The Poetry Corner

Aylmers Field

By Alfred Lord Tennyson

Dust are our frames; and gilded dust, our pride Looks only for a moment whole and sound; Like that long-buried body of the king, Found lying with his urns and ornaments, Which at a touch of light, an air of heaven, Slipt into ashes and was found no more. Here is a story which in rougher shape Came from a grizzled cripple, whom I saw Sunning himself in a waste field alone Old, and a mine of memorieswho had served, Long since, a bygone Rector of the place, And been himself a part of what he told. Sir Aaylmer Aylmer that almighty man, The county Godin whose capacious hall, Hung with a hundred shields, the family tree Sprang from the midriff of a prostrate king Whose blazing wyvern weathercockd the spire, Stood from his walls and wingd his entry-gates And swang besides on many a windy sign Whose eyes from under a pyramidal head Saw from his windows nothing save his own What lovelier of his own had he than her, His only child, his Edith, whom he loved As heiress and not heir regretfully? But he that marries her marries her name This fiat somewhat soothed himself and wife, His wife a faded beauty of the Baths, Insipid as the Queen upon a card; Her all of thought and bearing hardly more Than his own shadow in a sickly sun. A land of hops and poppy-mingled corn, Little about it stirring save a brook! A sleepy land where under the same wheel The same old rut would deepen year by year; Where almost all the village had one name; Where Aylmer followd Aylmer at the Hall And Averill Averill at the Rectory Thrice over; so that Rectory and Hall, Bound in an immemorial intimacy, Were open to each other; tho to dream That Love could bind them closer well had made The hoar hair of the Baronet bristle up With horror, worse than had he heard his priest Preach an inverted scripture, sons of men Daughters of God; so sleepy was the land. And might not Averill, had he willd it so, Somewhere beneath his own low range of roofs, Have also set his many-shielded tree? There was an Aylmer-Averill marriage once, When the red rose was redder than itself, And Yorks white rose as red as Lancasters, With wounded peace which each had prickd to death. Not proven Averill said, or laughingly Some other race of Averillsprovn or no, What cared he? what, if other or the same? He leand not on his fathers but himself. But Leolin, his brother, living oft With Averill, and a year or two before Calld to the bar, but ever calld away By one low voice to one dear neighborhood, Would often, in his walks with Edith, claim A distant kinship to the gracious blood That shook the heart of Edith hearing him. Sanguine he was: a but less vivid hue Than of that islet in the chestnut-bloom Flamed his cheek; and eager eyes, that still Took joyful note of all things joyful, beamd, Beneath a manelike mass of rolling gold, Their best and brightest, when they dwelt on hers. Edith, whose pensive beauty, perfect else, But subject to the season or the mood, Shone like a mystic star between the less And greater glory varying to and fro, We know not wherefore; bounteously made, And yet so finely, that a troublous touch Thinnd, or would seem to thin her in a day, A joyous to dilate, as toward the light. And these had been together from the first. Leolins first nurse was, five years after, hers: So much the boy foreran; but when his date Doubled her own, for want of playmates, he (Since Averill was a decad and a half His elder, and their parents underground) Had tost his ball and flown his kite, and rolld His hoop to pleasure Edith, with her dipt Against the rush of the air in the prone swing, Made blossom-ball or daisy-chain, arranged Her garden, sowd her name and kept it green In living letters, told her fairy-tales, Showd here the fairy footings on the grass, The little dells of cowslip, fairy palms, The petty marestail forest, fairy pines, Or from the tiny pitted target blew What lookd a flight of fairy arrows aimd All at one mark, all hitting: make-believes For Edith and himself: or else he forged, But that was later, boyish histories Of battle, bold adventure, dungeon, wreck, Flights, terrors, sudden rescues, and true love Crownd after trial; sketches rude and faint, But where a passion yet unborn perhaps Lay hidden as the music of the moon Sleeps in the plain eggs of the nightingale. And thus together, save for college-times Or Temple-eaten terms, a couple, fair As ever painter painted, poet sang, Or Heavn in lavish bounty moulded, grew. And more and more, the