No More Learning

A solemn thing it is to me
To look upon a babe that sleeps
Wearing in its spirit-deeps
The undeveloped mystery
Of our Adam's taint and woe,
Which, when they developed be,
Will not let it slumber so;
Lying new in life beneath
The shadow of the coming death,
With that soft, low, quiet breath,
As if it felt the sun;
Knowing all things by their blooms,
Not their roots, yea, sun and sky
Only by the warmth that comes
Out of each, earth only by
The pleasant hues that o'er it run,
And human love by drops of sweet
White nourishment still hanging round
The little mouth so slumber-bound:
All which broken sentiency
And conclusion incomplete,
Will gather and unite and climb
To an immortality
Good or evil, each sublime,
Through life and death to life again.
O little lids, now folded fast,
Must ye learn to drop at last
Our large and burning tears?
O warm quick body, must thou lie,
When the time comes round to die,
Still from all the whirl of years,
Bare of all the joy and pain?
O small frail being, wilt thou stand
At God's right hand,
Lifting up those sleeping eyes
Dilated by great destinies,
To an endless waking? thrones and seraphim.
Through the long ranks of their solemnities,
Sunning thee with calm looks of Heaven's surprise,
But thine alone on Him?
Or else, self-willed, to tread the Godless place,
(God keep thy will! ) feel thine own energies
Cold, strong, objèctless, like a dead man's clasp,
The sleepless deathless life within thee grasp,--
While myriad faces, like one changeless face,
With woe _not love's_, shall glass thee everywhere
And overcome thee with thine own despair?

X.

More soft, less solemn images
Drifted o'er the lady's heart
Silently as snow.
She had seen eight days depart
Hour by hour, on bended knees,
With pale-wrung hands and prayings low
And broken, through which came the sound
Of tears that fell against the ground,
Making sad stops. --"Dear Lord, dear Lord! "
She still had prayed, (the heavenly word
Broken by an earthly sigh)
--"Thou who didst not erst deny
The mother-joy to Mary mild,
Blessèd in the blessèd child
Which hearkened in meek babyhood
Her cradle-hymn, albeit used
To all that music interfused
In breasts of angels high and good!
Oh, take not, Lord, my babe away--
Oh, take not to thy songful heaven
The pretty baby thou hast given,
Or ere that I have seen him play
Around his father's knees and known
That _he_ knew how my love has gone
From all the world to him.
Think, God among the cherubim,
How I shall shiver every day
In thy June sunshine, knowing where
The grave-grass keeps it from his fair
Still cheeks: and feel, at every tread,
His little body, which is dead
And hidden in thy turfy fold,
Doth make thy whole warm earth a-cold!
O God, I am so young, so young--
I am not used to tears at nights
Instead of slumber--not to prayer
With sobbing lips and hands out-wrung!
Thou knowest all my prayings were
'I bless thee, God, for past delights--
Thank God! ' I am not used to bear
Hard thoughts of death; the earth doth cover
No face from me of friend or lover:
And must the first who teaches me
The form of shrouds and funerals, be
Mine own first-born belovèd? he
Who taught me first this mother-love?
Dear Lord who spreadest out above
Thy loving, transpierced hands to meet
All lifted hearts with blessing sweet,--
Pierce not my heart, my tender heart
Thou madest tender! Thou who art
So happy in thy heaven alway,
Take not mine only bliss away! "

XI.

She so had prayed: and God, who hears
Through seraph-songs the sound of tears
From that belovèd babe had ta'en
The fever and the beating pain.
And more and more smiled Isobel
To see the baby sleep so well,
(She knew not that she smiled, I wis)
Until the pleasant gradual thought
Which near her heart the smile enwrought,
Now soft and slow, itself did seem
To float along a happy dream,
Beyond it into speech like this.

XII.

"I prayed for thee, my little child,
And God has heard my prayer!
And when thy babyhood is gone,
We two together undefiled
By men's repinings, will kneel down
Upon His earth which will be fair
(Not covering thee, sweet! ) to us twain,
And give Him thankful praise. "

XIII.

Dully and wildly drives the rain:
Against the lattices drives the rain.

XIV.

"I thank Him now, that I can think
Of those same future days,
Nor from the harmless image shrink
Of what I there might see--
Strange babies on their mothers' knee,
Whose innocent soft faces might
From off mine eyelids strike the light,
With looks not meant for me! "

XV.

