My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale | Page 8

be traced?That in the life Omnipotent lie based?
Or earth-grown atom's bounded soul?Grasp the universal whole?
"The more he chafes, the worse his fetter galls?The luckless captive closed in dungeon walls,?And fighting chains and stones, he fighting falls.
Nor will that wasteful immolation?Touch his lofty victor's station.
"Woe be to him perverse, who, weak and blind,?In pride refusing to behold, shall find?The ponderous roll of circumstance will grind
His steps; and if he turn not, must?Bruise and crush him into dust.
"We are the Lord's, not ours, His angels sing;?So you, mine own, bow meekly to your King,?And striving hard and long His grace will bring:
His voice shall through the battle cry,?When the strife is raging high."
She fluttering paused: awhile her surging zeal?All utterance overwhelmed to mute appeal:?I felt as men who fallen in battle feel,
When far their chief's sword, like a gem,?Points to glory not for them.
"When naked heaven is azure to your eyes,?And light shines everywhere, you can be wise;?But, when its storms in common course arise,
To you the wind but sobs and grieves?Wailing with the streaming leaves.
"Rust eats the steel, and moths corrupt the cloth,?And peevish doubts destroy the soul that's loth?To strive for duty, merged in shameful sloth,
And lolls a weary wretch forlorn,?While men reap the mellow corn.
"It is not man's to dream in sweet repose;?He toils and murmurs, as he wondering goes,?Poor changeful glitter on the stream that flows
In lapses huge and solemn roar,?Ever on without a shore.
"The plantlet grown in darkness puts forth spray;?Through loaded gloom yearns feebly toward some ray?Of bounty golden from the outer day
That shines eternally sublime?On the dancing motes of time."
The music stopped, and passed into a smile?Of tenderness, which she impressed to guile?Her pain from me: I gazed as one awhile
Escaped, who sees twin rainbows shine?O'er his wrecked ship gulfed in brine.
My lost soul sank adown in soundless seas?To ruined heaps besprent with ancient lees?Of wealth: by soft stupendous ocean-trees;
By anchors forged in early time,?Changed to trails of rusted slime:
To where, what seemed a tomb, in this deep hell?Of night, bore a dim name I dread to tell:?And there I heard sound some gigantic bell,
Whose thunder laughing through my brain?Mocked me back to flesh again.
Here all was emptier than the empty shade?Of mist before a midnight moon decayed:?Here life was strange as death, and more dismayed
My spirit, now scarce conscious she?Urged entreaty yet to me.
"'Tis life in life to know the King is just,?And will not animate his helpless dust?With fire unquenchable whose ardour must
Achieve majestic deeds that raise?Universal shouts of praise:
"Shouts of acclaim that gather into story,?Chanted by one on some high promontory?Who glowing in the dawn's advancing glory,
Far down upon the listening crowd?Shines through swathes of lingering cloud:
"And fires, by what he sings, to noble feud?With grosser instincts, the charged multitude,?That grow in temper and similitude
To those great souls whose victories?Triumph still in melodies:
"This fire will not be granted to distress,?To fail in cold dead ash and bitterness:?He will not grant true love that yearns to bless
The world, that it may only sigh?Back into itself and die."
The words here faltering sank to undertone:?Her soul was murmuring to itself alone?On some wide desolation, dark, unknown;
Whose limits, stretched from mortal sight?Touch the happy hills of light.
"I, toiling at the task assigned to me,?Am summoned from my labour suddenly:?The King recalls his handmaiden; and she
Submissively herself anoints,?Going whither He appoints.
"The sheaves are garnered now, her work is done,?The day is waning, and she must be gone,?To bend herself before the Holy One,
And strictly her appointed meed?There accept in very deed."
Dead silence, more than if a thunder-stroke?Had crashed the summer air, my sense awoke?To sudden apprehension: hard the yoke
Of misery was mine to bear;?Wrath-befooled, in my despair
I went, and, leaning from the lattice, mused?On my immeasurable woe; accused?Heaven's King, that, like an earthly king, abused
His power omnipotent, and hurled?Curses broadcast on the world.
Then glancing toward her danger thought, "A cell?Of noxious vapours this dull life; as well?She should escape: so pure! she scarce could dwell
With sinful creatures who alway?Stumbling take the stain of clay
"But I unworthy! How in conscience I--?How could I hazard guidance in her high?Cold path of duty leading to the sky!
As well hold torch to light a star?Shining, mystic, nebular.
"She yearns to bless the world: just love for all?Best shows in love for one; love cannot fall?Like sunshine over half this wondrous ball,
But her impulses yearn to bless?All the world. Strange tenderness!"
This shameful mockery of myself alone?Was interrupted by a sobbing moan?That brought me to her coach, where low mine own
Sweet Love lay swooning ashy white,?Eyelids closing from the light.
Ah, coarse, hard, bitter, brutal self! A beast?In passion, nay far worse than such, to feast?On baseless anger against her whose least
Stray word was kind; her daily food?Interest in another's good.
My passion then, like an unruly horse?Checked by a master's hand, fell slack; its force?Unnerved,