maiden woman-grown, He wasted hours with Averill; there, when first The tented winter-field was broken up Into that phalanx of the summer spears That soon should wear the garland; there again When burr and bine were gatherd; lastly there At Christmas; ever welcome at the Hall, On whose dull sameness his full tide of youth Broke with a phosphorescence cheering even My lady; and the Baronet yet had laid No bar between them: dull and self-involved, Tall and erect, but bending from his height With half-allowing smiles for all the world, And mighty courteous in the mainhis pride Lay deeper than to wear it as his ring He, like an Aylmer in his Aylmerism, Would care no more for Leolins walking with her Than for his old Newfoundlands, when they ran To loose him at the stables, for he rose Twofooted at the limit of his chain, Roaring to make a third: and how should Love, Whom the cross-lightnings of four chance-met eyes Flash into fiery life from nothing, follow Such dear familiarities of dawn? Seldom, but when he does, Master of all. So these young hearts not knowing that they loved, Not she at least, nor conscious of a bar Between them, nor by plight or broken ring Bound, but an immemorial intimacy, Wanderd at will, but oft accompanied By Averill: his, a brothers love, that hung With wings of brooding shelter oer her peace, Might have been other, save for Leolins Who knows? but so they wanderd, hour by hour Gatherd the blossom that rebloomd, and drank The magic cup that filld itself anew. A whisper half reveald her to herself. For out beyond her lodges, where the brook Vocal, with here and there a silence, ran By sallowy rims, arose the laborers homes, A frequent haunt of Edith, on low knolls That dimpling died into each other, huts At random scatterd, each a nest in bloom. Her art, her hand, her counsel all had wrought About them: here was one that, summer-blanchd, Was parcel-bearded with the travellers-joy In Autumn, parcel ivy-clad; and here The warm-blue breathings of a hidden hearth Broke from a bower of vine and honeysuckle: One lookd all rosetree, and another wore A close-set robe of jasmine sown with stars: This had a rosy sea of gillyflowers About it; this, a milky-way on earth, Like visions in the Northern dreamers heavens, A lily-avenue climbing to the doors; One, almost to the martin-haunted eaves A summer burial deep in hollyhocks; Each, its own charm; and Ediths everywhere; And Edith ever visitant with him, He but less loved than Edith, of her poor: For sheso lowly-lovely and so loving, Queenly responsive when the loyal hand Rose from the clay it workd in as she past, Not sowing hedgerow texts and passing by, Nor dealing goodly counsel from a height That makes the lowest hate it, but a voice Of comfort and an open hand of help, A splendid presence flattering the poor roofs Revered as theirs, but kindlier than themselves To ailing wife or wailing infancy Or old bedridden palsy,was adored; He, loved for her and for himself.A grasp Having the warmth and muscle of the heart, A childly way with children, and a laugh Ringing like proved golden coinage true, Were no false passport to that easy realm, Where once with Leolin at her side the girl, Nursing a child, and turning to the warmth The tender pink five-beaded baby-soles, Heard the good mother softly whisper Bless, God bless em; marriages are made in Heaven. A flash of semi-jealousy cleard it to her. My Ladys Indian kinsman unannounced With half a score of swarthy faces came. His own, tho keen and bold and soldierly, Seard by the close ecliptic, was not fair; Fairer his talk, a tongue that ruled the hour, Tho seeming boastful: so when first he dashd Into the chronicle of a deedful day, Sir Aylmer half forgot his lazy smile Of patron Good! my ladys kinsman! good! My lady with her fingers interlockd, And rotatory thumbs on silken knees, Calld all her vital spirits into each ear To listen: unawares they flitted off, Busying themselves about the flowerage That stood from our a stiff brocade in which, The meteor of a splendid season, she, Once with this kinsman, ah so long ago, Stept thro the stately minuet of those days: But Ediths eager fancy hurried with him Snatchd thro the perilous passes of his life: Till Leolin ever watchful of her eye Hated him with a momentary hate. Wife-hunting, as the rumor ran, was he: I know not, for he spoke not, only showerd His oriental gifts on everyone And most on Edith: like a storm he came, And shook the house, and like a storm he went. Among the gifts he left her (possibly He flowd and ebbd uncertain, to return When others had been tested) there was one, A dagger, in rich sheath with jewels on it Sprinkled about in gold that branchd itself Fine as ice-ferns on January panes Made by a breath.I know not whence at first, Nor of what race, the work; but as he told The story, storming a hill-fort of thieves He got it; for their captain after fight, His comrades having fought their last below, Was climbing up the valley; at whom he shot: Down from the beetling crag to which he clung Tumbled the tawny rascal at his feet, This dagger with him, which when now admired By Edith whom his pleasure was to please, At once the costly Sahib yielded it to her. And Leolin, coming after he was gone, Tost over all her presents petulantly: And when she showd the wealthy scabbard, saying Look what a lovely piece of workmanship! Slight was his answer WellI care not for it: Then playing with the blade he prickd his hand, A gracious gift to give a lady, this! But would it be more gracious askd the girl Were I to give this gift of his to one That is no lady?Gracious?No said he. Me?but I cared not for it.O pardon me, I seem to be ungraciousness itself. Take it she added sweetly tho his gift; For I am more ungracious evn than you, I care not for it either; and he said Why then I love it: but Sir Aylmer past, And neither loved nor liked the thing he heard. The next day came a neighbor.Blues and reds They talkd of: blues were sure of it, he thought: Then of the latest foxwhere startedkilld In such a bottom: Peter had the brush, My Peter, first: and did Sir Aylmer know That great pock-pitten fellow had been caught? Then made his pleasure echo, hand to hand, And rolling as it were the substance of it Between his palms a moment up and down The birds were warm, the birds were warm upon him; We have him now: and had Sir Aylmer heard Nay, but he mustthe land was ringing of it This blacksmith-border marriageone they knew Raw from the nurserywho could trust a child? That cursed France with her egalities! And did Sir Aylmer (deferentially With nearing chair and lowerd accent) think For people talkdthat it was wholly wise To let that handsome fellow Averill walk So freely with his daughter? people talkd The boy might get a notion into him; The girl might be entangled ere she knew. Sir Aylmer Aylmer slowly stiffening spoke: The girl and boy, Sir, know their differences! Good said his friend but watch! and he enough, More than enough, Sir!I can guard my own. They parted, and Sir Aylmer Aylmer watchd. Pale, for on her the thunders of the house Had fallen first, was Edith that same night; Pale as the Jepthas daughter, a rough piece Of early rigid color, under which Withdrawing by the counter door to that Which Leolin opend, she cast back upon him A piteous glance, and vanishd.He, as one Caught in a burst of unexpected storm, And pelted with outrageous epithets, Turning beheld the Powers of the House On either side the hearth, indignant; her, Cooling her false cheek with a featherfan, Him glaring, by his own stale devil spurrd, And, like a beast hard-ridden, breathing hard. Ungenerous, dishonorable, base, Presumptuous! trusted as he was with her, The sole succeeder to their wealth, their lands, The last remaining pillar of their house, The one transmitter of their ancient name, Their child.Our child!Our heiress!Ours! for still, Like echoes from beyond a hollow, came Her sicklier iteration.Last he said Boy, mark me! for your fortunes are to make. I swear you shall not make them out of mine. Now inasmuch as you have practised on her, Perplext her, made her half forget herself, Swerve from her duty to herself and us Things in an Aylmer deemd impossible, Far as we track ourselvesI say that this, Else I withdraw favor and countenance From you and yours for evershall you do. Sir, when you see herbut you shall not see her No, you shall write, and not to her, but me: And you shall say that having spoken with me, And after lookd into yourself, you find That you meant nothingas indeed you know That you meant nothing.Such as match as this! Impossible, prodigious!These were words, As meted by his measure of himself, Arguing boundless forbearance: after which, And Leolins horror-stricken answer, I So foul a traitor to myself and her, Never oh never, for about as long As the wind-hover hangs in the balance, paused Sir Aylmer reddening from the storm within, Then broke all bonds of courtesy, and crying Boy, should I find you by my doors again, My men shall lash you from