Lapas attēli
PDF
ePub

And now, as all round her the dim evening stole,
With its weird desolations, she inwardly grieved
For the want of that tender assurance received
From the warmth of a whisper, the glance of an eye,
Which should say, or should look, ‘Fear thou nought,
---I am by !'

And thus, through that lonely and self-fix'd existence,
Crept a vague sense of silence, and horror, and distance :
A strange sort of faint-footed fear,—like a mouse
That comes out, when 'tis dark, in some old ducal
house,

Long deserted, where no one the creature can scare,
And the forms on the arras are all that move there.

In Rome,-in the Forum,-there open'd one night
A gulf.
All the augurs turn'd pale at the sight.
In this omen the anger of Heaven they read.
Men consulted the gods: then the oracle said:-

Ever open this gulf shall endure, till at last

'That which Rome hath most precious within it be cast.'

The Romans threw in it their corn and their stuff, But the gulf yawn'd as wide. Rome seemed likely enough

To be ruin'd, ere this rent in her heart she could choke. Then Curtius, revering the oracle, spoke :

'O Quirites! to this Heaven's question is come: What to Rome is most precious?

Rome.'

He plunged, and the gulf closed.

The manhood of

The tale is not new;

But the moral applies many ways, and is true.

How, for hearts rent in twain, shall the curse be de

stroy'd?

'Tis a warm human life that must fill up the void. Thorough many a heart runs the rent in the fable; But who to discover a Curtius is able?

XVII.

Back she came from her long hiding-place, at the source
Of the sunrise; where, fair in their fabulous course,
Run the rivers of Eden: an exile again,

To the cities of Europe-the scenes, and the men,
And the life, and the ways, she had left: still oppress'd
With the same hungry heart, and unpeaceable breast.
The same, to the same things! The world, she had

quitted

With a sigh, with a sigh she re-enter'd. Soon flitted
Through the salons and clubs, to the great satisfaction.
Of Paris, the news of a novel attraction.
The enchanting Lucile, the gay Countess, once more
To her old friend, the World, had reopen'd her door;
The World came, and shook hands, and was pleased
and amused

With what the World then went away and abused.
From the woman's fair fame it in nought could detract :
'Twas the woman's free genius it vex'd and attack'd
With a sneer at her freedom of action and speech.
But its light careless cavils, in truth, could not reach
The lone heart they aim'd at. Her tears fell beyond
The world's limit, to feel that the world could respond
To that heart's deepest, innermost yearning, in nought.
'Twas no longer this earth's idle inmates she sought:

The wit of the woman sufficed to engage

In the woman's gay court the first men of the age.
Some had genius; and all, wealth of mind to confer
On the world: but that wealth was not lavish'd for her.
For the genius of man, though so human indeed,
When call'd out to man's help by some great human
need,

The right to a man's chance acquaintance refuses
To use what it hoards for mankind's nobler uses.
Genius touches the world at but one point alone
Of that spacious circumference, never quite known
To the world: all the infinite number of lines
That radiate thither a mere point combines,
But one only,—some central affection apart
From the reach of the world, in which Genius is Heart,
And love, life's fine centre, includes heart and mind.
And therefore it was that Lucile sigh'd to find
Men of genius appear, one and all in her ken,

When they stoop'd themselves to it, as mere clever

men;

Artists, statesmen, and they in whose works are unfurl'd Worlds new-fashion'd for man, as mere men of the

world.

And so, as alone now she stood, in the sight

Of the sunset of youth, with her face from the light,
And watch'd her own shadow grow long at her feet,
As though stretch'd out, the shade of some other to
meet,

The woman felt homeless and childless: in scorn
She seem'd mock'd by the voices of children unborn ;
And when from these sombre reflections away
She turn'd, with a sigh, to that gay world, more gay

For her presence within it, she knew herself friendless; That her path led from peace, and that path appear'd

endless!

That even her beauty had been but a snare,

And her wit sharpen'd only the edge of despair.

XVIII,

With a face all transfigured and flush'd by surprise,

Alfred turn'd to Lucile.

With those deep searching

eyes

She look'd into his own.

Not a word that she said,

Not a look, not a blush, one emotion betray'd.

She seem'd to smile through him, at something beyond:
When she answer'd his questions, she seem'd to respond
To some voice in herself. With no trouble descried,
To each troubled inquiry she calmly replied.
Not so he. At the sight of that face back again
To his mind came the ghost of a long-stifled pain,
A remember'd resentment, half-check'd by a wild
And relentful regret like a motherless child
Softly seeking admittance, with plaintive appeal,
To the heart which resisted its entrance.

Lucile

And himself thus, however, with freedom allow'd
To old friends, talking still side by side, left the crowd
By the crowd unobserved. Not unnoticed, however,
By the Duke and Matilda. Matilda had never

Seen her husband's new friend.

She had follow'd by chance,

Or by instinct, the sudden half-menacing glance

Which the Duke, when he witness'd their meeting, had

turn'd

On Lucile and Lord Alfred; and, scared, she discern'd
On his feature the shade of a gloom so profound
That she shudder'd instinctively. Deaf to the sound
Of her voice, to some startled inquiry of hers
He replied not, but murmur'd, 'Lucile de Nevers
'Once again then? so be it!' In the mind of that

man,

At that moment, there shaped itself vaguely the plan Of a purpose malignant and dark, such alone

(To his own secret heart but imperfectly shown)

As could spring from the cloudy, fierce chaos of thought By which all his nature to tumult was wrought.

XIX.

'So!' he thought, 'they meet thus: and reweave the old charm!

'And she hangs on his voice, and she leans on his arm, 'And she heeds me not, seeks me not, recks not of me! 'Oh, what if I show'd her that I, too, can be

'Loved by one-her own rival-more fair and more young?

The serpent rose in him: a serpent which, stung,
Sought to sting.

Each unconscious, indeed, of the eye
Fix'd upon them, Lucile and my lord saunter'd by,
In converse which seem'd to be earnest. A smile
Now and then seem'd to show where their thoughts

touch'd. Meanwhile

The muse of this story, convinced that they need her,

To the Duke and Matilda returns, gentle Reader.

« iepriekšējāTurpināt »