Claudia/Part 4

by Fanny Ash Prideaux

Part IV.

Now as they talked, a turning in the path
Revealed a crooked ash which bent beyond
The corner of the wood. Cheered by the sign
They crossed the stream, and round about the tree
Searched the close thicket. But the place was dark,
Dark with the double shade of eventide
And overhanging trees, and baffled them.
Till bending to the ground the Maccabee
Found a faint track, and following the track
The trees withdrew, leaving a level turf
Between their ranks, grateful to way-worn feet.
Now too their ears grew happy with a sound
That made them hasten, gathering as they went
The growing clue, until at length they saw
A rustic lodge, dim-outlined in the dusk,
But all alive within with rosy light
That sparkled through each crevice in the walls,
And drew them on the faster. From this lodge
The music came; which as they drew more near
Divided to a double melody:
The voice of one who made herself a child
To please her babe, and the babe's dovelike voice
In wordless answers. Then the Maccabee,
Heart-tendered with the thought of those at home,
Crept noiselessly towards the wedge of light
That split the darkness near the unlatched door;
And Julius following, they both stood mute
Peering within. Unconscious of their gaze
A peasant woman stood before the hearth,
Erect, elastic; and her rounded arms
Shone in the firelight as she tossed a babe,
That held its fluttering breath at each ascent,
But crowed and babbled as her careful arms
Caught it again in safety to her breast.
Again, again, she tossed the laughing child,
And answered it in baby-syllables,
With merry turns of voice and flashing smiles.
But soon the child's voice faltered, and soft clouds
Began to gather in its drooping eyes.
At which the mother ceased her merriment
And pressed it to her bosom, sinking down
On a low stool. Then waving to and fro
With slumberous movement, sang a lullaby
Framed in her first delight of motherhood.

  "Aye, sleep, my darling, sleep!
  Thy tender soul soon tires
Of this our life. Though large and bright to me,
  'Tis small and dim to thee,
Fresh from the Heaven to which my soul aspires,
  But has forgotten long.
And therefore often thou withdraw'st and diest
Out of thy little temple here, and flyest
  Back to thy glorious home;
  Beneath whose dome
O happy, swift-winged, homeward flying swallow,
  Thou hast thy lasting rest.
  A softer, fairer nest
Than even this which lies upon my breast
  So vacant and so still.
  But over which I will,
Whilst thou art absent, faithful watches keep.
Ànd all the time thy blissful flight
  I'll follow In a soft murmured song.

  "Aye, sleep, my darling, sleep!
  I see thee mounting far.
The light grows brighter on thy earnest wings
  And richer radiance flings
About thy path. Above the highest star
  Thou risest easily,
Upward, still upward, through the pale blue foldings
Of the air-curtains, till the golden mouldings
  Of the ever open door
  Glitter before
Thy quiet eyes, undazzled yet enraptured.
  And through that open door
  The angel-children pour
Their silvery songs of welcome evermore.
  And now they crowd around
  Their newly lost and found
To question if thy homely service keep
Thee longer from them, sorrowfully captured
  By time, and sin, and me.

  "Aye, sleep, my darling, sleep!
  Sun thy chilled soul awhile
In the warm splendour of the living ray
  Which makes eternal day.
Yea! sun thyself in the life-giving smile
  Of the eternal love.
But O! I charge thee! do not fondly hearken
To those bright playmates' pleadings: my eyes darken
  With undropped tears, to think
  How life would shrink
To nothingness if thou wert gone for ever.
  Tell them,—thy course though low
  Slips with a softened flow
Through banks of sweetness theirs can never know;
  Tell them,—thou hast but done
  As did the Holy One;
Who left the calm of Heaven that he might reap
Out of the fields of sorrow, joy that never
  Could else be stored above.

  "Aye, sleep, my darling, sleep!
  Meanwhile thy silent lips,
Left open like the cage to tempt the dove,
  Are eloquent with love.
And from their pure, fresh fountain my soul sips
  Lessons of peace and rest.
From these dear arms, for ever fondly turning,
Even in slumber, towards me, I am learning
  In every time and state
  Meekly to wait
Upon the care of the eternal Father;
  And to feel after Him
  When all besides is dim,
When in a sea of doubt my fancies swim
  And faith's strong arm grows numb.
  When hurtful phantoms come
And through the curtains of thy slumber peep,
Thou dost not struggle from me, but dost rather
  Cling closer to my breast."

