My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale

She passed like summer flowers away.
   Her aspect and her voice
   Will never more rejoice,
For she lies hushed in cold decay.
   Broken the golden bowl
   Which held her hallowed soul:
It was an idle boast to say
   “Our souls are as the same,”
   And stings me now to shame:
Her spirit went, and mine did not obey.

The Deathly Power in silence drew
   My Lady’s life away.
   I watched, dumb for dismay,
The shock of thrills that quivered through
   Her wasted frame, and shook
   The meaning in her look,
As near, more near, the moment grew.
   O horrible suspense!
   O giddy impotence!
I saw her features lax, and change their hue.

A dreadful tremour ran through space
   When first the mournful toll
   Rang for My Lady’s soul.
The shining world was hell; her grace
   Only the flattering gleam
   And mockery of a dream:
Oblivion struck me like a mace,
   And as a tree that’s hewn
   I dropped, in a dead swoon,
And lay a long time cold upon my face.

What art thou whispering lowly to thy babe,
O wan girl-mother, with Madonna lids
Downcast?  Why pressest thou so close his pale
Geranium cheek to thy yet whiter breast?
Ah, doubtless sweet; to feel him draw the stream
That fills with strength his lily limbs!  And laughs
Thine own heart with his deeply dimpled laughter,
Answering straight thy dainty finger’s touch?
And understandeth he that murmurous moan,
Wherewith thou hushest, patting him to rest?

I had been sitting by her tomb
   In torpor one dark night;
When fitful tremours shook the doom
Of cold lethargic settled gloom,
   That weighed upon my sight:

And while I sat, and sickly heaves
   Disturbed my spirit’s sloth,
A wind came, blown o’er distant sheaves,
That hissing, tore and lashed the leaves
   And lashed the undergrowth:

In sudden splendour on the stone.
   Then, for an instant, I
Snatched and heaped up my past, bestrown
With hopes and kisses, struggling moan,
   And pangs: as suddenly,

Oppressed with overwhelming weight,
   Down fell the edifice;
When touched, as by the hand of Fate,
My gloom was gone.  I felt my state
   So light, I sobbed for bliss.

The loud winds, spent in seeking rest,
   Dropped dead.  My fevered brow
Drank coolness from the grass it pressed;
And in my desolated breast
   A change began to grow,

My tears, as treasures of a wreck
   That in the ocean slept,
Recovered, ran without a check;
And earth was my good mother’s neck
   To which I clung and wept.

I rose at length, and felt a dense
   Benumbed dead weight.  And now
The night air hung in deep suspense!
A singing hush that pressed my sense
   And stunned me like a blow:

Mine eyes I dared not try to raise;
   My Lady’s beamed on me
In fixed serenity of gaze,
And were what old sunshiny days
   In childhood used to be.

A gasping lapse; and I was whirled
   Round the faint void of space;
In dizzy circles hugely hurled,
I saw the constellated world
   With every orb embrace,

To one stupendous vortex-light,
   Spinning a fiery ram,
Then fail, struck out by sudden night;
When swung adown in headlong might,
   Earth’s touch shook through my brain.

Her voice in some translucent star,
   Remote, beyond my sight,
Was singing marvellously far;
And yet so strangely near to jar,
   As jars too strong a light.

She sang a song.  She warbled low,
   She did not sing in words;
I felt it in my spirit glow,
And knew it, as with joy I know
   The morning shouts of birds.

I can no more, with glimmering trope
   That into darkness runs,
Reveal its depth, than they could hope,
Who on in lifelong blindness grope,
   To sing of rising suns.

“Or e’er that life my King had lent
   Was lifted into rest,
His message through my lips He sent,
And on thy path His glory went
   To guide thee to the blessed.

“But thou didst turn thy face, and scorn
   His grace divine as nought;
And set thy gaze to earth forlorn,
And rage at fate, till gaunt and worn,
   Death mouldered in thy thought.

“For with thy Lily’s worldly dress
   Thou didst thine eyesight fill;
And scorn to know its loveliness
Were but an empty boast unless
   Made living by His will.

“Thou mourn’dst not most the vanished soul
   Which was my Lord’s through thine;
But more the broken pleasure-bowl,
Whose golden richness shed, when whole,
   Its splendour in thy wine.

“Permitted, now I come to thee:
   I warn thee of thy sin;
I urge thee cleanse thine eyesight free,
That purified thy soul may see
   The way his love to win.

“His love incomprehensible
   Did never turn away
From penitent whom harm befell;
But springeth like a desert well
   For thirsting poor estray.

“Let him who scorneth mercy shown,
   Unhappy one, beware!
For whoso lives in pride alone,
His pride shall harden to a stone
   Too great for him to bear.

“Thou troubled one, who unto me
   Art next my Lord’s own grace,
O turn to Him, and He will be
A refuge from thy misery,
   A smile upon thy face!

