VII.  FROM FREDERICK

 
Write not, my Mother, her dear name
With the least word or hint of blame.
Who else shall discommend her choice,
I giving it my hearty voice?
Wed me?  Ah, never near her come
The knowledge of the narrow home!
Far fly from her dear face, that shows
The sunshine lovelier than the rose,
The sordid gravity they wear
Who poverty’s base burthen bear!
(And all are poor who come to miss
Their custom, though a crown be this.)
My hope was, that the wheels of fate,
For my exceeding need, might wait,
And she, unseen amidst all eyes,
Move sightless, till I sought the prize,
With honour, in an equal field.
But then came Vaughan, to whom I yield
With grace as much as any man,
In such cause, to another can.
Had she been mine, it seems to me
That I had that integrity
And only joy in her delight—
But each is his own favourite
In love!  The thought to bring me rest
Is that of us she takes the best.
   ’Twas but to see him to be sure
That choice for her remain’d no more!
His brow, so gaily clear of craft;
His wit, the timely truth that laugh’d
To find itself so well express’d;
His words, abundant yet the best;
His spirit, of such handsome show
You mark’d not that his looks were so;
His bearing, prospects, birth, all these
Might well, with small suit, greatly please;
How greatly, when she saw arise
The reflex sweetness of her eyes
In his, and every breath defer
Humbly its bated life to her;
Whilst power and kindness of command.
Which women can no more withstand
Than we their grace, were still unquell’d,
And force and flattery both compell’d
Her softness!  Say I’m worthy.  I
Grew, in her presence, cold and shy.
It awed me, as an angel’s might
In raiment of reproachful light.
Her gay looks told my sombre mood
That what’s not happy is not good;
And, just because ’twas life to please,
Death to repel her, truth and ease
Deserted me; I strove to talk,
And stammer’d foolishness; my walk
Was like a drunkard’s; if she took
My arm, it stiffen’d, ached, and shook:
A likely wooer!  Blame her not;
Nor ever say, dear Mother, aught
Against that perfectness which is
My strength, as once it was my bliss.
   And do not chafe at social rules.
Leave that to charlatans and fools.
Clay grafts and clods conceive the rose,
So base still fathers best.  Life owes
Itself to bread; enough thereof
And easy days condition love;
And, kindly train’d, love’s roses thrive,
No more pale, scentless petals five,
Which moisten the considerate eye
To see what haste they make to die,
But heavens of colour and perfume,
Which, month by month, renew the bloom
Of art-born graces, when the year
In all the natural grove is sere.
   Blame nought then!  Bright let be the air
About my lonely cloud of care.
 

VIII.  FROM FREDERICK

 
Religion, duty, books, work, friends,—
’Tis good advice, but there it ends.
I’m sick for what these have not got.
Send no more books: they help me not;
I do my work: the void’s there still
Which carefullest duty cannot fill.
What though the inaugural hour of right
Comes ever with a keen delight?
Little relieves the labour’s heat;
Disgust oft crowns it when complete;
And life, in fact, is not less dull
For being very dutiful.
‘The stately homes of England,’ lo,
‘How beautiful they stand!’  They owe
How much to nameless things like me
Their beauty of security!
But who can long a low toil mend
By looking to a lofty end?
And let me, since ’tis truth, confess
The void’s not fill’d by godliness.
God is a tower without a stair,
And His perfection, love’s despair.
’Tis He shall judge me when I die;
He suckles with the hissing fly
The spider; gazes calmly down.
Whilst rapine grips the helpless town.
His vast love holds all this and more.
In consternation I adore.
Nor can I ease this aching gulf
With friends, the pictures of myself.
   Then marvel not that I recur
From each and all of these to her.
For more of heaven than her have I
No sensitive capacity.
Had I but her, ah, what the gain
Of owning aught but that domain!
Nay, heaven’s extent, however much,
Cannot be more than many such;
And, she being mine, should God to me
Say ‘Lo! my Child, I give to thee
‘All heaven besides,’ what could I then,
But, as a child, to Him complain
That whereas my dear Father gave
A little space for me to have
In His great garden, now, o’erblest,
I’ve that, indeed, but all the rest,
Which, somehow, makes it seem I’ve got
All but my only cared-for plot.
Enough was that for my weak hand
To tend, my heart to understand.
   Oh, the sick fact, ’twixt her and me
There’s naught, and half a world of sea.
 

