FRANCES
She will not sleep, for fear
of dreams,
But, rising, quits her restless
bed,
And walks where some beclouded
beams
Of moonlight through the
hall are shed.
Obedient to the goad of grief,
Her steps, now fast, now
lingering slow,
In varying motion seek relief
From the Eumenides of woe.
Wringing her hands, at intervals--
But long as mute as phantom
dim--
She glides along the dusky
walls,
Under the black oak rafters
grim.
The close air of the grated
tower
Stifles a heart that scarce
can beat,
And, though so late and
lone the hour,
Forth pass her wandering,
faltering feet;
And on the pavement spread
before
The long front of the mansion
grey,
Her steps imprint the night-frost
hoar,
Which pale on grass and
granite lay.
Not long she stayed where
misty moon
And shimmering stars could
on her look,
But through the garden archway
soon
Her strange and gloomy path
she took.
Some firs, coeval with the
tower,
Their straight black boughs
stretched o'er her head;
Unseen, beneath this sable
bower,
Rustled her dress and rapid
tread.
There was an alcove in that
shade,
Screening a rustic seat
and stand;
Weary she sat her down,
and laid
Her hot brow on her burning
hand.
To solitude and to the night,
Some words she now, in murmurs,
said;
And trickling through her
fingers white,
Some tears of misery she
shed.
"God help me in my grievous
need,
God help me in my inward
pain;
Which cannot ask for pity's
meed,
Which has no licence to
complain,
"Which must be borne; yet
who can bear,
Hours long, days long, a
constant weight--
The yoke of absolute despair,
A suffering wholly desolate?
"Who can for ever crush the
heart,
Restrain its throbbing,
curb its life?
Dissemble truth with ceaseless
art,
With outward calm mask inward
strife?"
She waited--as for some reply;
The still and cloudy night
gave none;
Ere long, with deep-drawn,
trembling sigh,
Her heavy plaint again begun.
"Unloved--I love; unwept--I
weep;
Grief I restrain--hope I
repress:
Vain is this anguish--fixed
and deep;
Vainer, desires and dreams
of bliss.
"My love awakes no love again,
My tears collect, and fall
unfelt;
My sorrow touches none with
pain,
My humble hopes to nothing
melt.
"For me the universe is dumb,
Stone-deaf, and blank, and
wholly blind;
Life I must bound, existence
sum
In the strait limits of
one mind;
"That mind my own. Oh! narrow
cell;
Dark--imageless--a living
tomb!
There must I sleep, there
wake and dwell
Content, with palsy, pain,
and gloom."
Again she paused; a moan
of pain,
A stifled sob, alone was
heard;
Long silence followed--then
again
Her voice the stagnant midnight
stirred.
"Must it be so? Is this my
fate?
Can I nor struggle, nor
contend?
And am I doomed for years
to wait,
Watching death's lingering
axe descend?
"And when it falls, and when
I die,
What follows? Vacant nothingness?
The blank of lost identity?
Erasure both of pain and
bliss?
"I've heard of heaven--I
would believe;
For if this earth indeed
be all,
Who longest lives may deepest
grieve;
Most blest, whom sorrows
soonest call.
"Oh! leaving disappointment
here,
Will man find hope on yonder
coast?
Hope, which, on earth, shines
never clear,
And oft in clouds is wholly
lost.
"Will he hope's source of
light behold,
Fruition's spring, where
doubts expire,
And drink, in waves of living
gold,
Contentment, full, for long
desire?
"Will he find bliss, which
here he dreamed?
Rest, which was weariness
on earth?
Knowledge, which, if o'er
life it beamed,
Served but to prove it void
of worth?
"Will he find love without
lust's leaven,
Love fearless, tearless,
perfect, pure,
To all with equal bounty
given;
In all, unfeigned, unfailing,
sure?
"Will he, from penal sufferings
free,
Released from shroud and
wormy clod,
All calm and glorious, rise
and see
Creation's Sire--Existence'
God?
"Then, glancing back on Time's
brief woes,
Will he behold them, fading,
fly;
Swept from Eternity's repose,
Like sullying cloud from
pure blue sky?
"If so, endure, my weary
frame;
And when thy anguish strikes
too deep,
And when all troubled burns
life's flame,
Think of the quiet, final
sleep;
"Think of the glorious waking-hour,
Which will not dawn on grief
and tears,
But on a ransomed spirit's
power,
Certain, and free from mortal
fears.
