For sure no gladlier does the stranded wreck See thro' the gray skirts of a lifting squall The boat that bears the hope of life approach To save the life despair'd of, than he saw Death dawning on him, and the close of all.

For thro' that dawning gleam'd a kindlier hope On Enoch thinking 'after I am gone, Then may she learn I loved her to the last.'

He call'd aloud for Miriam Lane and said 'Woman, I have a secret--only swear, Before I tell you--swear upon the book Not to reveal it, till you see me dead.'

'Dead' clamor'd the good woman 'hear him talk!

I warrant, man, that we shall bring you round.'

'Swear' add Enoch sternly 'on the book.'

And on the book, half-frighted, Miriam swore.

Then Enoch rolling his gray eyes upon her, 'Did you know Enoch Arden of this town?'

'Know him?' she said 'I knew him far away.

Ay, ay, I mind him coming down the street; Held his head high, and cared for no man, he.'

Slowly and sadly Enoch answer'd her; 'His head is low, and no man cares for him.

I think I have not three days more to live; I am the man.' At which the woman gave A half-incredulous, half-hysterical cry.

'You Arden, you! nay,--sure he was a foot Higher than you be.' Enoch said again 'My G.o.d has bow'd me down to what I am; My grief and solitude have broken me; Nevertheless, know that I am he Who married--but that name has twice been changed-- I married her who married Philip Ray.

Sit, listen.' Then he told her of his voyage, His wreck, his lonely life, his coming back, His gazing in on Annie, his resolve, And how he kept it. As the woman heard, Fast flow'd the current of her easy tears, While in her heart she yearn'd incessantly To rush abroad all round the little haven, Proclaiming Enoch Arden and his woes; But awed and promise-bounded she forbore, Saying only 'See your bairns before you go!

Eh, let me fetch 'em, Arden,' and arose Eager to bring them down, for Enoch hung A moment on her words, but then replied.

'Woman, disturb me not now at the last, But let me hold my purpose till I die.

Sit down again; mark me and understand, While I have power to speak. I charge you now, When you shall see her, tell her that I died Blessing her, praying for her, loving her; Save for the bar between us, loving her As when she laid her head beside my own.

And tell my daughter Annie, whom I saw So like her mother, that my latest breath Was spent in blessing her and praying for her.

And tell my son that I died blessing him.

And say to Philip that I blest him too; He never meant us any thing but good.

But if my children care to see me dead, Who hardly saw me living, let them come, I am their father; but she must not come, For my dead face would vex her after-life.

And now there is but one of all my blood, Who will embrace me in the world-to-be: This hair is his: she cut it off and gave it, And I have borne it with me all these years, And thought to bear it with me to my grave; But now my mind is changed, for I shall see him, My babe in bliss: wherefore when I am gone, Take, give her this, for it may comfort her: It will moreover be a token to her, That I am he.'

He ceased; and Miriam Lane Made such a voluble answer promising all, That once again he roll'd his eyes upon her Repeating all he wish'd, and once again She promised.

Then the third night after this, While Enoch slumber'd motionless and pale, And Miriam watch'd and dozed at intervals, There came so loud a calling of the sea, That all the houses in the haven rang.

He woke, he rose, he spread his arms abroad Crying with a loud voice 'a sail! a sail!

I am saved'; and so fell back and spoke no more.

So past the strong heroic soul away.

And when they buried him the little port Had seldom seen a costlier funeral.

AYLMER'S FIELD.

1793.

AYLMER'S FIELD.

1793.

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 memories--who had served, Long since, a bygone Rector of the place, And been himself a part of what he told.

Sir Aylmer Aylmer that almighty man, The county G.o.d--in whose capacious hall, Hung with a hundred shields, the family tree Sprang from the midriff of a prostrate king-- Whose blazing wyvern weatherc.o.c.k'd the spire, Stood from his walls and wing'd his entry-gates And sw.a.n.g 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 follow'd 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 h.o.a.r hair of the Baronet bristle up With horror, worse than had he heard his priest Preach an inverted scripture, sons of men Daughters of G.o.d; so sleepy was the land.

