'A pure sweet life, that came upon our earth,
Stay'd for a space, and then went back to heaven.'
I know not how it is, but all the past
Is with me, speaking of its early things,
And in its voice a clearer, sweeter chord
Is heard, and I, half in a waking dream,
Musing upon the music, think awhile
Like one who on a sudden sees two paths,
And halts uncertain which to take, until
One tells him, and he straightway goes his way;
So, thinking on that voice, a gracious time
Comes back, and in its light I stand, and say,
A touch of sorrow in my whisper, 'Strange
That there should be so much to move my soul
In words so plain and simple—Agnes died.'
But let me trace a pathway through the years,
Whose tombs are pillars that bear up the past,
And lay my hand upon that time when she
Knew not the shadow creeping on her cheek,
Dulling its roses, but in happy strength
Met the sweet brow of every day that brought
Glad youth and all its fairy world to her.
The first of our acquaintance sprung from where
Most human friendships spring—the school, and we,
Half shy and strange at first, broke up the ground
With words of little use to older heads,
And questions, such as owe their birth to all
The inventive gift of children free to choose
What their quick fancy thinks is best; and now
You may be looking for a long account
Of wandering home in summer afternoons;
Of holidays in which we tasted heaven;
Of the long looking forward to that time
When six weeks made us like the kings and queens
In now forgotten tales. But not for me
Is such a task; I lack the words, not thought;
For, looking back, the glory of that time
Rises like light upon the dark, and makes
A halo round it, beautiful and bright,
As if we saw the sun through our own tears.
So we grew up, and with the kindly years
Our friendship grew the stronger, and I watch'd
With a boy lover's eye the opening bud
Of her sweet spirit; saw its infant germ
Expand beneath the breathing of the years,
Touch the soft outline of her gentle form,
And tint the cheek with colour like the rose
When first it breaks its little cell of green;
So I, who made her centre of my thought,
Became her worshipper; for when we know
The purity of that to which we bow
We grow sincere indeed. And she was all
That one might picture Eve to be when in
The slumber of her Paradise she woke,
And found herself within the clasp of flowers.
What wonder, then, if Agnes, yet a child,
Was to me all I wish'd for, that my life
Took half its being from the warmth of hers;
That all my motions were as if her eyes
Kept watch upon me; that my sleep became
The silent picture of the day, and set
The sweet rehearsal of my waking thoughts
Before me in the fairy hue of dreams;
That her sweet voice made all my pulses thrill,
While the light touch of her ethereal hand
Made the heart quicken, as beneath the shock
Of strangely started fears or open wrong.
O! love like this is worth ten years of all
The staider bearing of a sober manhood.
And if, perchance, we smile at all the warmth
Of boyish passion in those early days,
It reaches further than the lips, and in
The heart we feel the sadness living on,
Crown'd with the vain regret, the broken light
Of an existence only to be seen
Lighting some distant peak within the heart.
So I in Agnes found another life,
And felt the wonder of another land,
As if an angel had come down from heaven
To fill me with a little of his joy.
But did her eyes find out this love of mine,
And catch the worship which I wrapt her in?
This was the question which I ask'd myself,
But found no fitting answer to reply;
For she partook so much of simple things,
And had such purity of thought and speech,
That if a thought of love had wing'd its flight
Across the open spaces of her heart,
It would have lost itself at once within
The fair fresh foliage of its innocent depths,
As when a bird will fly across a vale
And sink from sight amid a wealth of leaves.
Thus thought I, as the happy days flew on,
Flinging their sweetest light on me, until
A shadow fell upon my heart, and struck
The blossoms I had form'd, as when a hand
Strikes all unwittingly a feeble rose,
Whose leaves—full spent and ripe—fling down at once
Their rosy graces on the heedless ground.
For Agnes changed, and yet no change I knew,
But still it was a change, for which no name
Grew on the lip; a fear, a little touch
Of some soft warning, yet without its force.
But let me try to paint that one sweet day
We spent within the woods, before her strength
Grew a soft traitor, and confined her steps
To the hush'd precincts of her sacred room.
The sun was bright that day, and all the sky
Glimmer'd like magic with its sunniest light,
As if it knew that I, in later times,
Would look back on that fading light, and sigh,
And sadden at that splendour sunk in death.
We took our way along a path which kept
Our footsteps by a lake, wherein was seen
A little island dripping to the edge
With golden lilies, double in their bloom;
When some, more amorous than the rest, leant o'er
And nodded to their shadows seen below.