Gustily blows the wind through the rain,
As against the lattices drives the rain.

XVI.

"But now, O baby mine, together,
We turn this hope of ours again
To many an hour of summer weather,
When we shall sit and intertwine
Our spirits, and instruct each other
In the pure loves of child and mother!
Two human loves make one divine. "

XVII.

The thunder tears through the wind and the rain,
As full on the lattices drives the rain.

XVIII.

"My little child, what wilt thou choose?
Now let me look at thee and ponder.
What gladness, from the gladnesses
Futurity is spreading under
Thy gladsome sight? Beneath the trees
Wilt thou lean all day, and lose
Thy spirit with the river seen
Intermittently between
The winding beechen alleys,--
Half in labour, half repose,
Like a shepherd keeping sheep,
Thou, with only thoughts to keep
Which never a bound will overpass,
And which are innocent as those
That feed among Arcadian valleys
Upon the dewy grass? "

XIX.

The large white owl that with age is blind,
That hath sate for years in the old tree hollow,
Is carried away in a gust of wind;
His wings could beat him not as fast
As he goeth now the lattice past;
He is borne by the winds, the rains do follow
His white wings to the blast outflowing,
He hooteth in going,
And still, in the lightnings, coldly glitter
His round unblinking eyes

XX.

"Or, baby, wilt thou think it fitter
To be eloquent and wise,
One upon whose lips the air
Turns to solemn verities
For men to breathe anew, and win
A deeper-seated life within?
Wilt be a philosopher,
By whose voice the earth and skies
Shall speak to the unborn?
Or a poet, broadly spreading
The golden immortalities
Of thy soul on natures lorn
And poor of such, them all to guard
From their decay,--beneath thy treading,
Earth's flowers recovering hues of Eden,--
And stars, drawn downward by thy looks,
To shine ascendant in thy books? "

XXI.

The tame hawk in the castle-yard,
How it screams to the lightning, with its wet
Jagged plumes overhanging the parapet!
And at the lady's door the hound
Scratches with a crying sound.

XXII.

"But, O my babe, thy lids are laid
Close, fast upon thy cheek,
And not a dream of power and sheen
Can make a passage up between;
Thy heart is of thy mother's made,
Thy looks are very meek,
And it will be their chosen place
To rest on some beloved face,
As these on thine, and let the noise
Of the whole world go on nor drown
The tender silence of thy joys:
Or when that silence shall have grown
Too tender for itself, the same
Yearning for sound,--to look above
And utter its one meaning, LOVE,
That _He_ may hear His name. "

XXIII.

No wind, no rain, no thunder!
The waters had trickled not slowly,
The thunder was not spent
Nor the wind near finishing;
Who would have said that the storm was diminishing?
No wind, no rain, no thunder!
Their noises dropped asunder
From the earth and the firmament,
From the towers and the lattices,
Abrupt and echoless
As ripe fruits on the ground unshaken wholly
As life in death.
And sudden and solemn the silence fell,
Startling the heart of Isobel
As the tempest could not:
Against the door went panting the breath
Of the lady's hound whose cry was still,
And she, constrained howe'er she would not,
Lifted her eyes and saw the moon
Looking out of heaven alone
Upon the poplared hill,--
A calm of God, made visible
That men might bless it at their will.

XXIV.

The moonshine on the baby's face
Falleth clear and cold:
The mother's looks have fallen back
To the same place:
Because no moon with silver rack,
Nor broad sunrise in jasper skies
Has power to hold
Our loving eyes,
Which still revert, as ever must
Wonder and Hope, to gaze on the dust.

XXV.

The moonshine on the baby's face
Cold and clear remaineth;
The mother's looks do shrink away,--
The mother's looks return to stay,
As charmèd by what paineth:
Is any glamour in the case?
Is it dream, or is it sight?
Hath the change upon the wild
Elements that sign the night,
Passed upon the child?
It is not dream, but sight.

XXVI.

The babe has awakened from sleep
And unto the gaze of its mother,
Bent over it, lifted another--
Not the baby-looks that go
Unaimingly to and fro,
But an earnest gazing deep
Such as soul gives soul at length
When by work and wail of years
It winneth a solemn strength
And mourneth as it wears.
A strong man could not brook,
With pulse unhurried by fears,
To meet that baby's look
O'erglazed by manhood's tears,
The tears of a man full grown,
With a power to wring our own,
In the eyes all undefiled
Of a little three-months' child--
To see that babe-brow wrought
By the witnessing of thought
To judgment's prodigy,
And the small soft mouth unweaned,
By mother's kiss o'erleaned,
(Putting the sound of loving
Where no sound else was moving
Except the speechless cry)
Quickened to mind's expression,
Shaped to articulation,
Yea, uttering words, yea, naming woe,
In tones that with it strangely went
Because so baby-innocent,
As the child spake out to the mother, so:--

XXVII.

