Lucile [17]
or thinking (While the blossom and bloom of her beauty were shrinking) That sorrow can beautify only the heart-- Not the face--of a woman; and can but impart Its endearment to one that has suffer'd. In truth Grief hath beauty for grief; but gay youth loves gay youth.
IX.
The woman that now met, unshrinking his gaze, Seem'd to bask in the silent but sumptuous haze Of that soft second summer, more ripe than the first, Which returns when the bud to the blossom hath burst In despite of the stormiest April. Lucile Had acquired that matchless unconscious appeal To the homage which none but a churl would withhold-- That caressing and exquisite grace--never bold, Ever present--which just a few women possess. From a healthful repose, undisturb'd by the stress Of unquiet emotions, her soft cheek had drawn A freshness as pure as the twilight of dawn. Her figure, though slight, had revived everywhere The luxurious proportions of youth; and her hair-- Once shorn as an offering to passionate love-- Now floated or rested redundant above Her airy pure forehead and throat; gather'd loose Under which, by one violet knot, the profuse Milk-white folds of a cool modest garment reposed, Rippled faint by the breast they half hid, half disclosed, And her simple attire thus in all things reveal'd The fine art which so artfully all things conceal'd.
X.
Lord Alfred, who never conceived that Lucile Could have look'd so enchanting, felt tempted to kneel At her feet, and her pardon with passion implore; But the calm smile that met him sufficed to restore The pride and the bitterness needed to meet The occasion with dignity due and discreet.
XI.
"Madam,"--thus he began with a voice reassured,-- "You see that your latest command has secured My immediate obedience--presuming I may Consider my freedom restored from this day."-- "I had thought," said Lucile, with a smile gay yet sad, "That your freedom from me not a fetter has had. Indeed! . . . in my chains have you rested till now? I had not so flattered myself, I avow!" "For Heaven's sake, Madam," Lord Alfred replied, "Do not jest! has the moment no sadness?" he sigh'd. "'Tis an ancient tradition," she answer'd, "a tale Often told--a position too sure to prevail In the end of all legends of love. If we wrote, When we first love, foreseeing that hour yet remote, Wherein of necessity each would recall From the other the poor foolish records of all Those emotions, whose pain, when recorded, seem'd bliss, Should we write as we wrote? But one thinks not of this! At Twenty (who does not at Twenty?) we write Believing eternal the frail vows we plight; And we smile with a confident pity, above The vulgar results of all poor human love: For we deem, with that vanity common to youth, Because what we feel in our bosoms, in truth, Is novel to us--that 'tis novel to earth, And will prove the exception, in durance and worth, To the great law to which all on earth must incline. The error was noble, the vanity fine! Shall we blame it because we survive it? ah, no; 'Twas the youth of our youth, my lord, is it not so?"
XII.
Lord Alfred was mute. He remember'd her yet A child--the weak sport of each moment's regret, Blindly yielding herself to the errors of life, The deceptions of youth, and borne down by the strife And the tumult of passion; the tremulous toy Of each transient emotion of grief or of joy. But to watch her pronounce the death-warrant of all The illusions of life--lift, unflinching, the pall From the bier of the dead Past--that woman so fair, And so young, yet her own self-survivor; who there Traced her life's epitaph with a finger so cold! 'Twas a picture that pain'd his self-love to behold. He himself knew--none better--the things to be said Upon subjects like this. Yet he bow'd down his head: And as thus, with a trouble he could not command, He paused, crumpling the letters he held in his hand, "You know me enough," she continued, "or what I would say is, you yet recollect (do you not, Lord Alfred?) enough of my nature, to know That these pledges of what was
IX.
The woman that now met, unshrinking his gaze, Seem'd to bask in the silent but sumptuous haze Of that soft second summer, more ripe than the first, Which returns when the bud to the blossom hath burst In despite of the stormiest April. Lucile Had acquired that matchless unconscious appeal To the homage which none but a churl would withhold-- That caressing and exquisite grace--never bold, Ever present--which just a few women possess. From a healthful repose, undisturb'd by the stress Of unquiet emotions, her soft cheek had drawn A freshness as pure as the twilight of dawn. Her figure, though slight, had revived everywhere The luxurious proportions of youth; and her hair-- Once shorn as an offering to passionate love-- Now floated or rested redundant above Her airy pure forehead and throat; gather'd loose Under which, by one violet knot, the profuse Milk-white folds of a cool modest garment reposed, Rippled faint by the breast they half hid, half disclosed, And her simple attire thus in all things reveal'd The fine art which so artfully all things conceal'd.
X.
Lord Alfred, who never conceived that Lucile Could have look'd so enchanting, felt tempted to kneel At her feet, and her pardon with passion implore; But the calm smile that met him sufficed to restore The pride and the bitterness needed to meet The occasion with dignity due and discreet.
XI.
"Madam,"--thus he began with a voice reassured,-- "You see that your latest command has secured My immediate obedience--presuming I may Consider my freedom restored from this day."-- "I had thought," said Lucile, with a smile gay yet sad, "That your freedom from me not a fetter has had. Indeed! . . . in my chains have you rested till now? I had not so flattered myself, I avow!" "For Heaven's sake, Madam," Lord Alfred replied, "Do not jest! has the moment no sadness?" he sigh'd. "'Tis an ancient tradition," she answer'd, "a tale Often told--a position too sure to prevail In the end of all legends of love. If we wrote, When we first love, foreseeing that hour yet remote, Wherein of necessity each would recall From the other the poor foolish records of all Those emotions, whose pain, when recorded, seem'd bliss, Should we write as we wrote? But one thinks not of this! At Twenty (who does not at Twenty?) we write Believing eternal the frail vows we plight; And we smile with a confident pity, above The vulgar results of all poor human love: For we deem, with that vanity common to youth, Because what we feel in our bosoms, in truth, Is novel to us--that 'tis novel to earth, And will prove the exception, in durance and worth, To the great law to which all on earth must incline. The error was noble, the vanity fine! Shall we blame it because we survive it? ah, no; 'Twas the youth of our youth, my lord, is it not so?"
XII.
Lord Alfred was mute. He remember'd her yet A child--the weak sport of each moment's regret, Blindly yielding herself to the errors of life, The deceptions of youth, and borne down by the strife And the tumult of passion; the tremulous toy Of each transient emotion of grief or of joy. But to watch her pronounce the death-warrant of all The illusions of life--lift, unflinching, the pall From the bier of the dead Past--that woman so fair, And so young, yet her own self-survivor; who there Traced her life's epitaph with a finger so cold! 'Twas a picture that pain'd his self-love to behold. He himself knew--none better--the things to be said Upon subjects like this. Yet he bow'd down his head: And as thus, with a trouble he could not command, He paused, crumpling the letters he held in his hand, "You know me enough," she continued, "or what I would say is, you yet recollect (do you not, Lord Alfred?) enough of my nature, to know That these pledges of what was