Low at my master’s knee I bent,
The offered crown to meet;
Its green leaves through my temples sent
A thrill as wild as sweet.
The strong pulse of Ambition struck
In every vein I owned;
At the same instant, bleeding broke
A secret, inward wound.
The hour of triumph was to me
The hour of sorrow sore;
A day hence I must cross the sea,
Ne’er to recross it more.
An hour hence, in my master’s room
I with him sat alone,
And told him what a dreary gloom
O’er joy had parting thrown.
He little said; the time was brief,
The ship was soon to sail,
And while I sobbed in bitter grief,
My master but looked pale.
They called in haste; he bade me go,
Then snatched me back again;
He held me fast and murmured low,
“Why will they part us, Jane?”
“Were you not happy in my care?
Did I not faithful prove?
Will others to my darling bear
As true, as deep a love?
“O God, watch o’er my foster child!
O guard her gentle head!
When minds are high and tempests wild
Protection round her spread!
“They call again; leave then my breast;
Quit thy true shelter, Jane;
But when deceived, repulsed, opprest,
Come home to me again!”
I read—then dreamily made marks on the margin with my pencil; thinking all the while of other things; thinking that “Jane” was now at my side; no child, but a girl of nineteen; and she might be mine, so my heart affirmed; Poverty’s curse was taken off me; Envy and Jealousy were far away, and unapprized of this our quiet meeting; the frost of the Master’s manner might melt; I felt the thaw coming fast, whether I would or not; no further need for the eye to practise a hard look, for the brow to compress its expanse into a stern fold: it was now permitted to suffer the outward revelation of the inward glow—to seek, demand, elicit an answering ardour. While musing thus, I thought that the grass on Hermon never drank the fresh dews of sunset more gratefully than my feelings drank the bliss of this hour.