And he murmur'd, or sigh'd, "O, how could I have stray'd From this sweet child, or suffer'd in aught to invade Her young claim on my life, though it were for an hour, The thought of another?"
"Look up, my sweet flower!"
He whisper'd her softly," my heart unto thee Is return'd, as returns to the rose the wild bee!"
"And will wander no more?" laughed Matilda.
"No more,"
He repeated. And, low to himself, "Yes, 'tis o'er!
My course, too, is decided, Lucile! Was I blind To have dream'd that these clever Frenchwomen of mind Could satisfy simply a plain English heart, Or sympathize with it?"
XXIV.
And here the first part Of the drama is over. The curtain falls furl'd On the actors within it--the Heart, and the World.
Woo'd and wooer have play'd with the riddle of life,--
Have they solved it?
Appear! answer, Husband and Wife.
XXV.
Yet, ere bidding farewell to Lucile de Nevers, Hear her own heart's farewell in this letter of hers.
THE COMTESSE DE NEVERS TO A FRIEND IN INDIA.
"Once more, O my friend, to your arms and your heart, And the places of old . . . never, never to part!
Once more to the palm, and the fountain! Once more To the land of my birth, and the deep skies of yore From the cities of Europe, pursued by the fret Of their turmoil wherever my footsteps are set;
From the children that cry for the birth, and behold, There is no strength to bear them--old Time is SO old!
From the world's weary masters, that come upon earth Sapp'd and mined by the fever they bear from their birth:
From the men of small stature, mere parts of a crowd, Born too late, when the strength of the world hath been bow'd;
Back,--back to the Orient, from whose sunbright womb Sprang the giants which now are no more, in the bloom And the beauty of times that are faded forever!
To the palms! to the tombs! to the still Sacred River!
Where I too, the child of a day that is done, First leaped into life, and look'd up at the sun, Back again, back again, to the hill-tops of home I come, O my friend, my consoler, I come!
Are the three intense stars, that we watch'd night by night Burning broad on the band of Orion, as bright?
Are the large Indian moons as serene as of old, When, as children, we gather'd the moonbeams for gold?
Do you yet recollect me, my friend? Do you still Remember the free games we play'd on the hill, 'Mid those huge stones up-heav'd, where we recklessly trod O'er the old ruin'd fane of the old ruin'd god?
How he frown'd while around him we carelessly play'd!
That frown on my life ever after hath stay'd, Like the shade of a solemn experience upcast From some vague supernatural grief in the past.
For the poor god, in pain, more than anger, he frown'd, To perceive that our youth, though so fleeting, had found, In its transient and ignorant gladness, the bliss Which his science divine seem'd divinely to miss.
Alas! you may haply remember me yet The free child, whose glad childhood myself I forget.
I come--a sad woman, defrauded of rest:
I bear to you only a laboring breast:
My heart is a storm-beaten ark, wildly hurl'd O'er the whirlpools of time, with the wrecks of a world:
The dove from my bosom hath flown far away:
It is flown and returns not, though many a day Have I watch'd from the windows of life for its coming.
Friend, I sigh for repose, I am weary of roaming.
I know not what Ararat rises for me Far away, o'er the waves of the wandering sea:
I know not what rainbow may yet, from far hills, Lift the promise of hope, the cessation of ills:
But a voice, like the voice of my youth, in my breast Wakes and whispers me on--to the East! to the East!
Shall I find the child's heart that I left there? or find The lost youth I recall with its pure peace of mind?
Alas! who shall number the drops of the rain?
Or give to the dead leaves their greenness again?
Who shall seal up the caverns the earthquake hath rent?
Who shall bring forth the winds that within them are pent?
To a voice who shall render an image? or who From the heats of the noontide shall gather the dew?
I have burn'd out within me the fuel of life.
Wherefore lingers the flame? Rest is sweet after strife.
I would sleep for a while. I am weary.
"My friend, I had meant in these lines to regather, and send To our old home, my life's scatter'd links. But 'tis vain!
Each attempt seems to shatter the chaplet again;
Only fit now for fingers like mine to run o'er, Who return, a recluse, to those cloisters of yore Whence too far I have wander'd.
"How many long years Does it seem to me now since the quick, scorching tears, While I wrote to you, splash'd out a girl's premature Moans of pain at what women in silence endure!
To your eyes, friend of mine, and to your eyes alone, That now long-faded page of my life hath been shown Which recorded my heart's birth, and death, as you know, Many years since,--how many!
"A few months ago I seem'd reading it backward, that page! Why explain Whence or how? The old dream of my life rose again.
The old superstition! the idol of old!
It is over. The leaf trodden down in the mould Is not to the forest more lost than to me That emotion. I bury it here by the sea Which will bear me anon far away from the shore Of a land which my footsteps will visit no more.
And a heart's requiescat I write on that grave.
Hark! the sigh of the wind, and the sound of the wave, Seem like voices of spirits that whisper me home!
I come, O you whispering voices, I come!
My friend, ask me nothing.
"Receive me alone As a Santon receives to his dwelling of stone In silence some pilgrim the midnight may bring:
It may be an angel that, weary of wing, Hath paused in his flight from some city of doom, Or only a wayfarer stray'd in the gloom.
This only I know: that in Europe at least Lives the craft or the power that must master our East.
Wherefore strive where the gods must themselves yield at last?
Both they and their altars pass by with the Past.
The gods of the household Time thrust from the shelf;
And I seem as unreal and weird to myself As those idols of old.
"Other times, other men, Other men, other passions!
"So be it! yet again I turned to my birthplace, the birthplace of morn, And the light of those lands where the great sun is born!
Spread your arms, O my friend! on your breast let me feel The repose which hath fled from my own.
"Your LUCILE."
