Lucile [45]
Born too late or too early. The lady, in truth, Was young, fair, and gentle; and never was given To more heavenly eyes the pure azure of heaven. Never yet did the sun touch to ripples of gold Tresses brighter than those which her soft hand unroll'd From her noble and innocent brow, when she rose, An Aurora, at dawn, from her balmy repose, And into the mirror the bloom and the blush Of her beauty broke, glowing; like light in a gush From the sunrise in summer. Love, roaming, shall meet But rarely a nature more sound or more sweet-- Eyes brighter--brows whiter--a figure more fair-- Or lovelier lengths of more radiant hair-- Than thine, Lady Alfred! And here I aver (May those that have seen thee declare if I err) That not all the oysters in Britain contain A pearl pure as thou art. Let some one explain,-- Who may know more than I of the intimate life Of the pearl with the oyster,--why yet in his wife, In despite of her beauty--and most when he felt His soul to the sense of her loveliness melt-- Lord Alfred miss'd something he sought for: indeed, The more that he miss'd it the greater the need; Till it seem'd to himself he could willingly spare All the charms that he found for the one charm not there.
IV.
For the blessings Life lends us, it strictly demands The worth of their full usufruct at our hands. And the value of all things exists, not indeed In themselves, but man's use of them, feeding man's need. Alfred Vargrave, in wedding with beauty and youth, Had embraced both Ambition and Wealth. Yet in truth Unfulfill'd the ambition, and sterile the wealth (In a life paralyzed by a moral ill-health), Had remain'd, while the beauty and youth, unredeem'd From a vague disappointment at all things, but seem'd Day by day to reproach him in silence for all That lost youth in himself they had fail'd to recall. No career had he follow'd, no object obtain'd In the world by those worldly advantages gain'd From nuptials beyond which once seem'd to appear, Lit by love, the broad path of a brilliant career. All that glitter'd and gleam'd through the moonlight of youth With a glory so fair, now that manhood in truth Grasp'd and gather'd it, seem'd like that false fairy gold Which leaves in the hand only moss, leaves, and mould!
V.
Fairy gold! moss and leaves! and the young Fairy Bride? Lived there yet fairy-lands in the face at his side? Say, O friend, if at evening thou ever hast watch'd Some pale and impalpable vapor, detach'd From the dim and disconsolate earth, rise and fall O'er the light of a sweet serene star, until all The chill'd splendor reluctantly waned in the deep Of its own native heaven? Even so seem'd to creep O'er that fair and ethereal face, day by day, While the radiant vermeil, subsiding away, Hid its light in the heart, the faint gradual veil Of a sadness unconscious. The lady grew pale As silent her lord grew: and both, as they eyed Each the other askance, turn'd, and secretly sigh'd. Ah, wise friend, what avails all experience can give? True, we know what life is--but, alas! do we live? The grammar of life we have gotten by heart, But life's self we have made a dead language--an art, Not a voice. Could we speak it, but once, as 'twas spoken When the silence of passion the first time was broken! Cuvier knew the world better than Adam, no doubt; But the last man, at best, was but learned about What the first, without learning, ENJOYED. What art thou To the man of to-day, O Leviathan, now? A science. What wert thou to him that from ocean First beheld thee appear? A surprise,--an emotion! When life leaps in the veins, when it beats in the heart, When it thrills as it fills every animate part, Where lurks it? how works it? . . . We scarcely detect it. But life goes: the heart dies: haste, O leech, and dissect it! This accursed aesthetical, ethical age Hath so finger'd life's hornbook, so blurr'd every page, That the old glad romance, the gay chivalrous story With its fables of faery, its
IV.
For the blessings Life lends us, it strictly demands The worth of their full usufruct at our hands. And the value of all things exists, not indeed In themselves, but man's use of them, feeding man's need. Alfred Vargrave, in wedding with beauty and youth, Had embraced both Ambition and Wealth. Yet in truth Unfulfill'd the ambition, and sterile the wealth (In a life paralyzed by a moral ill-health), Had remain'd, while the beauty and youth, unredeem'd From a vague disappointment at all things, but seem'd Day by day to reproach him in silence for all That lost youth in himself they had fail'd to recall. No career had he follow'd, no object obtain'd In the world by those worldly advantages gain'd From nuptials beyond which once seem'd to appear, Lit by love, the broad path of a brilliant career. All that glitter'd and gleam'd through the moonlight of youth With a glory so fair, now that manhood in truth Grasp'd and gather'd it, seem'd like that false fairy gold Which leaves in the hand only moss, leaves, and mould!
V.
Fairy gold! moss and leaves! and the young Fairy Bride? Lived there yet fairy-lands in the face at his side? Say, O friend, if at evening thou ever hast watch'd Some pale and impalpable vapor, detach'd From the dim and disconsolate earth, rise and fall O'er the light of a sweet serene star, until all The chill'd splendor reluctantly waned in the deep Of its own native heaven? Even so seem'd to creep O'er that fair and ethereal face, day by day, While the radiant vermeil, subsiding away, Hid its light in the heart, the faint gradual veil Of a sadness unconscious. The lady grew pale As silent her lord grew: and both, as they eyed Each the other askance, turn'd, and secretly sigh'd. Ah, wise friend, what avails all experience can give? True, we know what life is--but, alas! do we live? The grammar of life we have gotten by heart, But life's self we have made a dead language--an art, Not a voice. Could we speak it, but once, as 'twas spoken When the silence of passion the first time was broken! Cuvier knew the world better than Adam, no doubt; But the last man, at best, was but learned about What the first, without learning, ENJOYED. What art thou To the man of to-day, O Leviathan, now? A science. What wert thou to him that from ocean First beheld thee appear? A surprise,--an emotion! When life leaps in the veins, when it beats in the heart, When it thrills as it fills every animate part, Where lurks it? how works it? . . . We scarcely detect it. But life goes: the heart dies: haste, O leech, and dissect it! This accursed aesthetical, ethical age Hath so finger'd life's hornbook, so blurr'd every page, That the old glad romance, the gay chivalrous story With its fables of faery, its