The coot came forth at times to shew the speck
Of white upon his wings, then swept away
Behind the twisted roots. The silent heron,
Amid the tiny pillars of the reed,
Kept eager watch, nor stirr'd upon his post,
But stood a feather'd patience waiting prey;
While in the woods the birds, as if ashamed
Of all their silence through the night, made up
The loss by one great gush of varied song,
Flooding all things, until the very leaves
Flutter'd to find a voice to vent their joy.
We heard the piping of the amorous thrush—
The bird that sings with all his soul in heaven—
The mellow blackbird, and the pert redbreast,
Whose song was bolder than his own bright eye;
While fainter notes of lesser choristers
Came in like semitones to swell the whole;
While over all, to crown this one great song,
The lark—the grey Apollo of his race,
The feather'd Pan, the spirit clad in song—
High up, and in the very sight of heaven,
Pour'd downward with the brightness of the smiles
Of angels all his spirit, leaving doubts
Whether his song belong'd to God or us.
And there we sat within the woods, and saw
The lake between the trees, and now and then
The gentle shadow of a cloud above
Passing along its bosom, as a thought
Across the calmness of a poet's brow.
And all around the lilies grew, and on
The bank beside us, rearing its sweet head,
The azure fairy of the woodland grass,
That has a spot of heaven for its eye,
The violet nestled, while, close by its side,
The primrose, yellow star of earth's green sky,
Peep'd up in bold surprise, and, further on,
An orchis, like the fiery orb of Mars,
Rose up with purple mouth agape to catch
All murmurs and all scents that came its way.
So in this Paradise we sat, until
We broke the silence with soft speech, to fit
The purer thought which, at the golden touch
Of the pure things beside us, grew within,
Blowing to instant blossom. Then our talk
Took simple bounds, and, with a fond delight,
We touch'd on all the heart will think, when youth
Ranges throughout its chambers; like to one
Who dares the sanctity of some fair room,
And finds in every corner fresh delight.
But I was bound by one great spell which she
Knew nothing of. I could not speak my love,
Nor could she see it, though in that sweet guise
In which we hide it only to be seen.
And so the converse sped—now quick at times,
Now slow, and then an interval in which
We went through all the paths of spoken thought,
Making the pleasure double by retouching
In silence the past interchange of words.
We felt the welcome of the summer day,
We heard its music rising everywhere;
Yet strange that all our thoughts should slip away
And strike a chord that beat not unison
With all this joy; for from our dreams and smiles
We shrunk, and, with a shadow in our eyes,
We struck upon the cypress'd edge of death.
Then solemn grew our converse, and she spoke
In low, sweet whispers, which to me were spells
Of deeper quiet, as she strove to make
A land wherein a great world moves like ours
Distinct and clear to all the grosser eye;
And simple as herself she painted heaven.
She knew not, as she spoke, how all my heart
Follow'd her words, and hung upon their tones
Helpless, and with no wish to change the task,
But catch the eloquence of what she spoke,
For truth lives nowhere but in simple words.
I hear her voice again this very hour
Clear and distinct, as if the death it wore
Made it the clearer, even as two friends,
Apart from each, but with a lake between,
Will keep up converse, losing not a word,
Because the faithful waters like between.
But let me to the end, nor lengthen out
This memory only for myself, for dreams
Bring to the dreamers only pain or joy.
In two weeks after all I held as sweet
And pure of Agnes was within the grave.
For since time found a being comes this truth,
The sweetest heart within the sweetest breast
Beats not a tune to gain the ear of death.
So Agnes died, as flowers will die when frost
Falls, ere the sun is up, upon their bloom;
Or when some curious hand will open up
The undeveloped bud, that by its hue
The eye may picture forth the perfect flower.
Thus into the great garden of this life
Came death, and, lighting with an eager eye
Upon the bud I thought would bloom for me,
He prest aside the leaves that hid as yet
The glorious promise of a glorious flower,
Letting its unripe fragrance sink and die,
And so despoil'd it; leaving unto me
The scatter'd leaves to gather up at will.
So Agnes went away, when all her life
Stood like a prophet, mixing in its cup
Rare hopes, and novel tasks, and gentle things;
And just as she had raised it to her lips
To touch the golden nectar, lo! it fell
In rainbow pieces at her stricken feet;
And from the fragments lying now in dust,
As jewels glimmer through the barren sand,
Have I shaped out this sacred memory
Of her who rose upon my young pure life
First planet there, as in the midnight sky
A meteor lingers till it grasps the sight,
Then fades behind the fretwork of the stars.