With linked hands, for unrepelle Had Helen taken Rosalind's.
Like the autumn wind, when it abinds The tangled locks of the nightshade's hair, Which is twined in the sultry summer air Round the walls of an outworn sepulchre, Did the voice of Helen, sad and sweet, And the sound of her heart that ever beat, As with sighs and words she breathed on her, Unbind the knots of her friend's despair, Till her thoughts were free to float and flow; And from her labouring bosom now, Like the bursting of a prisoned flame, The voice of a long pent sorrow came.
Rosalind. I saw the dark earth fall upon The coffin; and I saw the stone Laid over him whom this cold breast Had pillowed to his nightly rest! Thou knowest not, thou can'st not know My agony. Oh! I could not weep: The sources whence such blessings flow Were not to be approached by me! But I could smile, and I could sleep, Though with a self-accusing heart. In morning's light, and evening's gloom, I watched, and would not thence depart- My husband's unlamented tomb.
My children knew their sire was gone, But when I told them, he is dead,'- They laughed aloud in frantic glee,
They clapped their hands and leaped about Answering each other's ecstacy
With many a prank and merry shout; But I sat silent and alone,
Wrapped in the mock of mourning weed
They laughed, for he was dead: but I Sate with a hard and tearless eye, And with a heart which would de ny The secret joy it could not quell,
Low muttering o'er his loathed name. Till from that self-contention came Remorse where sin was none; a hell Which in pure spirits should not dwe I'll tell thee truth. He was a man Hard, selfish, loving only gold, Yet full of guile: his pale eyes ran
With tears, which each some falsehood told, And oft his smooth and bridled tongue Would give the lie to his flushing cheek: He was a coward to the strong:
He was a tyrant to the weak,
On whom his vengeance he would wreak: For scorn, whose arrows search the heart, From many a stranger's eye would dart, And on his memory cling, and follow His soul to it's home so cold and hollow He was a tyrant to the weak,
And we were such, alas the day! Oft, when my little ones at play,
Were in youth's natural lightness gay, Or if they listened to some tale
Of travellers, or of fairy land,
When the light from the wood-fire's dying brand Flashed on their faces,-if they heard Or thought they heard upon the stair His footstep, the suspended word Died on my lips! we all grew pale:
The babe at my bosom was hushed with fear If it thought it heard its father near; And my two wild boys would near my knee Cling, cowed, and cowering fearfully.
I'll tell thee truth. I loved another. His name in my ear was ever ringing, His form to my brain was ever clinging;
Yet if some stranger breathed that name,
My lips turned white, and my heart beat fast:
My nights were once haunted by dreams of flame, My days were dim in the shadow cast, By the momory of the same!
Day and night, day and night,
He was my breath and life and light,
For three short years, which soon were past: On the fourth, my gentle mother
Led me to the shrine to be
His sworn bride eternally.
And now we stood on the altar stair,
When my father came from a distant land, And with a loud and fearful cry
Rushed between us suddenly.
I saw the stream of his thin grey hair, I saw his lean and lifted hand,
And heard his words,-and live! O God! Wherefore do I live?- Hold, hold!'
He cried,' I tell thee 'tis her brother!
Thy mother, boy, beneath the sod
Of yon church-yard rests in her shroud so cold: I am now weak, and pale, and old:
We were once dear to one another,
I and that corpse! Thou art our child!' Then with a laugh both long and wild The youth upon the pavement fell; They found him dead! All looked on me, The spasms of my despair to see ; But I was calm. I went away; I was clammy-cold like clay! I did not weep; I did not speak; But day by day, week after week, I walked about like a corpse alive! Alas, sweet friend, you must believe This heart is stone: it did not break.
My father lived a little while, But all might see that he was dying, He smiled with such a woful smile! When he was in the church-yard lying Among the worms, we grew quite poor, So that no one would give us bread, My mother looked at me, and said Faint words of cheer, which only meant That she could die and be content;
So I went forth from the same church door To another husband's bed.
And this was he who died at last,
When weeks, and months, and years had past, Through which I firmly did fulfil
My duties, a devoted wife,
With the stern step of vanquished will, Walking beneath the night of life,
Whose hours extinguished, like slow rain Falling for ever, pain, by pain,
The very hope of death's dear rest; Which, since the heart within my breast Of natural life was dispossest,
Its strange sustainer there had been.
When flowers were dead, and grass was green Upon my mother's grave,-that mother Whom to outlive, and cheer, and make My wan eyes glitter for her sake, Was my vowed task, the single care Which once gave life to my despair,- When she was a thing that did not stir, And the crawling worms were cradling her To a sleep more deep, and so more sweet Than a baby's rocked on its nurse's knee, I lived a living pulse then beat Beneath my heart that awakened me. What was this pulse so warm and free? Alas! I knew it could not be
My own dull blood: 'twas like a thought Of liquid love, that spread and wrought Under my bosom and in my brain,
And crept with the blood through every vein; And hour by hour, day after day, The wonder could not charm away, But laid in sleep, my wakeful pain, Until I knew it was a child,
And then I wept. For long, long years These frozen eyes had shed no tears: But now-twas the season fair and mild
When April has wept itself to May; I sate through the sweet sunny day
By my window bowered round with leaves, And down my cheeks the quick tears ran Like twinkling rain-drops from the eaves, When warm spring showers are passing o'er: O Helen, none can ever tell
The joy it was to weep once more!
I wept to think how hard it were To kill my babe, and take from it The sense of light, and the warm air, And my own fond and tender care, And love, and smiles; ere I knew yet That these for it might, as for me, Be the masks of a grinning mockery. And haply, I would dream, 'twere sweet To feed it from my faded breast, Or mark my own heart's restless beat Rock it to its untroubled rest,
And watch the growing soul beneath
Dawn in faint smiles; and hear its breath,
Half interrupted by calm sighs,
And search the depth of its fair eyes For long departed memories! And so I lived till that sweet load
Was lightened. Darkly forward flowed The stream of years, and on it bore Two shapes of gladness to my sight; Two other babes, delightful more In my lost soul's abandoned night, Than their own country ships may be Sailing towards wrecked mariners, Who cling to the rock of a wintry sea. For each, as it came, brought soothing tears, And a loosening warmth, as each one lay Sucking the sullen milk away
About my frozen heart, did play, And weaned it, oh how painfully!
As they themselves were weaned each one
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