hope and fear,
When all at once he saw her drawing near,
In company with one whose eye did find
Her smile surcharged with an affection strong.
A moment’s glance told of his manly cast;
Well-knit and tall, in military suit,
But with a face so much unlike her mien;
And what Sordino could instantly glean,
It had a strength, but not of thought and truth,
But rather courage, stemming any blast.
Correctly he surmised, this very man
Was Stella’s fiancé; and Jealousy,
That “greeneyed monster,” held him by the throat,
Or, as in modern parlance “had his goat,”
A phrase suggestive of the purity
Of English, even among a college clan.
The jealousy of outraged marriage bonds,
Real, or imagined as Othello’s,
Oft finds expression in a dark revenge,
The faithless spouse is treated as a wench,
The vile seducer suffers every loss,
Unless, perchance, he with his prize absconds.
With hapless suitors has she gentler ways,
When pledgeless smiles is all they have obtained,
Though none may fully know what she may do,
(For even of such full many ones she slew),
But in this case, Sordino, deeply pained,
She led about as in a dreamy haze.
He wandered on the banks of wimpling Thames,
And on the anchored ships did idly stare,
But had no mind for all the life and mirth
Beneath the languid sails upon the firth,
Since nought he saw but that one happy pair,
And but two eyes, more glorious than gems.
With night’s approach his feelings took the hue
Of creeping shadows and the purple dark,
And sadness grew to an oppressive load,—
Then Jealousy to anger did him goad,
And to its fouler plots he once did hark,
Which with a frenzy did his blood imbue.
Then came the music of St. Mary’s bell,
Commingling with St. Paul’s of deeper tongue,
And oped his prison of unhappiness,
They had a solace that could calm and bless,
And when the last vibrating note was rung,
He homeward turned, and whispered: “All is well.”