And might not Averill, had he will'd 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 York's white rose as red as Lancaster's, With wounded peace which each had p.r.i.c.k'd to death.

'Not proven' Averill said, or laughingly 'Some other race of Averills'--prov'n or no, What cared he? what, if other or the same?

He lean'd not on his fathers but himself.

But Leolin, his brother, living oft With Averill, and a year or two before Call'd to the bar, but ever call'd 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, beam'd, Beneath a manelike ma.s.s 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 Thinn'd, 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.

Leolin's 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 roll'd His hoop to pleasure Edith, with her dipt Against the rush of the air in the p.r.o.ne swing, Made blossom-ball or daisy-chain, arranged Her garden, sow'd her name and kept it green In living letters, told her fairy-tales, Show'd here the fairy footings on the gra.s.s, The little dells of cowslip, fairy palms, The petty marestail forest, fairy pines, Or from the tiny pitted target blew What look'd a flight of fairy arrows aim'd 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 Crown'd after trial; sketches rude and faint, But where a pa.s.sion 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 Heav'n 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 gather'd; lastly there At Christmas; ever welcome at the Hall, On whose dull sameness his full tide of youth Broke with a phosph.o.r.escence 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 main--his pride Lay deeper than to wear it as his ring-- He, like an Aylmer in his Aylmerism, Would care no more for Leolin's walking with her Than for his old Newfoundland's, 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, Wander'd at will, but oft accompanied By Averill: his, a brother's love, that hung With wings of brooding shelter o'er her peace, Might have been other, save for Leolin's-- Who knows? but so they wander'd, hour by hour Gather'd the blossom that rebloom'd, and drank The magic cup that fill'd itself anew.

A whisper half reveal'd 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 scatter'd, each a nest in bloom.

Her art, her hand, her counsel all had wrought About them: here was one that, summer-blanch'd, Was parcel-bearded with the traveller's-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 look'd 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 dreamer's 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 Edith's everywhere; And Edith ever visitant with him, He but less loved than Edith, of her poor: For she--so lowly-lovely and so loving, Queenly responsive when the loyal hand Rose from the clay it work'd in as she past, Not sowing hedgerow texts and pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sport 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, G.o.d bless 'em; marriages are made in Heaven.'

A flash of semi-jealousy clear'd it to her.

My Lady's Indian kinsman unannounced With half a score of swarthy faces came.

His own, tho' keen and bold and soldierly, Sear'd by the close ecliptic, was not fair; Fairer his talk, a tongue that ruled the hour, Tho' seeming boastful: so when first he dash'd Into the chronicle of a deedful day, Sir Aylmer half forgot his lazy smile Of patron 'Good! my lady's kinsman! good!'

My lady with her fingers interlock'd, And rotatory thumbs on silken knees, Call'd 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 Edith's eager fancy hurried with him s.n.a.t.c.h'd thro' the perilous pa.s.ses 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 shower'd 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 flow'd and ebb'd 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 branch'd 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 show'd the wealthy scabbard, saying 'Look what a lovely piece of workmanship!'

Slight was his answer 'Well--I care not for it:'

Then playing with the blade he p.r.i.c.k'd his hand, 'A gracious gift to give a lady, this!'

'But would it be more gracious' ask'd 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 ev'n 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 talk'd of: blues were sure of it, he thought: Then of the latest fox--where started--kill'd 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 must--the land was ringing of it-- This blacksmith-border marriage--one they knew-- Raw from the nursery--who could trust a child?

That cursed France with her egalities!

And did Sir Aylmer (deferentially With nearing chair and lower'd accent) think-- For people talk'd--that it was wholly wise To let that handsome fellow Averill walk So freely with his daughter? people talk'd-- The boy might get a notion into him; The girl might be entangled ere she knew.