The Tent on the Beach | Page 6

monitor obeys;
And,
with the boldness that confesses fear,
Takes in the crowded sail, and
lets his conscience steer.
"Thanks for the fitting word he speaks,
Nor less for doubtful word
unspoken;
For the false model that he breaks,
As for the moulded
grace unbroken;
For what is missed and what remains,
For losses
which are truest gains,
For reverence conscious of the Eternal eye,

And truth too fair to need the garnish of a lie."
Laughing, the Critic bowed. "I yield
The point without another word;

Who ever yet a case appealed
Where beauty's judgment had been
heard?
And you, my good friend, owe to me
Your warmest thanks
for such a plea,
As true withal as sweet. For my offence
Of cavil, let
her words be ample recompense."
Across the sea one lighthouse star,
With crimson ray that came and
went,
Revolving on its tower afar,
Looked through the doorway of
the tent.

While outward, over sand-slopes wet,
The lamp flashed
down its yellow jet
On the long wash of waves, with red and green

Tangles of weltering weed through the white foam-wreaths seen.

"Sing while we may,--another day
May bring enough of
sorrow;'--thus
Our Traveller in his own sweet lay,
His Crimean
camp-song, hints to us,"
The lady said. "So let it be;
Sing us a
song," exclaimed all three.
She smiled: "I can but marvel at your
choice
To hear our poet's words through my poor borrowed voice."
. . . . .
Her window opens to the bay,
On glistening light or misty gray,

And there at dawn and set of day
In prayer she kneels.
"Dear Lord!" she saith, "to many a borne
From wind and wave the
wanderers come;
I only see the tossing foam
Of stranger keels.
"Blown out and in by summer gales,
The stately ships, with crowded
sails,
And sailors leaning o'er their rails,
Before me glide;
They
come, they go, but nevermore,
Spice-laden from the Indian shore,
I
see his swift-winged Isidore
The waves divide.
"O Thou! with whom the night is day
And one the near and far away,

Look out on yon gray waste, and say
Where lingers he.
Alive,
perchance, on some lone beach
Or thirsty isle beyond the reach
Of
man, he hears the mocking speech
Of wind and sea.
"O dread and cruel deep, reveal
The secret which thy waves conceal,

And, ye wild sea-birds, hither wheel
And tell your tale.
Let winds
that tossed his raven hair
A message from my lost one bear,--
Some
thought of me, a last fond prayer
Or dying wail!
"Come, with your dreariest truth shut out
The fears that haunt me
round about;
O God! I cannot bear this doubt
That stifles breath.

The worst is better than the dread;
Give me but leave to mourn my
dead

Asleep in trust and hope, instead
Of life in death!"
It might have been the evening breeze
That whispered in the garden

trees,
It might have been the sound of seas
That rose and fell;
But,
with her heart, if not her ear,
The old loved voice she seemed to hear

"I wait to meet thee: be of cheer,
For all is well!"
1865
. . . . .
The sweet voice into silence went,
A silence which was almost pain

As through it rolled the long lament,
The cadence of the mournful
main.
Glancing his written pages o'er,
The Reader tried his part
once more;
Leaving the land of hackmatack and pine
For Tuscan
valleys glad with olive and with vine.
THE BROTHER OF MERCY.
Piero Luca, known of all the town
As the gray porter by the Pitti wall

Where the noon shadows of the gardens fall,
Sick and in dolor,
waited to lay down
His last sad burden, and beside his mat
The
barefoot monk of La Certosa sat.
Unseen, in square and blossoming garden drifted,
Soft sunset lights
through green Val d'Arno sifted;
Unheard, below the living shuttles
shifted
Backward and forth, and wove, in love or strife,
In mirth or
pain, the mottled web of life
But when at last came upward from the
street
Tinkle of bell and tread of measured feet,
The sick man
started, strove to rise in vain,
Sinking back heavily with a moan of
pain.
And the monk said, "'T is but the Brotherhood
Of Mercy
going on some errand good
Their black masks by the palace-wall I
see."
Piero answered faintly, "Woe is me!
This day for the first time
in forty years
In vain the bell hath sounded in my ears,
Calling me
with my brethren of the mask,
Beggar and prince alike, to some new
task
Of love or pity,--haply from the street
To bear a wretch
plague-stricken, or, with feet
Hushed to the quickened ear and
feverish brain,
To tread the crowded lazaretto's floors,
Down the
long twilight of the corridors,
Midst tossing arms and faces full of

pain.
I loved the work: it was its own reward.
I never counted on it
to offset
My sins, which are many, or make less my debt
To the free
grace and mercy of our Lord;
But somehow, father, it has come to be

In these long years so much a part of me,
I should not know myself,
if lacking it,
But with the work the worker too would die,
And in
my place some other self would sit
Joyful or sad,--what matters, if
not I?
And now all's over. Woe is me!"--"My son,"
The monk said