"O mother, mother, loose thy prayer!
Christ's name hath made it strong.
It bindeth me, it holdeth me
With its most loving cruelty,
From floating my new soul along
The happy heavenly air.
It bindeth me, it holdeth me
In all this dark, upon this dull
Low earth, by only weepers trod.
It bindeth me, it holdeth me!
Mine angel looketh sorrowful
Upon the face of God. [1]

XXVIII.

"Mother, mother, can I dream
Beneath your earthly trees?
I had a vision and a gleam,
I heard a sound more sweet than these
When rippled by the wind:
Did you see the Dove with wings
Bathed in golden glisterings
From a sunless light behind,
Dropping on me from the sky,
Soft as mother's kiss, until
I seemed to leap and yet was still?
Saw you how His love-large eye
Looked upon me mystic calms,
Till the power of His divine
Vision was indrawn to mine?

XXIX.

"Oh, the dream within the dream!
I saw celestial places even.
Oh, the vistas of high palms
Making finites of delight
Through the heavenly infinite,
Lifting up their green still tops
To the heaven of heaven!
Oh, the sweet life-tree that drops
Shade like light across the river
Glorified in its for-ever
Flowing from the Throne!
Oh, the shining holinesses
Of the thousand, thousand faces
God-sunned by the thronèd ONE,
And made intense with such a love
That, though I saw them turned above,
Each loving seemed for also me!
And, oh, the Unspeakable, the HE,
The manifest in secrecies
Yet of mine own heart partaker
With the overcoming look
Of One who hath been once forsook
And blesseth the forsaker!
Mother, mother, let me go
Toward the Face that looketh so!
Through the mystic wingèd Four
Whose are inward, outward eyes
Dark with light of mysteries
And the restless evermore
'Holy, holy, holy,'--through
The sevenfold Lamps that burn in view
Of cherubim and seraphim,--
Through the four-and-twenty crowned
Stately elders white around,
Suffer me to go to Him!

XXX.

"Is your wisdom very wise,
Mother, on the narrow earth,
Very happy, very worth
That I should stay to learn?
Are these air-corrupting sighs
Fashioned by unlearnèd breath?
Do the students' lamps that burn
All night, illumine death?
Mother, albeit this be so,
Loose thy prayer and let me go
Where that bright chief angel stands
Apart from all his brother bands,
Too glad for smiling, having bent
In angelic wilderment
O'er the depths of God, and brought
Reeling thence one only thought
To fill his own eternity.
He the teacher is for me--
He can teach what I would know--
Mother, mother, let me go!

XXXI.

"Can your poet make an Eden
No winter will undo,
And light a starry fire while heeding
His hearth's is burning too?
Drown in music the earth's din,
And keep his own wild soul within
The law of his own harmony?
Mother, albeit this be so,
Let me to my heaven go!
A little harp me waits thereby,
A harp whose strings are golden all
And tuned to music spherical,
Hanging on the green life-tree
Where no willows ever be.
Shall I miss that harp of mine?
Mother, no! --the Eye divine
Turned upon it, makes it shine;
And when I touch it, poems sweet
Like separate souls shall fly from it,
Each to the immortal fytte.
We shall all be poets there,
Gazing on the chiefest Fair.

XXXII.

"Love! earth's love! and _can_ we love
Fixedly where all things move?
Can the sinning love each other?
Mother, mother,
I tremble in thy close embrace,
I feel thy tears adown my face,
Thy prayers do keep me out of bliss--
O dreary earthly love!
Loose thy prayer and let me go
To the place which loving is
Yet not sad; and when is given
Escape to _thee_ from this below,
Thou shalt behold me that I wait
For thee beside the happy Gate,
And silence shall be up in heaven
To hear our greeting kiss. "

XXXIII.

The nurse awakes in the morning sun,
And starts to see beside her bed
The lady with a grandeur spread
Like pathos o'er her face, as one
God-satisfied and earth-undone;
The babe upon her arm was dead:
And the nurse could utter forth no cry,--
She was awed by the calm in the mother's eye.