"Seek now thy couch, and
lie till morn,
Then from thy chamber, calm,
descend,
With mind nor tossed, nor
anguish-torn,
But tranquil, fixed, to
wait the end.
"And when thy opening eyes
shall see
Mementos, on the chamber
wall,
Of one who has forgotten
thee,
Shed not the tear of acrid
gall.
"The tear which, welling
from the heart,
Burns where its drop corrosive
falls,
And makes each nerve, in
torture, start,
At feelings it too well
recalls:
"When the sweet hope of being
loved
Threw Eden sunshine on life's
way:
When every sense and feeling
proved
Expectancy of brightest
day.
"When the hand trembled to
receive
A thrilling clasp, which
seemed so near,
And the heart ventured to
believe
Another heart esteemed it
dear.
"When words, half love, all
tenderness,
Were hourly heard, as hourly
spoken,
When the long, sunny days
of bliss
Only by moonlight nights
were broken.
"Till, drop by drop, the
cup of joy
Filled full, with purple
light was glowing,
And Faith, which watched
it, sparkling high
Still never dreamt the overflowing.
"It fell not with a sudden
crashing,
It poured not out like open
sluice;
No, sparkling still, and
redly flashing,
Drained, drop by drop, the
generous juice.
"I saw it sink, and strove
to taste it,
My eager lips approached
the brim;
The movement only seemed
to waste it;
It sank to dregs, all harsh
and dim.
"These I have drunk, and
they for ever
Have poisoned life and love
for me;
A draught from Sodom's lake
could never
More fiery, salt, and bitter,
be.
"Oh! Love was all a thin
illusion
Joy, but the desert's flying
stream;
And glancing back on long
delusion,
My memory grasps a hollow
dream.
"Yet whence that wondrous
change of feeling,
I never knew, and cannot
learn;
Nor why my lover's eye,
congealing,
Grew cold and clouded, proud
and stern.
"Nor wherefore, friendship's
forms forgetting,
He careless left, and cool
withdrew;
Nor spoke of grief, nor
fond regretting,
Nor ev'n one glance of comfort
threw.
"And neither word nor token
sending,
Of kindness, since the parting
day,
His course, for distant
regions bending,
Went, self-contained and
calm, away.
"Oh, bitter, blighting, keen
sensation,
Which will not weaken, cannot
die,
Hasten thy work of desolation,
And let my tortured spirit
fly!
"Vain as the passing gale,
my crying;
Though lightning-struck,
I must live on;
I know, at heart, there
is no dying
Of love, and ruined hope,
alone.
"Still strong and young,
and warm with vigour,
Though scathed, I long shall
greenly grow;
And many a storm of wildest
rigour
Shall yet break o'er my
shivered bough.
"Rebellious now to blank
inertion,
My unused strength demands
a task;
Travel, and toil, and full
exertion,
Are the last, only boon
I ask.
"Whence, then, this vain
and barren dreaming
Of death, and dubious life
to come?
I see a nearer beacon gleaming
Over dejection's sea of
gloom.
"The very wildness of my
sorrow
Tells me I yet have innate
force;
My track of life has been
too narrow,
Effort shall trace a broader
course.
"The world is not in yonder
tower,
Earth is not prisoned in
that room,
'Mid whose dark panels,
hour by hour,
I've sat, the slave and
prey of gloom.
"One feeling--turned to utter
anguish,
Is not my being's only aim;
When, lorn and loveless,
life will languish,
But courage can revive the
flame.
"He, when he left me, went
a roving
To sunny climes, beyond
the sea;
And I, the weight of woe
removing,
Am free and fetterless as
he.
"New scenes, new language,
skies less clouded,
May once more wake the wish
to live;
Strange, foreign towns,
astir, and crowded,
New pictures to the mind
may give.
"New forms and faces, passing
ever,
May hide the one I still
retain,
Defined, and fixed, and
fading never,
Stamped deep on vision,
heart, and brain.
"And we might meet--time
may have changed him;
Chance may reveal the mystery,
The secret influence which
estranged him;
Love may restore him yet
to me.
"False thought--false hope--in
scorn be banished!
I am not loved--nor loved
have been;
Recall not, then, the dreams
scarce vanished;
Traitors! mislead me not
again!
"To words like yours I bid
defiance,
'Tis such my mental wreck
have made;
Of God alone, and self-reliance,
I ask for solace--hope for
aid.
"Morn comes--and ere meridian
glory
O'er these, my natal woods,
shall smile,
Both lonely wood and mansion
hoary
I'll leave behind, full
many a mile." |