I wish my taper could have lingered out
Until the yellow dawn. Was that the wind
Hissing between the jarring lattice crannies,
Or a whispering voice in the room? Hush there again! Nay, 'tis the wind.
What voice should come to me?
no visions yet
Break on my trancèd eyes when I seek God.
I have not risen so high; neither I think
Fallen so at Satan's mercy that he dare
Front me with open tokens of the watch
Which he keeps whensoe'er one of his foes
Keeps holy watch alone. Yea, there again!
It is the rising wind-gust. How it moves
The shadow of that pine-bough on the wall,
Just growing plain-defined upon the square
The window makes of light across the room.
One might see it like an arm now, finger-stretched
In act to curse
a withered witch-like arm
Waving its spells. But then another shadow,
The cross from the mullions, lies athwart it there
And that is steady. So the cross prevails
I have thought too long,
I lose myself. What wonder? In one night
To live back all one's youth — though mine was short.
And yet it seems a long long age of life
Remote by longer ages. Strange it is
That the brief exquisite mood of a deep bliss
Which, being lived, seemed to be some few hours,
Seems, being lost, as if a long life's whole
Had passed in it. 'T was but a year or so,
Count it by days upon the calendar,
Oh days a dream with happiness!
A dream — I am with you — Ah yes
What was I pondering
Before this drowsy languor stole my will?
Yes the sins and follies
Of my vain youth. But I had almost done —
Or had I? Where was I in the blurred page
Whose half-forgotten fragment-facts from days
That were no more all faults than all good deeds
I am bidden read in the dusk that time has made?
Ah me! how to be-think me? When there grows
The counterfeit of some large landscape known
In past familiar days upon that sense
Which seems an inward memory of the eye
Grows, at the plainest even, half as if
One looked upon it with the former sight —
If one were bidden break the vivid whole
Into its several parts traced point by point,
Or more, if one were bidden duly note
The rocks that broke the smoothness of the lake,
Or the black fissures on the great snow-hills,
Or say the pools along the marshy wastes,
How the thought-picture would become perplexed
Into a shifting puzzle, and the sight
Would ache that vainly tried to scan by units.
Even so it seems to me when I essay
To singly look upon the marring flaws
That foiled my youth's best virtues, or on those That of its evil made the blackest scars.
Weary, so weary of the effort! Nay
I will remember!
Were full of faults
Were full of faults: but what were the faults' names?
I am forgetting what I seek — their names?
Why there was many a paltry selfishness
Many no doubt, for I was often shamed
To be so much below the self I dreamed-
Only I cannot call them singly back.
And there were pettish quarrels, girlish-wise,
With one or other of the rest at home,
Oftenest with Leonora, though, I think,
We chose each other most, and she has kept
My memory dearest of them; she alone
Remembers my old name-day, comes to me,
As if it still were festival to me,
With flowers, and calls me Eva.
I wonder, that I could have stolen her greatness?
Poor Leonora, would she have lost much?
Wife's sister to the prince instead of wife;
That dowry he designed her for amends,
To make her welcome to some simpler home
Perhaps with love with it, such as we hoped
When we were lovers — Yes, perhaps with some one
Who could have taught her smiles: she only laughs.
I would I knew her happy now!
She says
She is most happy: but she says she knows
Nothing worth sorrow.
Nothing! Nothing worth
The weeping out one's life for! Nothing worth
The wearying after in a waking dream
Of all one's days, the straining to one's heart
As a mother her one child, her one dead child,
Although a plague had stricken it and the end
Were her own dying! Nothing worth a sorrow
Dearer than any future joy could be,
Stronger than love, oh! longer lived than love,
Than love itself, a sorrow to be lived for
Like love itself, to be one's closest life!
If only one were free to sorrow thus!
Oh to be left my sorrow for a while,
Only a little while! to weep at will!
Oh let me weep a while if but for shame
Because I cannot check the foolish passion,
Because I weep despite myself. Alas!
Oh Lord my helper, when shall I find rest?
How sweet those roses smell! Look, Angelo,
That cluster of red roses pictured back
From the still water. See! see! Catch that branch
By your left hand - the boat will drift away!
How the boat rocks! how it rocks!
I thought I was in the boat with you.
What is it? Where am I?
Who was it screamed? Was it I?
I have been dreaming —
How plain it was at first! We in the boat
On the still lake, just as we were that day,
The roses drooping on us, and, far spread
On the clear water, greenness of the trees.
A strangely real dream! And then the change —
The tossing waters, I ashore alone
Watching and then-Oh! that white anguished face
Uplifting from the waters as they heaved
Whence came such a dream?
He is with Guilia happy. I
Vowed to the convent, vowed to Heaven's service,
And happy in the faith of Heaven's reward.
I have not quite forgotten Whose I am,
And in the waking day can call to mind
What higher lot is mine and be in it
In peace.
But yet I would I had not seen
That haggard face. I fear me many days
Will find it haunting me. It was too like
The look he gave me when our eyes last met,
When all was over, and there was for us
No farewell but that sudden chance-caught look
In a busy street, and then we had passed on.
The chapel bell at last. Never its sound
Has fallen kinder on my ear. Now comes
The rest of prayer; and so the day begins
Its round of holy duties, and my strength
Will grow again towards them. It will pass,
This querulous weakness with my weariness
It has passed; I am strong; I am myself;
My God did but forsake me for a while.
He hears. He calls me to Him at the shrine.
He will forgive me, me whom He has chosen;
He will fold me in His love. Am I not His?
But yet I would I had not seen that face.
WHAT! wilt thou throw thy stone of malice now,
Thou dare to scoff at him with scorn or blame?
He is a thousand times more great than thou:
Thou, with thy narrower mind and lower aim,
Wilt thou chide him and not be checked by shame ?
He hath done evil - God forbid my sight
Should falter where I gaze with loving eye,
That I should fail to know the wrong from right.
He hath done evil-let not any tie
Of birth or love draw moral sense awry.
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