XXXIV.

"Wake, nurse! " the lady said;
"_We_ are waking--he and I--
I, on earth, and he, in sky:
And thou must help me to o'erlay
With garment white this little clay
Which needs no more our lullaby.

XXXV.

"I changed the cruel prayer I made,
And bowed my meekened face, and prayed
That God would do His will; and thus
He did it, nurse! He parted us:
And His sun shows victorious
The dead calm face,--and _I_ am calm,
And Heaven is hearkening a new psalm.

XXXVI.

"This earthly noise is too anear,
Too loud, and will not let me hear
The little harp. My death will soon
Make silence. "

And a sense of tune,
A satisfied love meanwhile
Which nothing earthly could despoil,
Sang on within her soul.

XXXVII.

Oh you,
Earth's tender and impassioned few,
Take courage to entrust your love
To Him so named who guards above
Its ends and shall fulfil!
Breaking the narrow prayers that may
Befit your narrow hearts, away
In His broad, loving will.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] For I say unto you that in Heaven their angels do always behold
the face of my Father which is in Heaven--_Matt. _ xviii, 10.




_THE ROMAUNT OF THE PAGE. _


I.

A knight of gallant deeds
And a young page at his side,
From the holy war in Palestine
Did slow and thoughtful ride,
As each were a palmer and told for beads
The dews of the eventide.

II.

"O young page," said the knight,
"A noble page art thou!
Thou fearest not to steep in blood
The curls upon thy brow;
And once in the tent, and twice in the fight,
Didst ward me a mortal blow. "

III.

"O brave knight," said the page,
"Or ere we hither came,
We talked in tent, we talked in field,
Of the bloody battle-game;
But here, below this greenwood bough,
I cannot speak the same.

IV.

"Our troop is far behind,
The woodland calm is new;
Our steeds, with slow grass-muffled hoofs,
Tread deep the shadows through;
And, in my mind, some blessing kind
Is dropping with the dew.

V.

"The woodland calm is pure--
I cannot choose but have
A thought from these, o' the beechen-trees,
Which in our England wave,
And of the little finches fine
Which sang there while in Palestine
The warrior-hilt we drave.

VI.

"Methinks, a moment gone,
I heard my mother pray!
I heard, sir knight, the prayer for me
Wherein she passed away;
And I know the heavens are leaning down
To hear what I shall say. "

VII.

The page spake calm and high,
As of no mean degree;
Perhaps he felt in nature's broad
Full heart, his own was free:
And the knight looked up to his lifted eye,
Then answered smilingly--

VIII.

"Sir page, I pray your grace!
Certes, I meant not so
To cross your pastoral mood, sir page,
With the crook of the battle-bow;
But a knight may speak of a lady's face,
I ween, in any mood or place,
If the grasses die or grow.

IX.

"And this I meant to say--
My lady's face shall shine
As ladies' faces use, to greet
My page from Palestine;
Or, speak she fair or prank she gay,
She is no lady of mine.

X.

"And this I meant to fear--
Her bower may suit thee ill;
For, sooth, in that same field and tent,
Thy _talk_ was somewhat still:
And fitter thy hand for my knightly spear
Than thy tongue for my lady's will! "

XI.

Slowly and thankfully
The young page bowed his head;
His large eyes seemed to muse a smile,
Until he blushed instead,
And no lady in her bower, pardiè,
Could blush more sudden red:
"Sir Knight,--thy lady's bower to me
Is suited well," he said.

XII.

_Beati, beati, mortui! _
From the convent on the sea,
One mile off, or scarce so nigh,
Swells the dirge as clear and high
As if that, over brake and lea,
Bodily the wind did carry
The great altar of Saint Mary,
And the fifty tapers burning o'er it,
And the lady Abbess dead before it,
And the chanting nuns whom yesterweek
Her voice did charge and bless,--
Chanting steady, chanting meek,
Chanting with a solemn breath,
Because that they are thinking less
Upon the dead than upon death.
_Beati, beati, mortui! _
Now the vision in the sound
Wheeleth on the wind around;
Now it sweepeth back, away--
The uplands will not let it stay
To dark the western sun:
_Mortui! _--away at last,--
Or ere the page's blush is past!
And the knight heard all, and the page heard none.

XIII.