the like a dog; Hence! with a sudden execration drove The footstool from before him, and arose; So, stammering scoundrel out of teeth that ground As in a dreadful dream, while Leolin still Retreated half-aghast, the fierce old man Followd, and under his own lintel stood Storming with lifted hands, a hoary face Meet for the reverence of the hearth, but now, Beneath a pale and unimpassiond moon, Vext with unworthy madness, and deformd. Slowly and conscious of the rageful eye That watchd him, till he heard the ponderous door Close, crashing with long echoes thro the land, Went Leolin; then, his passions all in flood And masters of his motion, furiously Down thro the bright lawns to his brothers ran, And foamd away his heart at Averills ear: Whom Averill solaced as he might, amazed: The man was his, had been his fathers, friend: He must have seen, himself had seen it long; He must have known, himself had known: besides, He never yet had set his daughter forth Here in the woman-markets of the west, Where our Caucasians let themselves be sold. Some one, he thought, had slanderd Leolin to him. Brother, for I have loved you more as a son Than brother, let me tell you: I myself What is their pretty saying? jilted is it? Jilted I was: I say it for your peace. Paind, and, as bearing in myself the shame The woman should have borne, humiliated, I lived for years a stunted sunless life; Till after our good parents past away Watching your growth, I seemd again to grow. Leolin, I almost sin in envying you: The very whitest lamb in all my fold Loves you: I know her: the worst thought she has Is whiter even than her pretty hand: She must prove true: for, brother, where two fight The strongest wins, and truth and love are strength, And you are happy: let her parents be. But Leolin cried out the more upon them Insolent, brainless, heartless! heiress, wealth, Their wealth, their heiress! wealth enough was theirs For twenty matches.Were he lord of this, Why, twenty boys and girls should marry on it, And forty blest ones bless him, and himself Be wealthy still, ay wealthier.He believed This filthy marriage-hindering Mammon made The harlot of the cities: nature crost Was mother of the foul adulteries That saturate soul with body.Name, too! name, Their ancient name! they might be proud; its worth Was being Ediths.Ah, how pale she had lookd Darling, to-night! they must have rated her Beyond all tolerance.These old pheasant-lords, These partridge-breeders of a thousand years, Who had mildewd in their thousands, doing nothing Since Egbertwhy, the greater their disgrace! Fall back upon a name! rest, rot in that! Not keep it noble, make it nobler? fools, With such a vantage-ground for nobleness! He had known a man, a quintessence of man, The life of allwho madly lovedand he, Thwarted by one of these old father-fools, Had rioted his life out, and made an end. He would not do it! her sweet face and faith Held him from that: but he had powers, he knew it: Back would he to his studies, make a name, Name, fortune too: the world should ring of him To shame these mouldy Aylmers in their graves: Chancellor, or what is greatest would he be O brother, I am grieved to learn your grief Give me my fling, and let me say my say. At which, like one that sees his own excess, And easily forgives it as his own, He laughd; and then was mute; but presently Wept like a storm: and honest Averill seeing How low his brothers mood had fallen, fetchd His richest beeswing from a binn reserved For banquets, praised the waning red, and told The vintagewhen this Aylmer came of age Then drank and past it; till at length the two, Tho Leolin flamed and fell again, agreed That much allowance must be made for men. After an angry dream this kindlier glow Faded with morning, but his purpose held. Yet once by night again the lovers met, A perilous meeting under the tall pines That darkend all the northward of her Hall. Him, to her meek and modest bosom prest In agony, she promised that no force, Persuasion, no, nor death could alter her: He, passionately hopefuller, would go, Labor for his own Edith, and return In such a sunlight of prosperity He should not be rejected.Write to me! They loved me, and because I love their child They hate me: there is war between us, dear, Which breaks all bonds but ours; we must remain Sacred to one another.So they talkd, Poor children, for their comfort: the wind blew; The rain of heaven, and their own bitter tears, Tears, and the careless rain of heaven, mixt Upon their faces, as they