Then came three days of human agony;
The flesh contending with the will of God,
And writhing upward like a trodden snake
Beneath religion’s heel: for I believed
That God would pardon me three days’ delay
To conquer human nature. Once I thought
To tell her all—to ask her for her life—
To call on her obedience to submit—
To shift upon her shoulders half the weight
Of agony and horror; but I looked
Upon her face and set aside the plan,
Misdoubting woman’s strength. In Edith’s eyes
I saw a strange suspicious look—a look
Which told me that the tempest in my soul
Was finding outward vent upon my face.
I caught her watching me, and understood
That if I struck not soon, perchance my arm
Would be restrained by man; so I prepared.
There was a spot beside the sedgy stream,
A solitary spot, which in our walks
We sometimes crossed. I led her out that way.
It was a hot close day; no ray of sun
Shone through the lowering clouds, and now and then
The thunder’s distant rumble met the ear.
We reached the lonely river-bank. I stopped,
And was about to do it, when she laid
Her hand upon my arm with a caress,
And asked me in her sweet familiar voice
To pluck a water-lily, which I did,
And then walked on, for somehow I was balked;
I could not do it.
With the fall of night
The pent-up tempest burst; and in its roar
I seemed to hear God’s formidable wrath.
I heard it in the howling of the wind;
I heard it in the pelting of the rain
Against the windows; and each rattling peal,
Each burst of rolling echo in the dark
Which made me cower like a chastened hound
Recalled me to obedience. But the flesh,
The strong rebellious flesh, oh how it writhed
Against the spirit! How the natural love,
The common human instinct, fought and fought,
And, backed by Satan’s whisper, held its own!
At length the spirit conquered, and I rose
To do the will of God; but, in my crushed
And humbled anguish, I implored the Lord
To stay my lifted arm, and at the last
To save her life as Isaac’s had been saved.
Then I went up the stairs, as if each step
Were a delay, a respite, and a hope,
And sought the chamber where my Edith slept.
The walk had worn her limbs; her sleep was deep.
The storm had not aroused her; nor did I.
I kissed her, and I slew her; for the Lord
Did not vouchsafe to stay His servant’s arm.
For one short moment after she was dead,
I thought perchance that He would bring her back
To life. But all was silent there.
And now,
Ye righteous judges of this Christian land,
Ye godly Elders, look me in the face.
Ye know ye dare not hang me. Will ye dare
To place me in the madhouse for a deed
Which God Himself exacted—which ye teach
Your children to revere in Abraham
From year to year? Ye know ye dare not do it.
And if ye ask me how I knew God’s voice,
Ask of the shepherd’s watch-dog how he knows
His master’s call when darkness girds the fold!
Ye know that Abraham of old, if now
He stood before you, could at your command
Give you no other answer. It was God
Who, putting to the test His servant’s faith,
Impelled my hand. Ye may not judge this deed.
AN ODE OF THE TUSCAN SHORE.
When the Spirits that are masters
Of the ever-ready storm,
And that love to hound the waters,
To destroy and to deform,
See a mortal in their power
They prepare a joyous hour,
Venting their primeval hatred
Of the thing whose blood is warm.
And they lay on ocean’s surface
Their innumerable hands,
And each hand creates a billow
That advances and expands;
Till, amid the petrel’s screaming,
Rope and tattered sail are streaming
High above the seething water
From the mast that still withstands.
But then hate is blind: they know not
What each human prey is worth:
Not more cruel than impartial
Is their elemental mirth:
And their fury is not keener
O’er the greater than the meaner,
Though their victim were a Shelley
And the glory of the earth.
Look around thee in the sunshine;
Watch this satin-surfaced deep,
Which alone some rolling dolphins
Stir out yonder in its sleep,
Till upon the sea shall settle
Sunset hues of molten metal,
Red and bright as crater gleamings,
And the noon shall cease to creep.
Here was washed ashore the greatest
Of the victims snatched away
By the Spirits that are masters
Of the wind and of the spray;
When the waves might have exulted
O’er the body they insulted
With a shriller wilder clamour
Than since Nature’s earliest day!
Cæsar braved the great Sea Spirits,
And he bade his men row on;
And he cried: “Ye carry Cæsar:
Then why tremble and turn wan?”
And the great waves roared more loudly;
But his galley sailed out proudly
From the peril of the tempest
Like an onward-hurried swan.