"A boon, thou noble knight,
If ever I servèd thee!
Though thou art a knight and I am a page,
Now grant a boon to me;
And tell me sooth, if dark or bright,
If little loved or loved aright
Be the face of thy ladye. "

XIV.

Gloomily looked the knight--
"As a son thou hast servèd me,
And would to none I had granted boon
Except to only thee!
For haply then I should love aright,
For then I should know if dark or bright
Were the face of my ladye.

XV.

"Yet it ill suits my knightly tongue
To grudge that granted boon,
That heavy price from heart and life
I paid in silence down;
The hand that claimed it, cleared in fine
My father's fame: I swear by mine,
That price was nobly won!

XVI.

"Earl Walter was a brave old earl,
He was my father's friend,
And while I rode the lists at court
And little guessed the end,
My noble father in his shroud
Against a slanderer lying loud,
He rose up to defend.

XVII.

"Oh, calm below the marble grey
My father's dust was strown!
Oh, meek above the marble grey
His image prayed alone!
The slanderer lied: the wretch was brave--
For, looking up the minster-nave,
He saw my father's knightly glaive
Was changed from steel to stone.

XVIII.

"Earl Walter's glaive was steel,
With a brave old hand to wear it,
And dashed the lie back in the mouth
Which lied against the godly truth
And against the knightly merit
The slanderer, 'neath the avenger's heel,
Struck up the dagger in appeal
From stealthy lie to brutal force--
And out upon the traitor's corse
Was yielded the true spirit.

XIX.

"I would mine hand had fought that fight
And justified my father!
I would mine heart had caught that wound
And slept beside him rather!
I think it were a better thing
Than murdered friend and marriage-ring
Forced on my life together.

XX.

"Wail shook Earl Walter's house;
His true wife shed no tear;
She lay upon her bed as mute
As the earl did on his bier:
Till--'Ride, ride fast,' she said at last,
'And bring the avengèd's son anear!
Ride fast, ride free, as a dart can flee,
For white of blee with waiting for me
Is the corse in the next chambère. '

XXI.

"I came, I knelt beside her bed;
Her calm was worse than strife:
'My husband, for thy father dear,
Gave freely when thou wast not here
His own and eke my life.
A boon! Of that sweet child we make
An orphan for thy father's sake,
Make thou, for ours, a wife. '

XXII.

"I said, 'My steed neighs in the court,
My bark rocks on the brine,
And the warrior's vow I am under now
To free the pilgrim's shrine;
But fetch the ring and fetch the priest
And call that daughter of thine,
And rule she wide from my castle on Nyde
While I am in Palestine. '

XXIII.

"In the dark chambère, if the bride was fair,
Ye wis, I could not see,
But the steed thrice neighed, and the priest fast prayed,
And wedded fast were we.
Her mother smiled upon her bed
As at its side we knelt to wed,
And the bride rose from her knee
And kissed the smile of her mother dead,
Or ever she kissed me.

XXIV.

"My page, my page, what grieves thee so,
That the tears run down thy face? "--
"Alas, alas! mine own sistèr
Was in thy lady's case:
But _she_ laid down the silks she wore
And followed him she wed before,
Disguised as his true servitor,
To the very battle-place. "

XXV.

And wept the page, but laughed the knight,
A careless laugh laughed he:
"Well done it were for thy sistèr,
But not for my ladye!
My love, so please you, shall requite
No woman, whether dark or bright,
Unwomaned if she be. "

XXVI.
The page stopped weeping and smiled cold--
"Your wisdom may declare
That womanhood is proved the best
By golden brooch and glossy vest
The mincing ladies wear;
Yet is it proved, and was of old,
Anear as well, I dare to hold,
By truth, or by despair. "

XXVII.

He smiled no more, he wept no more,
But passionate he spake--
"Oh, womanly she prayed in tent,
When none beside did wake!
Oh, womanly she paled in fight,
For one belovèd's sake! --
And her little hand, defiled with blood,
Her tender tears of womanhood
Most woman-pure did make! "

XXVIII.

--"Well done it were for thy sistèr,
Thou tellest well her tale!
But for my lady, she shall pray
I' the kirk of Nydesdale.
Not dread for me but love for me
Shall make my lady pale;
No casque shall hide her woman's tear--
It shall have room to trickle clear
Behind her woman's veil. "

XXIX.

--"But what if she mistook thy mind
And followed thee to strife,
Then kneeling did entreat thy love
As Paynims ask for life? "
--"I would forgive, and evermore
Would love her as my servitor,
But little as my wife.