kissd each other In darkness, and above them roard the pine. So Leolin went; and as we task ourselves To learn a language known but smatteringly In phrases here and there at random, toild Mastering the lawless science of our law, That codeless myriad of precedent, That wilderness of single instances, Thro which a few, by wit or fortune led, May beat a pathway out to wealth and fame. The jests, that flashd about the pleaders room, Lightning of the hour, the pun, the scurrilous tale, Old scandals buried now seven decads deep In other scandals that have lived and died, And left the living scandal that shall die Were dead to him already; bent as he was To make disproof of scorn, and strong in hopes, And prodigal of all brain-labor he, Charier of sleep, and wine and exercise, Except when for a breathing-while at eve, Some niggard fraction of an hour, he ran Beside the river-bank: and then indeed Harder the times were, and the hands of power Were bloodier, and the according hearts of men Seemd harder too; but the soft river-breeze, Which fannd the gardens of that rival rose Yet fragrant in a heart remembering His former talks with Edith, on him breathed Far purelier in his rushings to and fro, After his books, to flush his blood with air, Then to his books again.My ladys cousin, Half-sickening of his pensiond afternoon, Drove in upon the student once or twice, Ran a Malayan muck against the times, Had golden hopes for France and all mankind, Answerd all queries touching those at home With a heaved shoulder and a saucy smile, And fain had haled him out into the world, And aird him there: his nearer friend would say Screw not the chord too sharply lest it snap. Then left alone he pluckd her dagger forth From where his worldless heart had kept it warm, Kissing his vows upon it like a knight. And wrinkled benchers often talkd of him Approvingly, and prophesied his rise: For heart, I think, helpd head: her letters too, Tho far between, and coming fitfully Like broken music, written as she found Or made occasion, being strictly watchd, Charmd him thro every labyrinth till he saw An end, a hope, a light breaking upon him. But they that cast her spirit into flesh, Her worldy-wise begetters, plagued themselves To sell her, those good parents, for her good. Whatever eldest-born of rank or wealth Might lie within their compass, him they lured Into their net made pleasant by the baits Of gold and beauty, wooing him to woo. So month by month the noise about their doors, And distant blaze of those dull banquets, made The nightly wirer of their innocent hare Falter before he took it.All in vain. Sullen, defiant, pitying, wroth, returnd Leolins rejected rivals from their suit So often, that the folly taking wings Slipt oer those lazy limits down the wind With rumor, and became in other fields A mockery to the yeomen over ale, And laughter to their lords: but those at home, As hunters round a hunted creature draw The cordon close and closer toward the death, Narrowd her goings out and comings in; Forbad her first the house of Averill, Then closed her access to the wealthiest farms, Last from her own home-circle of the poor They barrd her: yet she bore it: yet her cheek Kept color: wondrous! but, O mystery! What amulet drew her down to that old oak, So old, that twenty years before, a part Falling had let appear the brand of John Once grovelike, each huge arm a tree, but now The broken base of a black tower, a cave Of touchwood, with a single flourishing spray. There the manorial lord too curiously Raking in that millenial touchwood-dust Found for himself a bitter treasure-trove; Burst his own wyvern on the seal, and read Writhing a letter from his child, for which Came at the moment Leolins emissary, A crippled lad, and coming turnd to fly, But scared with threats of jail and halter gave To him that flusterd his poor parish wits The letter which he brought, and swore besides To play their go-between as heretofore Nor let them know themselves betrayd, and then, Soul-stricken at their kindness to him, went Hating his own lean heart and miserable. Thenceforward oft from out a despot dream Panting he woke, and oft as early as dawn Aroused the black republic on his elms, Sweeping the frothfly from the fescue, brushd Thro the dim meadow toward his treasure-trove, Seized it, took home, and to my lady, who made A downward crescent of her minion mouth, Listless in all despondence, read; and tore, As if the living passion symbold there Were living nerves to feel the rent; and burnt, Now