6 6 Well!... how utter soever it be, one mistake In the love of a man, what more change need it make 'In the steps of his soul through the course love began, Than all other mistakes in the life of a man? 'And I said to myself, "I am young yet: too young To have wholly survived my own portion among The great needs of man's life, or exhausted its joys; • What is broken? one only of youth's pleasant toys! Shall I be the less welcome, wherever I go, For one passion survived? No! the roses will blow 'As of yore, as of yore will the nightingales sing, 6 Not less sweetly for one blossom cancell'd from Spring! 'Hast thou loved, O my heart? to thy love yet remains 'All the wide loving-kindness of nature. The plains 'And the hills with each summer their verdure renew: Wouldst thou be as they are? do thou then as they do. 'Let the dead sleep in peace. Would the living divine Where they slumber? Let only new flowers be the sign! 'Since the bird of the wood flits and sings round the nest Where lie broken the eggs she once warm'd with her breast; Since the flower of the field, newly born yesterday, When to-morrow a new bud hath burst on the spray, Folds, and falls in the night, unrepining, unseen; Since aloof in the forests, when forests are green, You may hear through the silence the dead wood that cracks, Since man, where his course throughout nature he tracks, 'In all things one science to soothe him may find, 'To walk on, and look forward, and never behind, 6 -What to me, O my heart, is thy joy or thy sorrow? 'What the tears of to-day or the sneers of to-morrow? 'What is life? what is death? what the false? what the true? 'And what is the harm that one woman can do?" 'Vain! all vain!... For when, laughing, the wine I would quaff, 6 'I remember'd too well all it cost me to laugh. 'Through the revel it was but the old song I heard, Through the crowd the old footsteps behind me they stirr'd, 'In the night wind, the starlight, the murmurs of even, • In the ardours of earth, and the languors of heaven, 'I could trace nothing more, nothing more through the spheres, 'But the sound of old sobs, and the tracks of old tears! 'It was with me the night long in dreaming or waking, 'It abided in loathing, when daylight was breaking, 6 The burthen of the bitterness in me! Behold 'All my days were become as a tale that is told. 'And I said to my sight, "No good thing shalt thou see, For the noonday is turned to darkness in me. 'In the house of Oblivion my bed I have made." 'And I said to the grave, "Lo, my father!" and said 'To the worm, "Lo, my sister!" The dust to the dust, 'And one end to the wicked shall be with the just!' VII. He ceased, as a wind that wails out on the night, Of ineffable pity replied to his own. And say you, and deem you, that I wreck'd your life? 'Alas! Duc de Luvois, had I been your wife By a fraud of the heart which could yield you alone 'Should I not, in deceiving, have injured you worse? 'Wrong'd! ah, is it so? 'You could never have loved me?' ' Duke!' 'Never? oh no!' (He broke into a fierce angry laugh, as he said) 'Yet, lady, you knew that I loved you: you led 6 My love on to lay to its heart, hour by hour, All the pale, cruel, beautiful, passionless power 'Shut up in that cold face of yours! was this well? 'But enough! not on you would I vent the wild hell Which has grown in my heart. Oh that man, first and last 'He tramples in triumph my life! he has cast 'His shadow 'twixt me and the sun... let it pass! My hate yet may find him!' She murmur'd, 'Alas! 'These words, at least, spare me the pain of reply. 'Enough, Duc de Luvois! farewell. I shall try To forget every word I have heard, every sight That has grieved and appall'd me in this wretched night Which must witness our final farewell. May you, Duke, 'Never know greater cause your own heart to rebuke Than mine thus to wrong and afflict you have had! 'Adieu!' 'Stay, Lucile, stay!'... he groan'd, ... 'I am mad, Brutalised, blind with pain! I know not what I said. 'I meant it not. But' (he moan'd, drooping his head) 'I suffer, and pain is perchance all unjust; ''Tis the worm trodden down that yet stings in the dust. 'Forgive me! I have I so wrong'd you, Lucile? "I... have I... forgive me, forgive me!' ' I feel 'Only sad, very sad to the soul,' she said, 'far, 'Far too sad for resentment.' 'Yet stand as you are 'One moment,' he murmur'd. 'I think, could I gaze Thus awhile on your face, the old innocent days Would come back upon me, and this scorching heart 'Free itself in hot tears. Do not, do not depart 'Thus, Lucile! stay one moment. I know why you shrink, Why you shudder; I read in your face what you think. 'Do not speak to me of it. And yet, if you will, Whatever you say, my own lips shall be still. 'Do not fear I should justify aught I have done. ' I feel I have sinn'd. Yet this night you have won 6 6 A great battle from me. Teach, O teach me to bear The defeat I have merited! Teach my despair 'Some retributive penance to purge this foul past 'And work out life's penal redemption at last!' 'Only speak!' 'Could I help you,' she murmur'd, 'my heart Would bless heaven indeed if before we thus part 'Out of this hour of darkness! But what can I say? 'Nay, 'I have suffer'd,' he answer'd, 'but yet do not think That, whatever my fate, I have shrunk, or do shrink. When the peasant, at nightfall, regaining the door Of his hut, finds the tempest hath been there before; That the thunder hath wasted the harvest he sow'd, 'And the lightning to ashes consumed his abode; 'The wild fact to his senses one moment may seem 'Like a haggard, confused, and unnatural dream : The vast night is sombre all round him; the earth 'Smoulders lurid and angry; he stands on his hearth 'And looks round for the welcome of old, and the 6 6 place Where his wife used to sit with the smile on her face; ' A heap of red ashes lies strewn on the heath. But in darkness of night, and with silence of death, 'He sits down, and already reflects on the morrow. So I, in the night of my life, with my sorrow! |