L. E. L.'S LAST QUESTION. Nor mourn, O living One, because her part in life was mourning. Would she have lost the poet's fire for anguish of the burning? The minstrel harp, for the strained string? the tripod, for the afflated | 251 By tears the solemn seas attested true- Hers was the hand that played for many a year Woe? or the vision, for those tears in which it Love's silver phrase for England-smooth and shone dilated? Perhaps she shuddered while the world's cold hand her brow was wreathing, But never wronged that mystic breath which breathed in all her breathing, Which drew from rocky earth and man, abstractions high and moving, Beauty, if not the beautiful, and love, if not the loving. well. Would God, her heart's more inward oracle Could she not wait to catch their answering Was she content, content, with ocean's sound, Such visionings have paled in sight; the Saviour One thirsty for a little love?-beneath And little recks who wreathed the brow which on His bosom lieth. The whiteness of His innocence o'er all her garments flowing, There, learneth she the sweet "new song," she will not mourn in knowing. Be happy, crowned and living One! and, as thy dust decayeth, May thine own England say for thee, what now "Albeit softly in our ears her silver song was L. E. L.'S LAST QUESTION. Those stars content, where last her song had They mute and cold in radiant life-as soon Bring your vain answers-cry, "We think of How think ye of her? warm in long ago 80. None smiled and none are crowned where lieth With all her visions unfulfilled save one, "Do ye think of me as I think of you?"- "Do you think of me as I think of you?" From her poem written during the voyage to the Cape Why press so near each other when the touch Is barred by graves? Not much, and yet too much, "Do you think of me as I think of you, My friends, my friends?"-She said it from the Is this "Think of me as I think of you." sea, The English minstrel in her minstrelsy, To reach across the waves friends left behind- It seemed not much to ask-as I of you? Love-learned she had sung of love and love— And when the glory of her dream withdrew, The poet's star-tuned harp, to sweep, What do we give to our beloved? A little faith all undisproved, A little dust to overweep, And bitter memories to make The whole earth blasted for our sake. "Sleep soft, beloved!" we sometimes say, But have no tune to charm away Sad dreams that through the eyelids creep. O earth, so full of dreary noises! O men, with wailing in your voices! O delved gold, the wailers heap! His dews drop mutely on the hill; Ay, men may wonder while they scan For me, my heart that erst did go And, friends, dear friends-when it shall be Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, Ere the sorrow comes with years? They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, And that cannot stop their tears. The young lambs are bleating in the meadows, The young birds are chirping in the nest, The young fawns are playing with the shadows, But the young, young children, O my brothers, They are weeping bitterly! They are weeping in the playtime of the others, In the country of the free. Do you question the young children in the sorrow, The old man may weep for his to-morrow The old tree is leafless in the forest, The old year is ending in the frost, They look up with their pale and sunken faces, For the outside earth is cold; And we young ones stand without, in our be wildering, And the graves are for the old. Alas, alas, the children! they are seeking With a cerement from the grave. Go out, children, from the mine and from the city, Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do. Pluck your handfuls of the meadow-cowslips pretty, Laugh aloud, to feel your fingers let them through! But they answer, meadows "Are your cowslips of the Like our weeds anear the mine? The young flowers are blowing toward the Leave us quiet in the dark of the coal-shadows, west From your pleasures fair and fine! A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT. "For oh," say the children, "we are weary, If we cared for any meadows, it were merely Through the coal-dark underground Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron 66 In the factories, round and round. 253 We know no other words, except 'Our Father,' song, God may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather, And hold both within his right hand which is strong. 'Our Father!' If He heard us, He would surely (For they call him good and mild) Answer, smiling down the steep world very purely, Come and rest with me, my child.' For, all day, the wheels are droning, turning-“But Till our hearts turn-our head, with pulses And the walls turn in their places. Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling, Turns the long light that drops adown the wall, Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling, All are turning, all the day, and we with all. And all day, the iron wheels are droning, And sometimes we could pray, Ay, be silent! Let them hear each other breath- Of their tender human youth! Let them feel that this cold metallic motion That they live in you, or under you, O wheels! Still, all day, the iron wheels go onward, Grinding life down from its mark; And the children's souls, which God is calling sunward, Spin on blindly in the dark. Now tell the poor young children, O my brothers, So the blessed One who blesseth all the others, Strangers speaking at the door. Is it likely God, with angels singing round him, "Two words, indeed, of praying we remember, A fact rendered pathetically historical by Mr. Horne's report of his commission. The name of the poet of "Orion" and "Cosmo de' Medici" has, however, a change of associations, and comes in time to remind me that we have some noble poetic heat of literature still no!" say the children, weeping faster, And they tell us, of His image is the master Go to!" say the children-" up in heaven, Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all we find. Do not mock us; grief has made us unbelievingWe look up for God, but tears have made us blind." Do you hear the children weeping and disproving, And the children doubt of each. And well may the children weep before you ! The harvest of its memories cannot They look up, with their pale and sunken faces, For they mind you of their angels in high places, "How long," they say, "how long, O cruel nation, Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation, mart? Our blood splashes upward, O gold-heaper, And your purple shows your path! But the child's sob in the silence curses deeper Than the strong man in his wrath." A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT. however open to the reproach of being somewhat gelid He tore out a reed, the great god Pan, in our humanity.