chafing at his own great self defied, Now striking on huge stumbling-blocks of scorn In babyisms, and dear diminutives Scatterd all over the vocabulary Of such a love as like a chidden babe, After much wailing, hushd itself at last Hopeless of answer: then tho Averill wrote And bad him with good heart sustain himself All would be wellthe lover heeded not, But passionately restless came and went, And rustling once at night about the place, There by a keeper shot at, slightly hurt, Raging returnd: nor was it well for her Kept to the garden now, and grove of pines, Watchd even there; and one was set to watch The watcher, and Sir Aylmer watchd them all, Yet bitterer from his readings: once indeed, Warmd with his wines, or taking pride in her, She lookd so sweet, he kissd her tenderly Not knowing what possessd him: that one kiss Was Leolins one strong rival upon earth; Seconded, for my lady followd suit, Seemd hopes returning rose: and then ensued A Martins summer of his faded love, Or ordeal by kindness; after this He seldom crost his child without a sneer; The mother flowd in shallower acrimonies: Never one kindly smile, one kindly word: So that the gentle creature shut from all Her charitable use, and face to face With twenty months of silence, slowly lost Nor greatly cared to lose, her hold on life. Last, some low fever ranging round to spy The weakness of a people or a house, Like flies that haunt a wound, or deer, or men, Or almost all that is, hurting the hurt Save Christ as we believe himfound the girl And flung her down upon a couch of fire, Where careless of the household faces near, And crying upon the name of Leolin, She, and with her the race of Aylmer, past. Star to star vibrates light: may soul to soul Strike thro a finer element of her own? So,from afar,touch as at once? or why That night, that moment, when she named his name, Did the keen shriek yes love, yes Edith, yes, Shrill, till the comrade of his chambers woke, And came upon him half-arisen from sleep, With a weird bright eye, sweating and trembling, His hair as it were crackling into flames, His body half flung forward in pursuit, And his long arms stretchd as to grasp a flyer: Nor knew he wherefore he had made the cry; And being much befoold and idioted By the rough amity of the other, sank As into sleep again.The second day, My ladys Indian kinsman rushing in, A breaker of the bitter news from home, Found a dead man, a letter edged with death Beside him, and the dagger which himself Gave Edith, reddnd with no bandits blood: From Edith was engraven on the blade. Then Averill went and gazed upon his death. And when he came again, his flock believed Beholding how the years which are not Times Had blasted himthat many thousand days Were clipt by horror from his term of life. Yet the sad mother, for the second death Scarce touchd her thro that nearness of the first, And being used to find her pastor texts, Sent to the harrowd brother, praying him To speak before the people of her child, And fixt the Sabbath.Darkly that day rose: Autumns mock sunshine of the faded woods Was all the life of it; for hard on these, A breathless burthen of low-folded heavens Stifled and chilld at once: but every roof Sent out a listener: many too had known Edith among the hamlets round, and since The parents harshness and the hapless loves And double death were widely murmurd, left Their own gray tower, or plain-faced tabernacle, To hear him; all in mourning these, and those With blots of it about them, ribbon, glove Or kerchief; while the church,one night, except For greenish glimmerings thro the lancets,made Still paler the pale head of him, who towerd Above them, with his hopes in either grave. Long oer his bent brows lingerd Averill, His face magnetic to the hand from which Livid he pluckd it forth, and labord thro His brief prayer-prelude, gave the verse Behold, Your house is left unto you desolate! But lapsed into so long a pause again As half amazed half frighted all his flock: Then from his height and loneliness of grief Bore down in flood, and dashd his angry heart Against the desolations of the world. Never since our bad earth became one sea, Which rolling oer the palaces of the proud, And all but those who knew the living God Eight that were left to make a purer world When since had flood, fire, earthquake, thunder wrought Such waste and havoc as the idolatries, Which from the low light of mortality Shot up their shadows to the Heaven of Heavens, And worshipt their own darkness as the Highest? Gash