LITMIR.BIZ

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the gloom with calm delirium

       Of radiated whiteness, as I read!—

       The fancied joy, too plenteous for its cup,

       O'erflowed, and turned to sadness as it fell.

      But the gray ruin on the shattered shore,

       Not the green refuge in the bowering hill,

       Drew forth our talk that day. For, as I said,

       I asked her if she knew it. She replied,

       "I know it well. A woman used to live

       In one of its low vaults, my mother says."

       "I found a hole," I said, "and spiral stair,

       Leading from level of the ground above

       To a low-vaulted room within the rock,

       Whence through a small square window I looked forth

       Wide o'er the waters; the dim-sounding waves

       Were many feet below, and shrunk in size

       To a great ripple." "'Twas not there," she said,

       "—Not in that room half up the cliff, but one

       Low down, within the margin of spring tides:

       When both the tide and northern wind are high,

       'Tis more an ocean-cave than castle-vault."

       And then she told me all she knew of her.

      It was a simple tale, a monotone:

       She climbed one sunny hill, gazed once abroad,

       Then wandered down, to pace a dreary plain;

       Alas! how many such are told by night,

       In fisher-cottages along the shore!

      Farewell, old summer-day! I turn aside

       To tell her story, interwoven with thoughts

       Born of its sorrow; for I dare not think

       A woman at the mercy of a sea.

      THE STORY.

      Aye as it listeth blows the listless wind,

       Swelling great sails, and bending lordly masts,

       Or hurrying shadow-waves o'er fields of corn,

       And hunting lazy clouds across the sky:

       Now, like a white cloud o'er another sky,

       It blows a tall brig from the harbour's mouth,

       Away to high-tossed heads of wallowing waves,

       'Mid hoverings of long-pinioned arrowy birds.

       With clouds and birds and sails and broken crests,

       All space is full of spots of fluttering white,

       And yet the sailor knows that handkerchief

       Waved wet with tears, and heavy in the wind.

       Blow, wind! draw out the cord that binds the twain;

       Draw, for thou canst not break the lengthening cord.

       Blow, wind! yet gently; gently blow, fair wind!

       And let love's vision slowly, gently die;

       Let the bright sails all solemn-slowly pass,

       And linger ghost-like o'er the vanished hull,

       With a white farewell to her straining eyes;

       For never more in morning's level beams,

       Will those sea-shadowing sails, dark-stained and worn,

       From the gray-billowed north come dancing in;

       Oh, never, gliding home 'neath starry skies,

       Over the dusk of the dim-glancing sea,

       Will the great ship send forth a herald cry

       Of home-come sailors, into sleeping streets!

       Blow gently, wind! blow slowly, gentle wind!

      Weep not yet, maiden; 'tis not yet thy hour.

       Why shouldst thou weep before thy time is come?

       Go to thy work; break into song sometimes—

       Song dying slow-forgotten, in the lapse

       Of dreamy thought, ere natural pause ensue,

       Or sudden dropt what time the eager heart

       Hurries the ready eye to north and east.

       Sing, maiden, while thou canst, ere yet the truth,

       Slow darkening, choke the heart-caged singing bird!

      The weeks went by. Oft leaving household work,

       With bare arms and uncovered head she clomb

       The landward slope of the prophetic hill;

       From whose green head, as from the verge of time,

       Far out on the eternity of blue,

       Shading her hope-rapt eyes, seer-like she gazed,

       If from the Hades of the nether world,

       Slow climbing up the round side of the earth,

       Haply her prayers were drawing his tardy sails

       Over the threshold of the far sky-sea—

       Drawing her sailor home to celebrate,

       With holy rites of family and church,

       The apotheosis of maidenhood.

      Months passed; he came not; and a shadowy fear,

       Long haunting the horizon of her soul,

       In deeper gloom and sharper form drew nigh;

       And growing in bulk, possessed her atmosphere,

       And lost all shape, because it filled all space,

       And reached beyond the bounds of consciousness—

       In sudden incarnations darting swift

       From out its infinite a gulfy stare

       Of terror blank, of hideous emptiness,

       Of widowhood ere ever wedding-day.

      On granite ridge, and chalky cliff, and pier,

       Far built into the waves along our shores,

       Maidens have stood since ever ships went forth;

       The same pain at the heart; the same slow mist

       Clouding the eye; the same fixed longing look,

       As if the soul had gone, and left the door

       Wide open—gone to lean, hearken, and peer

       Over the awful edge where voidness sinks

       Sheer to oblivion—that horizon-line

       Over whose edge he vanished—came no more.

       O God, why are our souls, waste, helpless seas,

       Tortured with such immitigable storm?

       What is this love, that now on angel wing

       Sweeps us amid the stars in passionate calm;

       And now with demon arms fast cincturing,

       Drops us, through all gyrations of keen pain,

       Down the black vortex, till the giddy whirl

       Gives fainting respite to the ghastly brain?

       O happy they for whom the Possible

       Opens its gates of madness, and becomes

       The Real around them!—such to whom henceforth

       There is but one to-morrow, the next morn,

       Their wedding-day, ever one step removed,

       The husband's foot ever upon the verge

      

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