My love has taken vengeance on my love.
I writhe and moan. Yet I will be content.
Yea, gladly will I yield thee, so to find
That thou art not a phantom, but God's child;
That Beauty is, though it is not for me.
When I would hold it, then I disbelieved.
That I may yet believe, I will not touch it.
I have sinned against the Soul of love and beauty,
Denying him in grasping at his work.
SCENE XIX.—A country churchyard. JULIAN seated on a tombstone. LILY gathering flowers and grass among the grass.
Julian.
O soft place of the earth! down-pillowed couch,
Made ready for the weary! Everywhere,
O Earth, thou hast one gift for thy poor children—
Room to lie down, leave to cease standing up,
Leave to return to thee, and in thy bosom
Lie in the luxury of primeval peace,
Fearless of any morn; as a new babe
Lies nestling in his mother's arms in bed:
That home of blessedness is all there is;
He never feels the silent rushing tide,
Strong setting for the sea, which bears him on,
Unconscious, helpless, to wide consciousness.
But thou, thank God, hast this warm bed at last
Ready for him when weary: well the green
Close-matted coverlid shuts out the dawn.
O Lilia, would it were our wedding bed
To which I bore thee with a nobler joy!
—Alas! there's no such rest: I only dream
Poor pagan dreams with a tired Christian brain.
How couldst thou leave me, my poor child? my heart
Was all so tender to thee! But I fear
My face was not. Alas! I was perplexed
With questions to be solved, before my face
Could turn to thee in peace: thy part in me
Fared ill in troubled workings of the brain.
Ah, now I know I did not well for thee
In making thee my wife! I should have gone
Alone into eternity. I was
Too rough for thee, for any tender woman—
Other I had not loved—so full of fancies!
Too given to meditation. A deed of love
Is stronger than a metaphysic truth;
Smiles better teachers are than mightiest words.
Thou, who wast life, not thought, how couldst thou help it?
How love me on, withdrawn from all thy sight—
For life must ever need the shows of life?
How fail to love a man so like thyself,
Whose manhood sought thy fainting womanhood?
I brought thee pine-boughs, rich in hanging cones,
But never white flowers, rubied at the heart.
O God, forgive me; it is all my fault.
Would I have had dead Love, pain-galvanized,
Led fettered after me by gaoler Duty?
Thou gavest me a woman rich in heart,
And I have kept her like a caged seamew
Starved by a boy, who weeps when it is dead.
O God, my eyes are opening—fearfully:
I know it now—'twas pride, yes, very pride,
That kept me back from speaking all my soul.
I was self-haunted, self-possessed—the worst
Of all possessions. Wherefore did I never
Cast all my being, life and all, on hers,
In burning words of openness and truth?
Why never fling my doubts, my hopes, my love,
Prone at her feet abandonedly? Why not
Have been content to minister and wait;
And if she answered not to my desires,
Have smiled and waited patient? God, they say,
Gives to his aloe years to breed its flower:
I gave not five years to a woman's soul!
Had I not drunk at last old wine of love?
I shut her love back on her lovely heart;
I did not shield her in the wintry day;
And she has withered up and died and gone.
God, let me perish, so thy beautiful
Be brought with gladness and with singing home.
If thou wilt give her back to me, I vow
To be her slave, and serve her with my soul.
I in my hand will take my heart, and burn
Sweet perfumes on it to relieve her pain.
I, I have ruined her—O God, save thou!
[His bends his head upon his knees. LILY comes running up
to him, stumbling over the graves.]
Lily.
Why do they make so many hillocks, father?
The flowers would grow without them.
Julian.
So they would.
Lily.
What are they for, then?
Julian (aside).
I wish I had not brought her;
She will ask questions. I must tell her all.
(Aloud).