thyself, priest, and honor thy brute Baal, And to thy worst self sacrifice thyself, For with thy worst self hast thou clothed thy God. Then came a Lord in no wise like to Baal. The babe shall lead the lion.Surely now The wilderness shall blossom as the rose. Crown thyself, worm, and worship thine own lusts! No coarse and blockish God of acreage Stands at thy gate for thee to grovel to Thy God is far diffused in noble groves And princely halls, and farms, and flowing lawns, And heaps of living gold that daily grow, And title-scrolls and gorgeous heraldries. In such a shape dost thou behold thy God. Thou wilt not gash thy flesh for him; for thine Fares richly, in fine linen, not a hair Ruffled upon the scarfskin, even while The deathless ruler of thy dying house Is wounded to the death that cannot die; And tho thou numberest with the followers Of One who cried leave all and follow me. Thee therefore with His light about thy feet, Thee with His message ringing in thine ears, Thee shall thy brother man, the Lord from Heaven, Born of a village girl, carpenters son, Wonderful, Prince of peace, the Mighty God, Count the more base idolater of the two; Crueller: as not passing thro the fire Bodies, but soulsthy childrensthro the smoke, The blight of low desiresdarkening thine own To thine own likeness; or if one of these, Thy better born unhappily from thee, Should, as by miracle, grow straight and fair Friends, I was bid to speak of such a one By those who most have cause to sorrow for her Fairer than Rachel by the palmy well, Fairer than Ruth among the fields of corn, Fair as the Angel that said hail she seemd, Who entering filld the house with sudden light. For so mine own was brightend: where indeed The roof so lowly but that beam of Heaven Dawnd sometime thro the doorway? whose the babe Too ragged to be fondled on her lap, Warmd at her bosom?The poor child of shame, The common care whom no one cared for, leapt To greet her, wasting his forgotten heart, As with the mother he had never known, In gambols; for her fresh and innocent eyes Had such a star of morning in their blue, That all neglected places of the field Broke into natures music when they saw her. Low was her voice, but won mysterious way Thro the seald ear to which a louder one Was all but silencefree of alms her hand The hand that robed your cottage-walls with flowers Has often toild to clothe your little ones; How often placed upon the sick mans brow Coold it, or laid his feverous pillow smooth! Had you one sorrow and she shared it not? One burthen and she would not lighten it? One spiritual doubt she did not soothe? Or when some heat of difference sparkled out, How sweetly would she glide between your wraths, And steal you from each other! for she walkd Wearing the light yoke of that Lord of love, Who stilld the rolling wave of Galilee! And oneof him I was not bid to speak Was always with her, whom you also knew. Him too you loved, for he was worthy love. And these had been together from the first; They might have been together till the last. Friends, this frail bark of ours, when sorely tried, May wreck itself without the pilots guilt, Without the captains knowledge: hope with me. Whose shame is that, if he went hence with shame? Nor mine the fault, if losing both of these I cry to vacant chairs and widowd walls, My house is left unto me desolate. While thus he spoke, his hearers wept; but some, Sons of the glebe, with other frowns than those That knit themselves for summer shadow, scowld At their great lord.He, when it seemd he saw No pale sheet-lightnings from afar, but forkd Of the near storm, and aiming at his head, Sat anger-charmd from sorrow, soldierlike, Erect: but when the preachers cadence flowd Softening thro all the gentle attributes Of his lost child, the wife, who watchd his face, Paled at a sudden twitch of his iron mouth; And O pray God that he hold up she thought Or surely I shall shame myself and him. Nor yours the blamefor who beside your hearths Can take her placeif echoing me you cry Our house is left unto us desolate? But thou, O thou that killest, hadst thou known, O thou that stonest, hadst thou understood The things belonging to thy peace and ours! Is there no prophet but the voice that calls Doom upon kings, or in the waste Repent? Is not our own child on the narrow way, Who down to those that saunter in the broad Cries come up hither, as a prophet to us? Is there no stoning save with flint and rock? Yes, as the dead we weep for testify No desolation but by sword