XXX.

"Look up--there is a small bright cloud
Alone amid the skies!
So high, so pure, and so apart,
A woman's honour lies. "
The page looked up--the cloud was sheen--
A sadder cloud did rush, I ween,
Betwixt it and his eyes.

XXXI.

Then dimly dropped his eyes away
From welkin unto hill--
Ha! who rides there? --the page is 'ware,
Though the cry at his heart is still:
And the page seeth all and the knight seeth none,
Though banner and spear do fleck the sun,
And the Saracens ride at will.

XXXII.

He speaketh calm, he speaketh low,--
"Ride fast, my master, ride,
Or ere within the broadening dark
The narrow shadows hide. "
"Yea, fast, my page, I will do so,
And keep thou at my side. "

XXXIII.

"Now nay, now nay, ride on thy way,
Thy faithful page precede.
For I must loose on saddle-bow
My battle-casque that galls, I trow,
The shoulder of my steed;
And I must pray, as I did vow,
For one in bitter need.

XXXIV.

"Ere night I shall be near to thee,--
Now ride, my master, ride!
Ere night, as parted spirits cleave
To mortals too beloved to leave,
I shall be at thy side. "
The knight smiled free at the fantasy,
And adown the dell did ride.

XXXV.

Had the knight looked up to the page's face,
No smile the word had won;
Had the knight looked up to the page's face,
I ween he had never gone:
Had the knight looked back to the page's geste,
I ween he had turned anon,
For dread was the woe in the face so young,
And wild was the silent geste that flung
Casque, sword to earth, as the boy down-sprung
And stood--alone, alone.

XXXVI.

He clenched his hands as if to hold
His soul's great agony--
"Have I renounced my womanhood,
For wifehood unto _thee_,
And is this the last, last look of thine
That ever I shall see?

XXXVII.

"Yet God thee save, and mayst thou have
A lady to thy mind,
More woman-proud and half as true
As one thou leav'st behind!
And God me take with HIM to dwell--
For HIM I cannot love too well,
As I have loved my kind. "

XXXVIII.

She looketh up, in earth's despair,
The hopeful heavens to seek;
That little cloud still floateth there,
Whereof her loved did speak:
How bright the little cloud appears!
Her eyelids fall upon the tears,
And the tears down either cheek.

XXXIX.

The tramp of hoof, the flash of steel--
The Paynims round her coming!
The sound and sight have made her calm,--
False page, but truthful woman;
She stands amid them all unmoved:
A heart once broken by the loved
Is strong to meet the foeman.

XL.

"Ho, Christian page! art keeping sheep,
From pouring wine-cups resting? "--
"I keep my master's noble name,
For warring, not for feasting;
And if that here Sir Hubert were,
My master brave, my master dear,
Ye would not stay the questing. "

XLI.

"Where is thy master, scornful page,
That we may slay or bind him? "--
"Now search the lea and search the wood,
And see if ye can find him!
Nathless, as hath been often tried,
Your Paynim heroes faster ride
Before him than behind him. "

XLII.

"Give smoother answers, lying page,
Or perish in the lying! "--
"I trow that if the warrior brand
Beside my foot, were in my hand,
'T were better at replying! "
They cursed her deep, they smote her low,
They cleft her golden ringlets through;
The Loving is the Dying.

XLIII.

She felt the scimitar gleam down,
And met it from beneath
With smile more bright in victory
Than any sword from sheath,--
Which flashed across her lip serene,
Most like the spirit-light between
The darks of life and death.

XLIV.

_Ingemisco, ingemisco! _
From the convent on the sea,
Now it sweepeth solemnly,
As over wood and over lea
Bodily the wind did carry
The great altar of St. Mary,
And the fifty tapers paling o'er it,
And the Lady Abbess stark before it,
And the weary nuns with hearts that faintly
Beat along their voices saintly--
_Ingemisco, ingemisco! _
Dirge for abbess laid in shroud
Sweepeth o'er the shroudless dead,
Page or lady, as we said,
With the dews upon her head,
All as sad if not as loud.
_Ingemisco, ingemisco! _
Is ever a lament begun
By any mourner under sun,
Which, ere it endeth, suits but _one_?




_THE LAY OF THE BROWN ROSARY. _


FIRST PART.


I.