“A righteous strength will nerve thine arm,
   And courage fill thy breast:
And having bravely warred on harm,
The cries of victory shall charm
   Thy dying eyes to rest.

“And Love will lead her sacrifice
   To where a shining row
Stand beckoning to the heights of bliss;
And she will clasp his hands and kiss
   Welcome upon his brow.”

I knew not when the singing ceased
   To trance my brightened soul,
Then from that long eclipse released.
But looking hopeful towards the East,
   I saw flush pole to pole

The dawn, that had begun to show,
   And through dank vapour burned,
As in a sick face lying low
The rich incarnadine would glow,
   When healthy life returned.

It waned into the warbling day;
   That, rising fierce and strong,
Now looked the Western gloom away,
And kindled such a roundelay,
   The world awoke with song,

And fresh delicious breezes came
   With scents of paradise
So tingling through my knitted frame,
That never since I lisped a name
   Knew I such joy arise.

Toward my home I walked, elate
   With hope and settled plan:
And reverent to the will of Fate,
In every step I trod my weight,
   A sober-minded man.

Our world has spun ten circles round the light
Since here she vanished.  In my helpless gaze,
To mark the spot, was fixed this carven stone,
Raw, garish, stolidly obtrusive then,
Now harmonising kindly with the rest.
A spray of centipedal ivy creeps
From death to birth, and reaches to her name;
With kisslike touch its tender leaflets feel
The letter’s edge,—I scarce can think it chance.

   Hers was a gracious and a gentle house!
Rich in obliging nice observances
And famed ancestral hospitality.
A cool repose lay grateful through the place;
And pleasant duties promptly, truly done,
And every service moved by hidden springs
Sped with intelligence, went smoothly round.

   And now was stricken down the mighty man;
As the ripe harvest levelled by a storm
At morningtide; which, ere sun warmth anew
Can flatter into strength, a second storm
O’erwhelms and scattereth to waste at even.

   Long toil-devoted years have gloomed and shone
Since these events closed up my doors of life.
Partly from choice, and part necessity,
With constancy have I sustained and urged
The work it was my duty to advance.
For, when my vision cleared again, I looked
And saw how mean a thing was man, who used
The produce of his fellows’ energies
And gave back nothing.

   Could I dwell here in our proud Island Home,
Preserved by countless victories; made strong
By kings and kingly councillors; enriched
By artisans, whose skill surpassed all men’s;
And by such wondrous song immortalised
It glorifies mankind: could I dwell here;
Here feed on this accumulated wealth,
Like senseless swine on acorns of the wood,
And own no wish to render thanks in kind?
Surely there could be found some waste wild flower
To yield one honey-drop that I might drain
To swell the general hive!

   And She, my lost adored One, where is She?
Where has She been throughout these dragging years
Of labour?

   But sweeter than all roses, sights of birds,
Richer than fruit, more than whole lands of corn,
Fairer than glories of the brightest day,
Dearer than any old familiar sound
Of childhood hours, than every glittering joy
Thrown from the teeming fountain of the earth,
Is our impulsive answer to the call
Of Duty.

   Fair Duty, most unlike the blight of death,
Whose dismal presence levels men to ruin,
Lifts up his nature into rarer life.
Hers is a broad estate open to poor
And rich alike: here rudest peasant may
Move as their equal with baronial lords,
And those who serve be great as those who rule:
Here a smirched artisan who merely bolts
The plates of iron fortress, breathes the pride
Of that trained chieftain who commands its guns;
And one that points or fires a single piece
Claims honour with the mind who planned the war.

March, 1865.

Ah, Nelly Dale, nigh fifty years
Since you and I set out together,
Joyful both, as the summer weather,
That swarmed our pathway to the meres
So rich with blossom, and opulent
Successive honeysuckle scent,
It smiled a golden garden, gay
With flutter of insects all the way!

The kine were white and smooth as silk
At Flowerdew’s, where we went for milk
With jug and can.  The can you bore
Jingled and tumbled when you tore
Your new frock striped with lilac, while
Crossing that high-built awkward stile.

Ah, me, our young delight to roam
Along that lane so far from home!
Laughter, and chatter of this or that;
Ripening strawberries, mice and cat;
The birthday near; the birthday treat,
With something extra good to eat,
And currant, cowslip, elder wine,
As real lords and ladies dine!

Your beauty, like a queen’s or king’s
Good word, gives price to common things:
That can your ruddy fingers hold
Hangs lovelier there than purest gold;
And, as the poor, grown rich by chance,
Run raptured in extravagance,
My fancy riots in the fields’
Increasing wealth its charter yields:
And at your lintel, by the bower
Of vine leaves screening noonday heat;
The grapes, that hang there small and sour,
Are soft in bloom and more than sweet!