The wind increased, the day wore on, And ere the hour was half-way gone That follows noon, a storm of snow Blinded the heavens, and denser grew, And fiercer still the fierce wind blew As night approached, a night of woe, Such as no fiend might add thereto.
The double darkness walled us in, The blackness of the storm and night, And still he came not! O, what sin, What blasphemy against the light Of Heaven had my soul committed? Never before had eventide Once found him absent from my side. Eugene came not! deceived, outwitted, Sore tempest-tossed and lured astray. By demons, when the night-owl flitted Across his face at close of day, Groping for home, exhausted, faint, No angel near, no pitying saint To aid his steps and point the way.
From ebb of day till noon of night, And onward till return of light, The signal horn, Nanette and I, Alternate blew, but for reply The wind’s unprecedented roar, And ocean thundering round the shore Our labor mocked; and other sounds, Nor of the land, nor sea, nor sky, Our ears profaned; the unleashed hounds Of spleenful hell were all abroad, And round our snow-bound cabin trod, And stormed on clashing wings aloof, And stamped upon the yielding roof, And all our lamentation jeered.
Down the wide chimney-gorge they peered With great green eye-balls fringed with flame;— The holy cross I kissed and reared, And in sweet Mary’s blessed name, Who erst had buoyed my sinking heart, Conjured the foul-faced fiends depart. Their shriekings made a storm more loud Than that before whose fury bowed The hundred-ringéd oaken trees; More fearful, more appalling these Than thunder from the thunder-cloud; But trembling at the sacred sign, And mention of the Name divine, They dared not, could not disobey, But fled in baffled rage away.—
The morrow came, and still the morrow, But neither time, nor pain, nor sorrow, Nor any evil thing could make My stricken soul advisement take Of aught that in the world of sense The fiat of Omnipotence Might choose prescribe; I only know That fever came, whose fiery flow Surged through the temple-gates of thought, Till merciful delirium wrought Release from knowledge, from a world Where Death’s black banner stood unfurled.—
Restored—condemned—to conscious life, The parting hour, the storm, the strife, Rose from their tombs and dimly passed, But on my spirit only cast A feeble shade. When known the worst, When every joy that love has nursed Lies cold and dead, a sullen calm Sheds on the bleeding heart a balm That is not peace, and does not heal, But makes it half content to feel The frost upon the withered leaf, To see love’s lifeboat rock and reel And founder on the stormy reef.
A languid stupor, chill and gray, Upon my listless being lay— I knew and felt Eugene was not;— I saw that in the osier cot, Constructed by his cunning skill, My babe lay sleeping, very still: So very still and pale was she, That when I questioned, quietly, How long since she had fallen asleep, Nanette could only moan and weep, And rock her body to and fro.— With cautious step, and stooping low, I took the little dimpled hand In mine, and felt the waxen brow. O, Queen of Heaven! clearly now, ’Twas given me to understand That all the warmth of life had fled; My babe, my pretty babe, was dead!— In stupefaction fixed I stood Smitten afresh; a wailing cry, The wounded love of motherhood, Rose from my heart; mine eyes were dry Denied the blessed drops that give A little ease, that we may live— Live on, to feel with every breath That life is but the mask of death.
Regardful of my frozen gaze, Hard set upon the frozen face, Nanette, at length, in halting phrase, Her painful pass essayed to trace: Told how, when hot the fever ran Along my veins, and when the wan And wasted moonshine fringed the hearth, And voices that were not of earth Came through the gloom, the famished child, With pouting lips and eyelids mild, Her wonted nourishment did crave; And how, O God forgive! she gave The little mouth its wish. She told How dismal were the nights and cold, Her haunted hours of rest how few, And how my precious darling drew From the distempered fevered fount The malady that raged in me. How long it was, the tangled count, One week or two, or maybe three— Her head astray, she could not tell, When rang, she said, a silvery bell, A-tolling softly far away. So softly tolling, faint and far, When quiet as the morning star, That cannot brook the glare of day, And seeks the upper azure deep, My Lua (pardon if I weep), Pure nestling of this sinful breast, Had struggled into gracious rest.
Unhappy nurse! that hallowed knell Which on her pious fancy fell Through midnight dreams was solace meet For one whose slow, uncertain feet Their journey’s end had well-nigh gained; Whose meagre face drooped, pinched and pained, From ague-fits that lately shook All gladness from its kindly look. No longer in those furrows played The gleams of mirth that erst had made Her gossip by the cabin fire, A pleasing hum; for she had store Of gruesome tales and faery lore, Which suited with the elfin quire Of winds that on the waste of night. Their voices spent; ’twas her delight, In calmer hours, her voice to strain With lays of roving Troubadour That from her girlhood’s bloom had lain Mid memory’s tuneful cords secure. How changed she was! soon, soon I felt My pity for her dolour melt. My friend and sole companion now,— I brushed the gray hairs from her brow And kissed it; then came back to me The days when on that palsied knee I perched, a happy child; where late My babe, my second self had sate:— Strange orbiting of time and fate. Hid in the upheaved scarp of rock That screened our hut from winter’s shock A cave there was of spacious bound, Wherein no wave of human sound Had ever rolled; imprisoned there, Like a grey penitent at prayer, Hoar Silence wept, and from the tears Embroidered hangings, fold on fold, And silver tassels tinct with gold The fingering of the voiceless years Had deftly wrought, and on the walls In sumptuous breadth of foamy falls The product of their genius hung. From floor to ceiling, arched and high— A counterfeited cloudy sky,— Smooth alabaster pillars sprung. On either side might one espy What seemed hushed oratories rare Inviting sinful knees to prayer.
Into that chapel-like retreat, Untrod before by human feet, The wicker cot, wherein still lay My Lua’s uncorrupted clay We bore, and in an alcove’s shade Our tear-dewed burthen softly laid. Long muffled in my heavy woe, I knelt beside the little bed And many a tearful Ave said. At length, at length, I rose to go, But kneeling still, my poor Nanette, Her crucifix and beads of jet Clasped in her praying hands, stirred not, Nor spoke;—our flickering lamp Through the sepulchral gloom and damp Made sickly twilight round the cot. Orbed in her upturned hollow eyes Two tear-drops gleamed. I said, “Arise! Come, come away. Good sister, come!” Still motionless as death and dumb,— I shook her gently, spoke again, When sudden horror and affright Laid hold upon my reeling brain; Her soul, unshrived, had winged its flight!— I sank upon the clammy stone, The lamp died out and all was night. “Mother of God! alone! alone!” I cried in agonized despair, “O pity me! O Mary spare! A mother’s anguish hast thou known, O pity me! alone! alone!” A thousand startled echoes sprang Forth from their stony crypts, and rang A ghostly miserere round The cavern’s dread Cimmerian bound, Till sinking to a dying moan They answered back, “alone! alone!”