"Onora, Onora,"--her mother is calling,
She sits at the lattice and hears the dew falling
Drop after drop from the sycamores laden
With dew as with blossom, and calls home the maiden,
"Night cometh, Onora. "

II.

She looks down the garden-walk caverned with trees,
To the limes at the end where the green arbour is--
"Some sweet thought or other may keep where it found her,
While, forgot or unseen in the dreamlight around her,
Night cometh--Onora! "

III.

She looks up the forest whose alleys shoot on
Like the mute minster-aisles when the anthem is done
And the choristers sitting with faces aslant
Feel the silence to consecrate more than the chant--
"Onora, Onora! "

IV.

And forward she looketh across the brown heath--
"Onora, art coming? "--what is it she seeth?
Nought, nought but the grey border-stone that is wist
To dilate and assume a wild shape in the mist--
"My daughter! " Then over

V.

The casement she leaneth, and as she doth so
She is 'ware of her little son playing below:
"Now where is Onora? " He hung down his head
And spake not, then answering blushed scarlet-red,--
"At the tryst with her lover. "

VI.

But his mother was wroth: in a sternness quoth she,
"As thou play'st at the ball art thou playing with me?
When we know that her lover to battle is gone,
And the saints know above that she loveth but one
And will ne'er wed another? "

VII.

Then the boy wept aloud; 't was a fair sight yet sad
To see the tears run down the sweet blooms he had:
He stamped with his foot, said--"The saints know I lied
Because truth that is wicked is fittest to hide:
Must I utter it, mother? "

VIII.

In his vehement childhood he hurried within
And knelt at her feet as in prayer against sin,
But a child at a prayer never sobbeth as he--
"Oh! she sits with the nun of the brown rosary,
At nights in the ruin--

IX.

"The old convent ruin the ivy rots off,
Where the owl hoots by day and the toad is sun-proof,
Where no singing-birds build and the trees gaunt and grey
As in stormy sea-coasts appear blasted one way--
But is _this_ the wind's doing?

X.

"A nun in the east wall was buried alive
Who mocked at the priest when he called her to shrive,
And shrieked such a curse, as the stone took her breath,
The old abbess fell backwards and swooned unto death
With an Ave half-spoken.

XI.

"I tried once to pass it, myself and my hound,
Till, as fearing the lash, down he shivered to ground--
A brave hound, my mother! a brave hound, ye wot!
And the wolf thought the same with his fangs at her throat
In the pass of the Brocken.

XII.

"At dawn and at eve, mother, who sitteth there
With the brown rosary never used for a prayer?
Stoop low, mother, low! If we went there to see,
What an ugly great hole in that east wall must be
At dawn and at even!

XIII.

"Who meet there, my mother, at dawn and at even?
Who meet by that wall, never looking to heaven?
O sweetest my sister, what doeth with _thee_
The ghost of a nun with a brown rosary
And a face turned from heaven?

XIV.

"Saint Agnes o'erwatcheth my dreams and erewhile
I have felt through mine eyelids the warmth of her smile;
But last night, as a sadness like pity came o'er her,
She whispered--'Say _two_ prayers at dawn for Onora:
The Tempted is sinning. '"

XV.

"Onora, Onora! " they heard her not coming,
Not a step on the grass, not a voice through the gloaming;
But her mother looked up, and she stood on the floor
Fair and still as the moonlight that came there before,
And a smile just beginning:

XVI.

It touches her lips but it dares not arise
To the height of the mystical sphere of her eyes,
And the large musing eyes, neither joyous nor sorry
Sing on like the angels in separate glory
Between clouds of amber;

XVII.

For the hair droops in clouds amber-coloured till stirred
Into gold by the gesture that comes with a word;
While--O soft! --her speaking is so interwound
Of the dim and the sweet, 't is a twilight of sound
And floats through the chamber.

XVIII.

"Since thou shrivest my brother, fair mother," said she
"I count on thy priesthood for marrying of me,
And I know by the hills that the battle is done.
That my lover rides on, will be here with the sun,
'Neath the eyes that behold thee. "

XIX.

Her mother sat silent--too tender, I wis,
Of the smile her dead father smiled dying to kiss:
But the boy started up pale with tears, passion-wrought--
"O wicked fair sister, the hills utter nought!
If he cometh, who told thee? "

XX.

"I know by the hills," she resumed calm and clear,
"By the beauty upon them, that HE is anear:
Did they ever look _so_ since he bade me adieu?
Oh, love in the waking, sweet brother, is true,
As Saint Agnes in sleeping! "

XXI.

