PART II—EVE
Meanwhile through lowland, holt, and glade,
Sad Eve her lonely travel made;
Not fierce, or proud, but well content
To own the righteous punishment;
Yet found, as gentle mourners find,
The hearts confession soothe the mind.
I
"Ye valleys, and ye waters vast,
Who answer all that look on you
With shadows of themselves, that last
As long as they, and are as true—
Where hath he past?
"Oh woods, and heights of rugged stone,
Oh weariness of sky above me,
For ever must I pine and moan,
With none to comfort, none to love me,
Alone, alone?
"Thou bird, that hoverest at heaven's gate,
Or cleavest limpid lines of air,
Return—for thou hast one to care—
Return to thy dear mate.
II
"For trie, no joy of earth or sky,
No commune with the things I see,
But dreary converse of the eye
With worlds too grand to look at me—
No smile, no sigh!
"In vain I fall Upon my knees,
In vain I weep and sob for ever;
All other miseries have ease,
All other prayers have ruth—but never
Any for these.
"Are we endowed with heavenly breath,
And God's own form, that we should win
A proud priority of sin,
And teach creation death?
III
"Not, that is too profound for me,
Too lofty for a fallen thing.
More keenly do I feel than see;
Far liefer would I, than take wing,
Beneath it be.
"The night—the dark—will soon be here,
The gloom that doth my heart appal so I
How can I tell what may be near?
My faith is in the Lord—but also
He hath made fear.
"I quail, I cower, I strive to flee;
Though oft I watched without affright,
The stern magnificence of night,
When Adam was with me
IV
"My husband! Ah, I thought sometime
That I could do without him well,
Communing with the heaven at prime,
And in my womanhood could dwell
Calm and sublime.
"Declining, with a playful strife,
All thoughts below my own transcendence,
All common-sense of earth and life,
And counting it a poor dependence
To be his wife,
"But now I know, by trouble's test,
How little my poor strength can bear,
What folly wisdom is, whene'er
The grief is in the breast!
"The grief is in my breast, because
I have not always been as kind
As woman should, by nature's laws,
But showed sometimes a wilful mind,
Carping at straws.
"While he, perhaps, with larger eyne,
Was pleased, instead of vexed, at seeing
Some little petulance in mine,
And loved me all the more, for being;
Not too divine.
"Until the pride became a snare,
The reason a deceit, wherein
I dallied face to face with sinh
And made a mortal pair.
VI
"Dark sin, the deadly foe of love,
All bowers of bliss thou shalt infest,
Implanting thorns the flowers above,
And one black feather in the breast
Of purest dove.
"Almighty Father, once our friend,
And ready even now to love us.
Thy pitying gaze upon us bend,
And through the tempest-clouds above us
Thine arm extend.
"That so thy children may begin
In lieu of bliss, to earn content,
And find that sinful Eve was meant
Not only for a sin."
Awhile she ceased; for memory's flow
Had drowned the utterance of woe;
Until a young hind crossed the lawn,
And fondly trotted forth her fawn,
Whose frolics of delight made Eve,
As in a weeping vision, grieve.
VII
"For me, poor me, no hope to learn
That sweeter bliss than Paradise,
The joy that makes a mother yearn
O'er that bright message from the skies
Her pains do earn.
She stoops entranced; she fears to stir,
Or think; lest each a thought endanger
(While two enraptured hearts confer)
That wonderful and wondering stranger,
Come home to her,
"He watches her, in solemn style;
A world of love flows to and fro;
He smiles; that he may learn to know
His mother by her smile.
VIII
"Oh, bliss, that to all other bliss
Shall be as sunrise unto night,
Or heaven to such a place as this,
Or God's own voice, with angels bright,
To serpent's hiss!
"I have I betrayed thee, or cast by
The pledge in which my soul delighted—
That all this wrong and misery
Should be avenged at last, and righted,
And so should I?
"Belike, they look on me as dead,
Those fiends that found me soft and sweet;
But God hath promised me one treat—
To crush that serpent's head!
IX
"Revenge! Oh, heaven, let some one rise,
Some woman, since revenge is small,—
Who shall not care about its size,
If only she can get it all,
For those black lies!
"Poor Adam is too good and great,
I felt it, though he said so little—
To hate his foes, as I can hate—
And pay them every jot, and tittle,
At their own rate.
"For was there none but I to blame?
God knows that if, instead of me,
There had been any other she,
She would have done the same,
X
"Poor me! Of course the whole disgrace,
In spite of reason, falls on me:
And so all women of my race,
In pure right, shall be reason-free,
In every case.
"It shall not be in power of man
To bind them to their own contentions;
But each shall speak, as speak she can,
And start anew with fresh inventions,
Where she began.