and fire? Yes, as your moanings witness, and myself Am lonelier, darker, earthlier for my loss. Give me your prayers, for he is past your prayers, Not past the living fount of pity in Heaven. But I that thought myself long-suffering, meek, Exceeding poor in spirithow the words Have twisted back upon themselves, and mean Vileness, we are grown so proudI wishd my voice A rushing tempest of the wrath of God To blow these sacrifices thro the world Sent like the twelve-divided concubine To inflame the tribes: but thereout yonderearth Lightens from her own central HellO there The red fruit of an old idolatry The heads of chiefs and princes fall so fast, They cling together in the ghastly sack The land all shamblesnaked marriages Flash from the bridge, and ever-murderd France, By shores that darken with the gathering wolf, Runs in a river of blood to the sick sea. Is this a time to madden madness then? Was this a time for these to flaunt their pride? May Pharaohs darkness, folds as dense as those Which hid the Holiest from the peoples eyes Ere the great death, shroud this great sin from all: Doubtless our narrow world must canvass it: O rather pray for those and pity them, Who thro their own desire accomplishd bring Their own gray hairs with sorrow to the grave Who broke the bond which they desired to break, Which else had linkd their race with times to come Who wove coarse webs to snare her purity, Grossly contriving their dear daughters good Poor souls, and knew not what they did, but sat Ignorant, devising their own daughters death! May not that earthly chastisement suffice? Have not our love and reverence left them bare? Will not another take their heritage? Will there be childrens laughter in their hall For ever and for ever, or one stone Left on another, or is it a light thing That I their guest, their host, their ancient friend, I made by these the last of all my race Must cry to these the last of theirs, as cried Christ ere His agony to those that swore Not by the temple but the gold, and made Their own traditions God, and slew the Lord, And left their memories a worlds curseBehold, Your house is left unto you desolate? Ended he had not, but she brookd no more: Long since her heart had beat remorselessly, Her crampt-up sorrow paind her, and a sense Of meanness in her unresisting life. Then their eyes vext her; for on entering He had cast the curtains of their seat aside Black velvet of the costliestshe herself Had seen to that: fain had she closed them now, Yet dared not stir to do it, only neard Her husband inch by inch, but when she laid, Wifelike, her hand in one of his, he veild His face with the other, and at once, as falls A creeper when the prop is broken, fell The woman shrieking at his feet, and swoond. Then her own people bore along the nave Her pendent hands, and narrow meagre face Seamd with the shallow cares of fifty years: And here the Lord of all the landscape round Evn to its last horizon, and of all Who peerd at him so keenly, followd out Tall and erect, but in the middle aisle Reeld, as a footsore ox in crowded ways Stumbling across the market to his death, Unpitied; for he groped as blind, and seemd Always about to fall, grasping the pews And oaken finials till he touchd the door; Yet to the lychgate, where his chariot stood, Strode from the porch, tall and erect again. But nevermore did either pass the gate Save under pall with bearers. In one month, Thro weary and yet wearier hours, The childless mother went to seek her child; And when he felt the silence of his house About him, and the change and not the change, And those fixt eyes of painted ancestors Staring for ever from their gilded walls On him their last descendant, his own head Began to droop, to fall; the man became Imbecile; his one word was desolate; Dead for two years before his death was he; But when the second Christmas came, escaped His keepers, and the silence which he felt, To find a deeper in the narrow gloom By wife and child; nor wanted at his end The dark retinue reverencing death At golden thresholds; nor from tender hearts, And those who sorrowd oer a vanishd race, Pity, the violet on the tyrants grave. Then the great Hall was wholly broken down, And the broad woodland parcelld into farms; And where the two contrived their daughters good, Lies the hawks cast, the mole has made his run, The hedgehog underneath the plaintain bores, The rabbit fondles his own harmless face, The slow-worm creeps, and the thin weasel there Follows the mouse, and all is open field.