Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. | Page 7

opening day.
On the wild purple mountains, all alone with no other,
The strong
terrible mountains he longed, he longed to be; And he stooped to kiss
his father, and he stooped to kiss his mother, And till I said, "Adieu,
sweet Sir," he quite forgot me.

He wrote of their white raiment, the ghostly capes that screen them, Of
the storm winds that beat them, their thunder-rents and scars, And the
paradise of purple, and the golden slopes atween them, And fields,
where grow God's gentian bells, and His crocus stars.
He wrote of frail gauzy clouds, that drop on them like fleeces, And
make green their fir forests, and feed their mosses hoar; Or come
sailing up the valleys, and get wrecked and go to pieces, Like sloops
against their cruel strength: then he wrote no more.
O the silence that came next, the patience and long aching! They never
said so much as "He was a dear loved son;"
Not the father to the
mother moaned, that dreary stillness breaking: "Ah! wherefore did he
leave us so--this, our only one."
They sat within, as waiting, until the neighbors prayed them, At
Cromer, by the sea-coast, 'twere peace and change to be; And to
Cromer, in their patience, or that urgency affrayed them, Or because
the tidings tarried, they came, and took me.
It was three months and over since the dear lad had started: On the
green downs at Cromer I sat to see the view;
On an open space of
herbage, where the ling and fern had parted, Betwixt the tall white
lighthouse towers, the old and the new.
Below me lay the wide sea, the scarlet sun was stooping,
And he
dyed the waste water, as with a scarlet dye;
And he dyed the
lighthouse towers; every bird with white wing swooping Took his
colors, and the cliffs did, and the yawning sky.
Over grass came that strange flush, and over ling and heather, Over
flocks of sheep and lambs, and over Cromer town;
And each filmy
cloudlet crossing drifted like a scarlet feather Torn from the folded
wings of clouds, while he settled down.
When I looked, I dared not sigh:--In the light of God's splendor, With
His daily blue and gold, who am I? what am I?
But that passion and

outpouring seemed an awful sign and tender, Like the blood of the
Redeemer, shown on earth and sky.
O for comfort, O the waste of a long doubt and trouble!
On that sultry
August eve trouble had made me meek;
I was tired of my sorrow--O
so faint, for it was double
In the weight of its oppression, that I could
not speak!
And a little comfort grew, while the dimmed eyes were feeding, And
the dull ears with murmur of water satisfied;
But a dream came
slowly nigh me, all my thoughts and fancy leading Across the bounds
of waking life to the other side.
And I dreamt that I looked out, to the waste waters turning, And saw
the flakes of scarlet from wave to wave tossed on; And the scarlet mix
with azure, where a heap of gold lay burning On the clear remote sea
reaches; for the sun was gone.
Then I thought a far-off shout dropped across the still water-- A
question as I took it, for soon an answer came
From the tall white
ruined lighthouse: "If it be the old man's daughter That we wot of," ran
the answer, "what then--who's to blame?"
I looked up at the lighthouse all roofless and storm-broken: A great
white bird sat on it, with neck stretched out to sea; Unto somewhat
which was sailing in a skiff the bird had spoken, And a trembling
seized my spirit, for they talked of me.
I was the old man's daughter, the bird went on to name him; "He loved
to count the starlings as he sat in the sun;
Long ago he served with
Nelson, and his story did not shame him: Ay, the old man was a good
man--and his work was done."
The skiff was like a crescent, ghost of some moon departed, Frail,
white, she rocked and curtseyed as the red wave she crossed, And the
thing within sat paddling, and the crescent dipped and darted, Flying on,
again was shouting, but the words were lost.

I said, "That thing is hooded; I could hear but that floweth The great
hood below its mouth:" then the bird made reply. "If they know not,
more's the pity, for the little shrew-mouse knoweth, And the kite knows,
and the eagle, and the glead and pye."
And he stooped to whet his beak on the stones of the coping; And when
once more the shout came, in querulous tones he spake, "What I said
was 'more's the pity;' if the heart be long past hoping, Let