"And so shall they be dearer still;
For man shall ne'er suspect in them
The plucking of the fatal stem,
That brought him all his ill.
XI
"And when hereafter—as there must,
Since He, that made us, so hath sworn—
From that whereof we are, the dust,
And whereunto we shall return
In higher trust—
"There spring a grand and countless race,
Replenishing this vast possession,
Till life, hath won a larger space
Than death, by quick and fair succession
Of health and grace;
"They too shall find as I have found
The grief, that lifts its head on high,
A dewy bud the sun shall dry—
But not while on the ground.
XII
"Then men shall love their wives again,
Allowing for the frailer kind,
Content to keep the heart's Amen,
Content to own the turns of mind
Beyond their ken.
"And wives shall in their lords be blest,
Their higher sense of right perceiving
(When possible) with love their test;
Exalting, solacing, believing
All for the test.
"And for the best shall all things be,
If God once more will shine around,
And lift my husband from the ground,
And teach him to lift me."
New faith inspired the first of wives,
She smiles, and drooping hope revives;
She scorns a hundred years of woe%
And binds her hair, because the breezes blow.
THE MEETING
I
The wind is hushed, the moon is bright,
More stars on heaven than may be told;
Young flowers are coying with the light,
That softly tempts them to unfold,
And trust the night.
What form comes bounding from above
Down Arafa, the mountain lonely,
Afraid to scare its long-lost dove,
Yet swift as joy—"It can be only,
Only my love!"
What shape is that—too fair to leave
On Arafa, the mountain lone?
So trembling, and so faint—"My own,
It must be my own Eve!"
II
As when the mantled heavens display
The glory of the morning glow,
And spread the mountain heights with day,
And bid the clouds and shadows go
Trooping away,
The Spirit of the Lord arose,
And made the earth and heaven to quiver,
And scattered all his hellish foes,
And deigned his good stock to deliver
From all their woes.
So Long the Twain Had Strayed Apart,
That Each As at a Marvel Gazed,
With Eyes Abashed, and Brain Amazed;
While Heart Enquired of Heart.
III
Our God hath made a fairer thing
Than fairest dawn of summer day—
A gentle, timid, fluttering,
Confessing glance, that seeks alway
Rest for its wing.
A sweeter sight than azure skies,
Or golden star thereon that glideth;
And blest are they who see it rise,
For, if it cometh, it abideth
In woman's eyes.
The first of men such blessing sued;
The first of women smiled consent;
For husband, wife and home it meant,
And no more solitude!
IV
We trample now the faith of old,
We make our Gods of dream and doubt;
Yet life is but a tale untold,
Without one heart to love, without
One hand to hold—
The fairer half of humankind,
More gentle, playful, and confiding:
Whose soul is not the slave of mind,
Whose spirit hath a nobler guiding
Than we can find.
So Eve restores the sweeter part
Of what herself unwitting stole,
And makes the wounded Adam whole;
For half the mind is heart.
THE WELL OF SAINT JOHN
The old well of Saint John, in the parish of Newton-Nottage,
Glamorganshire, has a tide of its own, which appears to run exactly
counter to that of the sea, some half-mile away. The water is
beautifully bright and fresh, and the quaint dome among the lonely
sands is regarded with some awe and reverence.
He
"THERE is plenty of room for two in here,
Within the steep tunnel of old grey stone;
And the well is so dark, and the spring so clear,
It is quite unsafe to go down alone."
She
"It is perfectly safe, depend upon it,
For a girl who can count the steps, like me;
And if ever I saw dear mother's bonnet,
It is there on the hill by the old ash-tree."
He
"There is nobody but Rees Hopkin's cow
Watching, the dusk on the milk-white sea;
'Tis the time and the place for a life-long? vow,
Such as I owe you, and you owe me."
She
"Oh, Willie, how can I, in this dark well?
I shall drop the brown pitcher if you let go;
The long? roof is murmuring like a sea-shell,
And the shadows are shuddering to and fro."
He
"Tis the sound of the ebb, in Newton Bay,
Quickens the spring, as the tide grows less;
Even as true love flows alway
Counter the flood of the world's success."
She
"There is no other way for love to flow,
Whenever it springs in a woman's breast;
With the tide of its own heart it must go,
And run contrary to all the rest."
He
"Then fill the sweet cup of your hand, my love,
And pledge me your maiden faith thereon,
By the touch of the letter'd stone above,
And the holy water of Saint John."
She
"Oh, what shall I say? My heart sinks low;
My fingers are cold, and my hand too flat,
Is love to be measured by handfuls so;
And you know that I love you—without that."