Half-ashamed and half-softened the boy did not speak,
And the blush met the lashes which fell on his cheek:
She bowed down to kiss him: dear saints, did he see
Or feel on her bosom the BROWN ROSARY,
That he shrank away weeping?


SECOND PART.

_A bed. _ ONORA, _sleeping. _ Angels, _but not near. _


_First Angel. _

Must we stand so far, and she
So very fair?

_Second Angel. _

As bodies be.

_First Angel. _

And she so mild?

_Second Angel. _

As spirits when
They meeken, not to God, but men.

_First Angel. _

And she so young, that I who bring
Good dreams for saintly children, might
Mistake that small soft face to-night,
And fetch her such a blessèd thing
That at her waking she would weep
For childhood lost anew in sleep.
How hath she sinned?

_Second Angel. _

In bartering love;
God's love for man's.

_First Angel. _

We may reprove
The world for this, not only her:
Let me approach to breathe away
This dust o' the heart with holy air.

_Second Angel. _

Stand off! She sleeps, and did not pray.

_First Angel. _

Did none pray for her?

_Second Angel. _

Ay, a child,--
Who never, praying, wept before:
While, in a mother undefiled,
Prayer goeth on in sleep, as true
And pauseless as the pulses do.

_First Angel. _

Then I approach.

_Second Angel. _

It is not WILLED.

_First Angel. _

One word: is she redeemed?

_Second Angel. _

No more!
The place is filled. [Angels _vanish_

_Evil Spirit (in a Nun's garb by the bed). _

Forbear that dream--forbear that dream! too near to heaven it leaned.

_Onora (in sleep). _

Nay, leave me this--but only this! 't is but a dream, sweet fiend!

_Evil Spirit. _

It is a _thought_.

_Onora (in sleep). _

A sleeping thought--most innocent of good:
It doth the Devil no harm, sweet fiend! it cannot if it would.
I say in it no holy hymn, I do no holy work,
I scarcely hear the sabbath-bell that chimeth from the kirk.

_Evil Spirit. _

Forbear that dream--forbear that dream!

_Onora (in sleep). _

Nay, let me dream at least.
That far-off bell, it may be took for viol at a feast:
I only walk among the fields, beneath the autumn-sun,
With my dead father, hand in hand, as I have often done.

_Evil Spirit. _

Forbear that dream--forbear that dream!

_Onora (in sleep). _

Nay, sweet fiend, let me go:
I never more can walk with _him_, oh, never more but so!
For they have tied my father's feet beneath the kirk-yard stone,
Oh, deep and straight! oh, very straight! they move at nights alone:
And then he calleth through my dreams, he calleth tenderly,
"Come forth, my daughter, my beloved, and walk the fields with me! "

_Evil Spirit. _

Forbear that dream, or else disprove its pureness by a sign.

_Onora (in sleep). _

Speak on, thou shalt be satisfied, my word shall answer thine.
I heard a bird which used to sing when I a child was praying,
I see the poppies in the corn I used to sport away in:
What shall I do--tread down the dew and pull the blossoms blowing?
Or clap my wicked hands to fright the finches from the rowan?

_Evil Spirit. _

Thou shalt do something harder still. Stand up where thou dost stand
Among the fields of Dreamland with thy father hand in hand,
And clear and slow repeat the vow, declare its cause and kind,
Which not to break, in sleep or wake thou bearest on thy mind.

_Onora (in sleep). _

I bear a vow of sinful kind, a vow for mournful cause;
I vowed it deep, I vowed it strong, the spirits laughed applause:
The spirits trailed along the pines low laughter like a breeze,
While, high atween their swinging tops, the stars appeared to freeze.

_Evil Spirit. _

More calm and free, speak out to me why such a vow was made.

_Onora (in sleep). _

Because that God decreed my death and I shrank back afraid.
Have patience, O dead father mine! I did not fear to die--
I wish I were a young dead child and had thy company!
I wish I lay beside thy feet, a buried three-year child,
And wearing only a kiss of thine upon my lips that smiled!
The linden-tree that covers thee might so have shadowed twain,
For death itself I did not fear--'t is love that makes the pain:
Love feareth death. I was no child, I was betrothed that day;
I wore a troth-kiss on my lips I could not give away.
How could I bear to lie content and still beneath a stone,
And feel mine own betrothed go by--alas!