IX.  FROM FREDERICK

 
In two, in less than two hours more
I set my foot on English shore,
Two years untrod, and, strange to tell,
Nigh miss’d through last night’s storm!  There fell
A man from the shrouds, that roar’d to quench
Even the billows’ blast and drench.
Besides me none was near to mark
His loud cry in the louder dark,
Dark, save when lightning show’d the deeps
Standing about in stony heaps.
No time for choice!  A rope; a flash
That flamed as he rose; a dizzy splash;
A strange, inopportune delight
Of mounting with the billowy might,
And falling, with a thrill again
Of pleasure shot from feet to brain;
And both paced deck, ere any knew
Our peril.  Round us press’d the crew,
With wonder in the eyes of most.
As if the man who had loved and lost
Honoria dared no more than that!
   My days have else been stale and flat.
This life’s at best, if justly scann’d,
A tedious walk by the other’s strand,
With, here and there cast up, a piece
Of coral or of ambergris,
Which, boasted of abroad, we ignore
The burden of the barren shore.
I seldom write, for ’twould be still
Of how the nerves refuse to thrill;
How, throughout doubly-darken’d days,
I cannot recollect her face;
How to my heart her name to tell
Is beating on a broken bell;
And, to fill up the abhorrent gulf,
Scarce loving her, I hate myself.
   Yet, latterly, with strange delight,
Rich tides have risen in the night,
And sweet dreams chased the fancies dense
Of waking life’s dull somnolence.
I see her as I knew her, grace
Already glory in her face;
I move about, I cannot rest,
For the proud brain and joyful breast
I have of her.  Or else I float,
The pilot of an idle boat,
Alone, alone with sky and sea,
And her, the third simplicity.
Or Mildred, to some question, cries,
(Her merry meaning in her eyes,)
‘The Ball, oh, Frederick will go;
Honoria will be there! and, lo,
As moisture sweet my seeing blurs
To hear my name so link’d with hers,
A mirror joins, by guilty chance,
Either’s averted, watchful glance!
Or with me, in the Ball-Room’s blaze,
Her brilliant mildness threads the maze;
Our thoughts are lovely, and each word
Is music in the music heard,
And all things seem but parts to be
Of one persistent harmony,
By which I’m made divinely bold;
The secret, which she knows, is told;
And, laughing with a lofty bliss
Of innocent accord, we kiss:
About her neck my pleasure weeps;
Against my lip the silk vein leaps;
Then says an Angel, ‘Day or night,
If yours you seek, not her delight,
Although by some strange witchery
It seems you kiss her, ’tis not she;
But, whilst you languish at the side
Of a fair-foul phantasmal bride,
Surely a dragon and strong tower
Guard the true lady in her bower.’
And I say, ‘Dear my Lord.  Amen!’
And the true lady kiss again.
Or else some wasteful malady
Devours her shape and dims her eye;
No charms are left, where all were rife,
Except her voice, which is her life,
Wherewith she, for her foolish fear,
Says trembling, ‘Do you love me.  Dear?’
And I reply, ‘Sweetest, I vow
I never loved but half till now.’
She turns her face to the wall at this,
And says, ‘Go, Love, ’tis too much bliss.’
And then a sudden pulse is sent
About the sounding firmament
In smitings as of silver bars;
The bright disorder of the stars
Is solved by music; far and near,
Through infinite distinctions clear,
Their twofold voices’ deeper tone
Utters the Name which all things own,
And each ecstatic treble dwells
On one whereof none other tells;
And we, sublimed to song and fire,
Take order in the wheeling quire,
Till from the throbbing sphere I start,
Waked by the heaving of my heart.
   Such dreams as these come night by night,
Disturbing day with their delight.
Portend they nothing?  Who can tell!’
God yet may do some miracle.
’Tis nigh two years, and she’s not wed,
Or you would know!  He may be dead,
Or mad, and loving some one else,
And she, much moved that nothing quells
My constancy, or, simply wroth
With such a wretch, accept my troth
To spite him; or her beauty’s gone,
(And that’s my dream!) and this man Vaughan
Takes her release: or tongues malign,
Confusing every ear but mine,
Have smirch’d her: ah, ’twould move her, sure,
To find I loved her all the more!
Nay, now I think, haply amiss
I read her words and looks, and his,
That night!  Did not his jealousy
Show—Good my God, and can it be
That I, a modest fool, all blest,
Nothing of such a heaven guess’d?
Oh, chance too frail, yet frantic sweet,
To-morrow sees me at her feet!
   Yonder, at last, the glad sea roars
Along the sacred English shores!
There lies the lovely land I know,
Where men and women lordliest grow;
There peep the roofs where more than kings
Postpone state cares to country things,
And many a gay queen simply tends
The babes on whom the world depends;
There curls the wanton cottage smoke
Of him that drives but bears no yoke;
There laughs the realm where low and high
Are lieges to society,
And life has all too wide a scope,
Too free a prospect for its hope,
For any private good or ill,
Except dishonour, quite to fill! ¹
 
 
   —Mother, since this was penn’d, I’ve read
That ‘Mr. Vaughan, on Tuesday, wed
The beautiful Miss Churchill.’  So
That’s over; and to-morrow I go
To take up my new post on board
The Wolf, my peace at last restored;
My lonely faith, like heart-of-oak,
Shock-season’d.  Grief is now the cloak
I clasp about me to prevent
The deadly chill of a content
With any near or distant good,
Except the exact beatitude
Which love has shown to my desire.
Talk not of ‘other joys and higher,’
I hate and disavow all bliss
As none for me which is not this.
Think not I blasphemously cope
With God’s decrees, and cast off hope.
How, when, and where can mine succeed?
 
 
I’ll trust He knows who made my need.
   Baseness of men!  Pursuit being o’er,
Doubtless her Husband feels no more
The heaven of heavens of such a Bride,
But, lounging, lets her please his pride
With fondness, guerdons her caress
With little names, and turns a tress
Round idle fingers.  If ’tis so,
Why then I’m happier of the two!
Better, for lofty loss, high pain,
Than low content with lofty gain.
Poor, foolish Dove, to trust from me
Her happiness and dignity!