Lucile [24]
the passion that brings on its breath, To the being it embraces, destruction and death! Alfred Vargrave, the lightning is round you!" "Lucile! I hear--I see--naught but yourself. I can feel Nothing here but your presence. My pride fights in vain With the truth that leaps from me. We two meet again 'Neath yon terrible heaven that is watching above To avenge if I lie when I swear that I love,-- And beneath yonder terrible heaven, at your feet, I humble my head and my heart. I entreat Your pardon, Lucile, for the past--I implore For the future your mercy--implore it with more Of passion than prayer ever breathed. By the power Which invisibly touches us both in this hour, By the rights I have o'er you, Lucile, I demand--" "The rights!" . . . said Lucile, and drew from him her hand.
"Yes, the rights! for what greater to man may belong Than the right to repair in the future the wrong To the past? and the wrong I have done you, of yore, Hath bequeath'd to me all the sad right to restore, To retrieve, to amend! I, who injured your life, Urge the right to repair it, Lucile! Be my wife, My guide, my good angel, my all upon earth, And accept, for the sake of what yet may give worth To my life, its contrition!"
XV.
He paused, for there came O'er the cheek of Lucile a swift flush like the flame That illumined at moments the darkness o'erhead. With a voice faint and marr'd by emotion, she said, "And your pledge to another?"
XVI.
"Hush, hush!" he exclaim'd, "My honor will live where my love lives, unshamed. 'Twere poor honor indeed, to another to give That life of which YOU keep the heart. Could I live In the light of those young eyes, suppressing a lie? Alas, no! YOUR hand holds my whole destiny. I can never recall what my lips have avow'd; In your love lies whatever can render me proud. For the great crime of all my existence hath been To have known you in vain. And the duty best seen, And most hallow'd--the duty most sacred and sweet, Is that which hath led me, Lucile, to your feet. O speak! and restore me the blessing I lost When I lost you--my pearl of all pearls beyond cost! And restore to your own life its youth, and restore The vision, the rapture, the passion of yore! Ere our brows had been dimm'd in the dust of the world, When our souls their white wings yet exulting unfurl'd! For your eyes rest no more on the unquiet man, The wild star of whose course its pale orbit outran, Whom the formless indefinite future of youth, With its lying allurements, distracted. In truth I have wearily wander'd the world, and I feel That the least of your lovely regards, O Lucile, Is worth all the world can afford, and the dream Which, though follow'd forever, forever doth seem As fleeting, and distant, and dim, as of yore When it brooded in twilight, at dawn, on the shore Of life's untraversed ocean! I know the sole path To repose, which my desolate destiny hath, Is the path by whose course to your feet I return. And who else, O Lucile, will so truly discern, And so deeply revere, all the passionate strength, The sublimity in you, as he whom at length These have saved from himself, for the truth they reveal To his worship?"
XVII.
She spoke not; but Alfred could feel The light hand and arm, that upon him reposed, Thrill and tremble. Those dark eyes of hers were half closed. But, under their languid mysterious fringe, A passionate softness was beaming. One tinge Of faint inward fire flush'd transparently through The delicate, pallid, and pure olive hue Of the cheek, half averted and droop'd. The rich bosom Heaved, as when in the heart of a ruffled rose-blossom A bee is imprison'd and struggles.
XVIII.
Meanwhile The sun, in his setting, sent up the last smile Of his power, to baffle the storm. And, behold! O'er the mountains embattled, his armies, all gold, Rose and rested: while far up the dim airy crags, Its artillery silenced, its banners
"Yes, the rights! for what greater to man may belong Than the right to repair in the future the wrong To the past? and the wrong I have done you, of yore, Hath bequeath'd to me all the sad right to restore, To retrieve, to amend! I, who injured your life, Urge the right to repair it, Lucile! Be my wife, My guide, my good angel, my all upon earth, And accept, for the sake of what yet may give worth To my life, its contrition!"
XV.
He paused, for there came O'er the cheek of Lucile a swift flush like the flame That illumined at moments the darkness o'erhead. With a voice faint and marr'd by emotion, she said, "And your pledge to another?"
XVI.
"Hush, hush!" he exclaim'd, "My honor will live where my love lives, unshamed. 'Twere poor honor indeed, to another to give That life of which YOU keep the heart. Could I live In the light of those young eyes, suppressing a lie? Alas, no! YOUR hand holds my whole destiny. I can never recall what my lips have avow'd; In your love lies whatever can render me proud. For the great crime of all my existence hath been To have known you in vain. And the duty best seen, And most hallow'd--the duty most sacred and sweet, Is that which hath led me, Lucile, to your feet. O speak! and restore me the blessing I lost When I lost you--my pearl of all pearls beyond cost! And restore to your own life its youth, and restore The vision, the rapture, the passion of yore! Ere our brows had been dimm'd in the dust of the world, When our souls their white wings yet exulting unfurl'd! For your eyes rest no more on the unquiet man, The wild star of whose course its pale orbit outran, Whom the formless indefinite future of youth, With its lying allurements, distracted. In truth I have wearily wander'd the world, and I feel That the least of your lovely regards, O Lucile, Is worth all the world can afford, and the dream Which, though follow'd forever, forever doth seem As fleeting, and distant, and dim, as of yore When it brooded in twilight, at dawn, on the shore Of life's untraversed ocean! I know the sole path To repose, which my desolate destiny hath, Is the path by whose course to your feet I return. And who else, O Lucile, will so truly discern, And so deeply revere, all the passionate strength, The sublimity in you, as he whom at length These have saved from himself, for the truth they reveal To his worship?"
XVII.
She spoke not; but Alfred could feel The light hand and arm, that upon him reposed, Thrill and tremble. Those dark eyes of hers were half closed. But, under their languid mysterious fringe, A passionate softness was beaming. One tinge Of faint inward fire flush'd transparently through The delicate, pallid, and pure olive hue Of the cheek, half averted and droop'd. The rich bosom Heaved, as when in the heart of a ruffled rose-blossom A bee is imprison'd and struggles.
XVIII.
Meanwhile The sun, in his setting, sent up the last smile Of his power, to baffle the storm. And, behold! O'er the mountains embattled, his armies, all gold, Rose and rested: while far up the dim airy crags, Its artillery silenced, its banners