There was a mystery that defied the guess,
In so much love, and so much tenderness.
What sword, invisible to human eyes,
So sternly sever'd Nature's closest ties:
To leave each yearning unto each—apart—
All ice the commune, and all warmth the heart?
V.
But how gain'd she, whom pity strange and rare
Gave the night's refuge,—more than refuge there?
At morn the orphan hostess had received
The orphan outcast,—heard her and believed,—
And Lucy wept her thanks, and turn'd to part;
But the sad tale had touch'd a woman's heart.
Calantha's youth was lone, her nature kind,
She knew no friend—she sigh'd a friend to find;
That chasten'd speech, the grace so simply worn,
Bespoke the nurture of the gentle-born;
And so she gazed upon the weeping guest,
Check'd the intended alms, and murmur'd "Rest,
For both are orphans,—I should shelter thee,
And, weep no more—thy smile shall comfort me."
Thus Lucy rested—finding day by day
Her grateful heart the saving hand repay.
Calantha loved her as the sad alone
Love what consoles them;—in that life her own
Seem'd to revive, and even hope to flower:
Ah, over Sorrow Youth has such sweet power!
The very menials linger'd as they went,
To spy the fairy to their dwelling sent,
To list her light step on the stair, or hark
Her song;—yes, now the dove was in the ark!
Ev'n the cold Morvale, spell'd at last, was found
Within the circle drawn his guest around;
Less rare his visits to Calantha grew,
And her eye shrunk less coldly from his view
The presence of the gentle third one brought
Respite to memory, gave fresh play to thought;
And as some child to strifeful parents sent,
Laps the long discord in its own content,
This happy creature seem'd to reach that home,
To say—"Love enters where the guileless come!"
It was not mirth, for mirth she was too still;
It was not wit, wit leaves the heart more chill;
But that continuous sweetness, which with ease
Pleases all round it, from the wish to please,—
This was the charm that Lucy's smile bestow'd;
The waves' fresh ripple from deep fountains flow'd;—
Below exhaustless gratitude,—above,
Woman's meek temper, childhood's ready love.
Yet oft, when night reprieved the tender care,
And lonely thought stole musing on to prayer;
As some fair lake reflects, when day is o'er,
With clearer wave from farther glades the shore,
So, her still heart remember'd sorrows glass'd;
And o'er its hush lay trembling all the past,
Again she sees a mother's gentle face;
Again she feels a mother's soft embrace;
Again a mother's sigh of pain she hears,
And starts—till lo, the spell dissolves in tears!
Tears that too well the faithful grief reveal,
Which smiles, by day made duties, would conceal.
VI.
It was a noon of summer in its glow,
And all was life, but London's life, below;
As by the open casement half reclined
Calantha's languid form;—a gentle wind
Brought to her cheek a bloom unwonted there,
And stirr'd the light wave of the golden hair.
Hers was a beauty that made sad the eye,
Lovely in fading, like a twilight sky;
The shape so finely, delicately frail,
As form'd for climes unruffled by a gale;
The lustrous eye, through which looks forth the soul,
Bright and more brightly as it nears the goal;
The fever'd counterfeit of healthful bloom,
The rose so living yet so near the tomb;
The veil the Funeral Genius lends his bride,
When, fair as Love, he steals her to his side,
And leads her on till at the nuptial porch,
He murmurs, "Know me now!" and lowers the torch.
What made more sad the outward form's decay,
A soul of genius glimmer'd through the clay;
Oft through the languor of disease would break
That life of light Parnassian dreamers seek;
And music trembled on each aspen leaf
Of the boughs drooping o'er the fount of grief.
Genius has so much youth no care can kill;
Death seems unnatural when it sighs—"Be still."
That wealth, which Nature prodigally gave,
Shall Life but garner for its heir the Grave?
What noble hearts that treasure might have bless'd!
How large the realm that mind should have possess'd!
Love in the wife, and wisdom in the friend,
And earnest purpose for a generous end,
And glowing sympathy for thoughts of power
And playful fancy for the lighter hour;
All lost, all cavern'd in the sunless gloom
Of some dark memory, beetling o'er the tomb;—
Like bright-wing'd fairies, whom the hostile gnome
Has spell'd and dungeon'd in his rocky home,
The wanderer hears the solitary moan,
Nor dreams the fairy in the sullen stone.
Contrasting this worn frame and weary breast,
Fresh as a morn of April bloom'd the guest:
April has tears, and mists the morn array;
The mists foretell the sun,—the tears the May.
Lo, as from care to care the soother glides,
How the home brightens where the heart presides!
Now hovering, bird-like, o'er the flowers,—at times
Pausing to chant Calantha's favourite rhymes,
Or smooth the uneasy pillow with light hand;
Or watch the eye, forestalling the demand,
Complete in every heavenly art—above
All, save the genius of inventive love.
The window open'd on that breadth of green,
To half the pomp of elder days the scene.
Gaze to thy left—there the Plantagenet
Look'd on the lists for Norman knighthood set;[E]
Bright issued forth, where yonder archway glooms,
Banner and trump, and steed, and waves of plumes,
As with light heart rides wanton Anne to brave
Tudor's grim love, the purple and the grave.
Gaze to the right, where now—neat, white, and low,
The modest Palace looks like Brunswick Row;[F]
There, echoed once the merriest orgies known,
Since the frank Norman won grave Harold's throne;
There, bloom'd the mulberry groves, beneath whose shade
His easy loves the royal Rowley made;
Where Villiers flaunted, and where Sedley sung,
And wit's loose diamonds dropp'd from Wilmot's tongue!
All at rest now—all dust!—wave flows on wave;
But the sea dries not!—what to us the grave?
It brings no real homily, we sigh,
Pause for awhile and murmur, "All must die!"
Then rush to pleasure, action, sin once more,
Swell the loud tide, and fret unto the shore.