LITMIR.BIZ

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world had tried to spoil her; tried, I say,

       And half succeeded, failing utterly.

       Fair was she, frank, and innocent as a child

       That looks in every eye; fearless of ill,

       Because she knew it not; and brave withal,

       Because she led a simple country life,

       And loved the animals. Her father's house—

       A Scottish laird was he, of ancient name—

       Was distant but two miles among the hills;

       Yet oft as she had passed his father's farm,

       The youth had never seen her face before,

       And should not twice. Yet was it not enough?

       The vision tarried. She, as the harvest moon

       That goeth on her way, and knoweth not

       The fields of corn whose ripening grain she fills

       With strength of life, and hope, and joy for men,

       Went on her way, and knew not of the virtue

       Gone out of her; yea, never thought of him,

       Save at such times when, all at once, old scenes

       Return uncalled, with wonder that they come.

       Soon was she orphaned of her sheltering hills,

       And rounded with dead glitter, not the shine

       Of leaves and waters dancing in the sun;

       While he abode in ever breaking dawns,

       Breathed ever new-born winds into his soul;

       And saw the aurora of the heavenly day

       Still climb the hill-sides of the heapy world.

      Again I say, no fond romance of love,

       No argument of possibilities,

       If he were some one, and she sought his help,

       Turned his clear brain into a nest of dreams.

       As soon he had sat down and twisted cords

       To snare, and carry home for household help,

       Some woman-angel, wandering half-seen

       On moonlight wings, o'er withered autumn fields.

       But when he rose next morn, and went abroad,

       (The exultation of his new-found rank

       Already settling into dignity,)

       Behold, the earth was beautiful! The sky

       Shone with the expectation of the sun.

       Only the daisies grieved him, for they fell

       Caught in the furrow, with their innocent heads

       Just out, imploring. A gray hedgehog ran,

       With tangled mesh of rough-laid spikes, and face

       Helplessly innocent, across the field:

       He let it run, and blessed it as it ran.

       Returned at noon-tide, something drew his feet

       Into the barn: entering, he gazed and stood.

       For, through the rent roof lighting, one sunbeam

       Blazed on the yellow straw one golden spot,

       Dulled all the amber heap, and sinking far,

       Like flame inverted, through the loose-piled mound,

       Crossed the keen splendour with dark shadow-straws,

       In lines innumerable. 'Twas so bright,

       His eye was cheated with a spectral smoke

       That rose as from a fire. He had not known

       How beautiful the sunlight was, not even

       Upon the windy fields of morning grass,

       Nor on the river, nor the ripening corn!

       As if to catch a wild live thing, he crept

       On tiptoe silent, laid him on the heap,

       And gazing down into the glory-gulf,

       Dreamed as a boy half sleeping by the fire—

       Half dreaming rose, and got his horses out.

      God, and not woman, is the heart of all.

       But she, as priestess of the visible earth,

       Holding the key, herself most beautiful,

       Had come to him, and flung the portals wide.

       He entered: every beauty was a glass

       That gleamed the woman back upon his view.

       Shall I not rather say: each beauty gave

       Its own soul up to him who worshipped her,

       For that his eyes were opened now to see?

      Already in these hours his quickened soul

       Put forth the white tip of a floral bud,

       Ere long to be a crown-like, aureole flower.

       His songs unbidden, his joy in ancient tales,

       Had hitherto alone betrayed the seed

       That lay in his heart, close hidden even from him,

       Yet not the less mellowing all his spring:

       Like summer sunshine came the maiden's face,

       And in the youth's glad heart the seed awoke.

       It grew and spread, and put forth many flowers,

       Its every flower a living open eye,

       Until his soul was full of eyes within.

       Each morning now was a fresh boon to him;

       Each wind a spiritual power upon his life;

       Each individual animal did share

       A common being with him; every kind

       Of flower from every other was distinct,

       Uttering that for which alone it was—

       Its something human, wrapt in other veil.

      And when the winter came, when thick the snow

       Armed the sad fields from gnawing of the frost,

       When the low sun but skirted his far realms,

       And sank in early night, he drew his chair

       Beside the fire; and by the feeble lamp

       Read book on book; and wandered other climes,

       And lived in other lives and other needs,

       And grew a larger self by other selves.

       Ere long, the love of knowledge had become

       A hungry passion and a conscious power,

       And craved for more than reading could supply.

       Then, through the night (all dark, except the moon

       Shone frosty o'er the heath, or the white snow

       Gave back such motes of light as else had sunk

       In the dark earth) he bent his plodding way

       Over the moors to where the little town

       Lay gathered in the hollow. There the student

       Who taught from lingering dawn to early dark,

       Had older scholars in the long fore-night;

       For youths who in the shop, or in the barn,

       Or at the loom, had done their needful work,

       Came gathering there through starlight, fog, or snow,

       And found the fire ablaze, the candles lit,

       And him who knew waiting for who would know.

      

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