“Yes, my Mildred,” Philip told her, “one calm thought of joy and blessing,
Like a guardian spirit by me, through the world’s tumultuous stir,
Still will spread its wings above me, and now urging, now repressing,
With my Mildred’s voice will murmur thoughts of home, and love, and her.
“It will charm my peaceful leisure, sanctify my daily toiling,
With a right none else possesses, touching my heart’s inmost string;
And to keep its pure wings spotless I shall fly the world’s touch, soiling
Even in thought this Angel Guardian of my Mildred’s Wedding Ring.
“Take it, dear; this little circlet is the first link, strong and holy,
Of a life-long chain, and holds me from all other love apart;
Till the day when you may wear it as my wife—my own—mine wholly—
Let me know it rests for ever near the beating of your heart.”
Dawn of day saw Philip speeding on his road to the Great City,
Thinking how the stars gazed downward just with Mildred’s patient eyes;
Dreams of work, and fame, and honour struggling with a tender pity,
Till the loving Past receding saw the conquering Future rise.
Daybreak still found Mildred watching, with the wonder of first sorrow,
How the outward world unaltered shone the same this very day;
How unpitying and relentless busy life met this new morrow,
Earth, and sky, and man unheeding that her joy had passed away.
Then the round of weary duties, cold and formal, came to meet her,
With the life within departed that had given them each a soul;
And her sick heart even slighted gentle words that came to greet her;
For Grief spread its shadowy pinions, like a blight, upon the whole.
Jar one chord, the harp is silent; move one stone, the arch is shattered;
One small clarion-cry of sorrow bids an armèd host awake;
One dark cloud can hide the sunlight; loose one string, the pearls are scattered;
Think one thought, a soul may perish; say one word, a heart may break!
Life went on, the two lives running side by side; the outward seeming,
And the truer and diviner hidden in the heart and brain;
Dreams grow holy, put in action; work grows fair through starry dreaming;
But where each flows on unmingling, both are fruitless and in vain.
Such was Mildred’s life; her dreaming lay in some far-distant region,
All the fairer, all the brighter, that its glories were but guessed;
And the daily round of duties seemed an unreal, airy legion—
Nothing true save Philip’s letters and the ring upon her breast.
Letters telling how he struggled, for some plan or vision aiming,
And at last how he just grasped it as a fresh one spread its wings;
How the honour or the learning, once the climax, now were claiming,
Only more and more, becoming merely steps to higher things.