SCENE IV.
The Banks of a River.—Walter and the Lady.
LADY.
The stream of sunsets?
WALTER.
'Tis that loveliest stream.
I've learned by heart its sweet and devious course
By frequent tracing, as a lover learns
The features of his best-beloved's face.
In memory it runs, a shining thread,
With sunsets strung upon it thick, like pearls.
From yonder trees I've seen the western sky
All washed with fire, while, in the midst, the sun
Beat like a pulse, welling at ev'ry beat
A spreading wave of light. Where yonder church
Stands up to heaven, as if to intercede
For sinful hamlets scattered at its feet,
I saw the dreariest sight. The sun was down,
And all the west was paved with sullen fire.
I cried, "Behold! the barren beach of hell
At ebb of tide." The ghost of one bright hour
Comes from its grave and stands before me now.
'Twas at the close of a long summer day,
As we were sitting on yon grassy slope,
The sunset hung before us like a dream
That shakes a demon in his fiery lair;
The clouds were standing round the setting sun
Like gaping caves, fantastic pinnacles,
Citadels throbbing in their own fierce light,
Tall spires that came and went like spires of flame,
Cliffs quivering with fire-snow, and peaks
Of pilèd gorgeousness, and rocks of fire
A-tilt and poised, bare beaches, crimson seas,
All these were huddled in that dreadful west,
All shook and trembled in unsteadfast light,
And from the centre blazed the angry sun,
Stern as the unlashed eye of God a-glare
O'er evening city with its boom of sin.
I do remember, as we journeyed home,
(That dreadful sunset burnt into our brains),
With what a soothing came the naked moon.
She, like a swimmer who has found his ground,
Came rippling up a silver strand of cloud,
And plunged from the other side into the night.
I and that friend, the feeder of my soul,
Did wander up and down these banks for years,
Talking of blessed hopes and holy faiths,
How sin and weeping all should pass away
In the calm sunshine of the earth's old age.
Breezes are blowing in old Chaucer's verse,
'Twas here we drank them. Here for hours we hung
O'er the fine pants and trembles of a line.
Oft, standing on a hill's green head, we felt
Breezes of love, and joy, and melody,
Blow through us, as the winds blow through the sky.
Oft with our souls in our eyes all day we fed
On summer landscapes, silver-veined with streams,
O'er which the air hung silent in its joy—
With a great city lying in its smoke,
A monster sleeping in its own thick breath;
And surgy plains of wheat, and ancient woods,
In the calm evenings cawed by clouds of rooks,
Acres of moss, and long black strips of firs,
And sweet cots dropt in green, where children played
To us unheard, till, gradual, all was lost
In distance-haze to a blue rim of hills,
Upon whose heads came down the closing sky.
Beneath the crescent moon on autumn nights
We paced its banks with overflowing hearts,
Discoursing long of great thought-wealthy souls,
And with what spendthrift hands they scatter wide
Their spirit-wealth, making mankind their debtors:
Affluent spirits, dropt from the teeming stars,
Who come before their time, are starved, and die,
Like swallows that arrive before the summer.
Or haply talked of dearer personal themes,
Blind guesses at each other's after fate;
Feeling our leaping hearts, we marvelled oft
How they should be unleashed, and have free course
To stretch and strain far down the coming time—
But in our guesses never was the grave.
LADY.
The tale! the tale! the tale! As empty halls
Gape for a coming pageant, my fond ears
To take its music are all eager-wide.
WALTER.
Within yon grove of beeches is a well,
I've made a vow to read it only there.