-1844. The limpid water turbidly ran, And the broken lilies a-dying lay, And the dragon-fly had fled away, Ere he brought it out of the river. High on the shore sate the great god Pan, To prove it fresh from the river. He cut it short, did the great god Pan, Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man, Then notched the poor dry empty thing "This is the way," laughed the great god Pan, To make sweet music they could succeed." Then, dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed, He blew in power by the river. Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan, Piercing sweet by the river! Blinding sweet, O great god Pan! The sun on the hill forgot to die, And the lilies revived, and the dragon-fly Came back to dream on the river. Yet half a beast is the great god Pan CONFESSIONS. FACE to face in my chamber, my silent chamber, I saw her. God and she and I only, . . . there, I sate down to draw her Soul through the clefts of confession. . . . Speak, I am holding thee fast, Has smouldered away from His first decrees! The cypress praiseth the fire-fly, the ground-leaf praiseth the worm I am viler than these!" When God on that sin had pity, and did not trample thee straight With His wild rains beating and drenching thy light found inadequate; When He only sent thee the north-winds, a little searching and chill, To quicken thy flame. . . didst thou kindle and flash to the heights of His will? "I have sinned," she said, "Unquickened, unspread [knees! My fire dropped down, and I wept on my I only said of His winds of the north as I shrank from their chill, . What delight is in these?" When God on that sin had pity, and did not meet it as such, But tempered the wind to thy uses, and softened the world to thy touch, At least thou wast moved in thy soul, though unable to prove it afar, Thou couldst carry thy light like a jewel, not giving it out like a star? I have sinned," she said, "And not merited The gift He gives, by the grace He sees! The mine-cave praiseth the jewel, the hill-side praiseth the star; As the angels of resurrection shall do it at the Again with a lifted voice, like a choral trumpet last. "My cup is blood-red With my sin," she said, "And I pour it out to the bitter lees, As if the angels of judgment stood over me strong at last, Or as thou wert as these!" When God smote His hands together, and struck out thy soul as a spark that takes The lowest note of a viol that trembles and tri umphing breaks On the air with it solemn and clear-"Behold! I have sinned not in this! Where I loved, I have loved much and well-I have verily loved not amiss. Let the living," she said, In the house of the pale-fronted Images: Into the organized glory of things, from deeps My own true dead will answer for me, that I of the dark Say, didst thou shine, didst thou burn, didst thou honor the power in the form, As the star does at night, or the fire-fly, or even the little ground-worm? "I have sinned," she said, have not loved amiss In my love for all these. "The least touch of their hands in the morning, I keep it by day and by night. Their least step on the stair, at the door, still throbs through me, if ever so light. THE LADY'S YES. 255 Their least gift, which they left to my childhood, far off, in the long-ago years, Is now turned from a toy to a relic, and seen through the crystals of tears. Dig the snow," she said, "For my church-yard bed, Yet I, as I sleep, shall not fear to freeze, If one only of these my beloveds, shall love me with heart-warm tears, As I have loved these! "If I angered any among them, from thenceforth my own life was sore. If I fell by chance from their presence, I clung to their memory more. Their tender I often felt holy, their bitter I sometimes called sweet; And wheneyer their heart has refused me, I fell down straight at their feet. I have loved," she said "Man is weak, God is dread, [ease, Yet the weak man dies with his spirit at Having poured such an unguent of love but once on the Saviour's feet, As I lavished for these." Lead her from the festive boards, Point her to the starry skies, Guard her, by your truthful words, Pure from courtship's flatteries. By your truth she shall be true, Ever true as wives of yore; And her yes, once said to you, SHALL be Yes for evermore. TO BETTINE, THE CHILD-FRIEND OF GOETHE, "I have the second-sight, Goethe!"-Letters of a Child. BETTINE, friend of Goethe, To his grand face, as women will, Before his shrine to doom thee Using the same child's smile That heaven and earth, beheld erewhile For the first time, won from thee, Ere star and flower grew dim and dead, Save at his feet and o'er his head? Digging thine heart and throwing For surging souls, no worlds can bound, O child, to change appointed, O woman, deeply loving, And none can see it moving. The bird thy childhood's playing Sent onward o'er the sea, Thy dove of hope came back to thee Without a leaf. Art laying Its wet cold wing no sun can dry, Still in thy bosom secretly? Our Goethe's friend, Bettine, I have the second-sight! Where's childhood? where is Goethe? |