As the song ceased, a heavy hasty step
Came crushing through the brushwood; and Cadair,
The faithful herdsman of the captive prince,
Strode sternly towards the pilgrims. But the ring
On Ilid's finger cleared his brow, and turned
The fierce demand that started to his lips
Into a cordial welcome. At his voice
Estrildis rose, laid down the sleeping babe,
And flew to greet him, glancing bashfully
At those two strangers.
            But as thus she came,
The meaning of her countenance was changed,
And with a startled look that overshot
The pilgrims and Cadair, she fixed her gaze
On something in the rear. Then,—as they turned
To see the scope of those wide-opened eyes,—
She sprang beyond them all, fell down before
The feet of Guendolen, embraced her knees,
And cried aloud amidst her happy tears;—
"O is it thou? my lady Guendolen!
How have I prayed for this! and wilt thou deign
To shelter 'neath our roof the stately head
That I have mourned as houseless, bare to all
The buffets of the storm without, within.
My soul is lost in joy and gratitude
That cannot speak in words."
              Then Guendolen
Lifted her up and pressed her in her arms
With kind caresses; saying,"—Yes, I come,
But not as deigning, Estrild; not to bow
A stately head: that pride has passed away.
The father-God has found me: He has sent
His servants and has brought me home to Him.
If He himself walked as a man with men
Along the common pathways of the world,
What then am I, to wrap my wounded soul
In solitary state of proud disdain,
And waste to death away from all my kind?
Therefore I leave the desolate wilds wherein
My soul has been the prey of evil thoughts.
Sorrow may still be mine, but not despair.
For if I find my child or find her not,
She is not lost; and in the after-world
Gladys shall nestle in my arms again.
And as for thy lost daughter," as she spoke
Shd turned to Julius, "she whom thou dost mourn
As captive in the snares of wicked men,
The light that blends the future with the past
And makes one lucid present of our lives,
Has shone for me, and shows that in the hour
I clasp my child, thine will be rescued too.
Or here or in the blessed after-world
The parents and the children meet again."
 Here then in Cadair's hut for five long years
The pilgrims made their central home; while far
Along the terraced mountain-paths, and down
The deep secluded vales; over bleak heaths,
And through the tangled marshes of the coast;
From southern Isca by the tawny sea
To where the Sacred Island fronts the north;
From th' eastern streams to where the unknown main
Breaks on the western shores; their patient feet
Passed and repassed, blessing the land they trod.
From time to time, with many an anxious space
Lengthening between, came news from distant Rome.
Letters from Miriam, full of tender talk
Of babes and home and kindred. Letters too
From Brân the prince and Caradoc the king,
A willing vassal of the conquering Christ,
And passed through mystic waters to His side:
Letters from all save Claudia, But of her
Nothing but dubious rumours of the snares
That thickened round her feet: nothing to cheer
The heart of Julius, who still mourned for her
As one who morns an only, darling child
Dying unsuccoured on a distant shore.
 But whether they rejoiced for Caradoc,
Or wept for Claudia, still their steadfast souls
Were true to their high calling; still they sought
The scattered Cymri in their secret haunts,
And found them stern and sad, rent of by force
From the old rule and worship of the land;
Scorning their conquerors much; but scorning more
The childish herd who, dazzled by success,
Grovelled before them; scorning most of all
The few, base-hearted, howe'er nobly born,
Who, guessing at the issue ere the fight,
Had knit a shameful treaty with the foe;
And now reaped golden harvests from the fields
Watered with Cymric blood.
             In such a mood
The pilgrims found the noblest of the land:
Whether the simple herdaman who scarce knew
His grandsire's name, or prince whose long descent
Baffled tho practised memories of the bards:
Herdsman or prince, still noblest of the land,
And fitting well their words to such a mood,
And fitting well their actions to their words,—
Not by a painful piecing hero and there,
But by the easy outgrowth of the heart,—
They drew from many a deeply wounded soul
The venom of its misery, and poured
Into its smarting hurts a triple balm:
The balm of trust in the Eternal Power
That fashions all things to their fittest end:
Of trust in the Eternal Love that lives,
And dies, and rises ever in the worlds;
That late had taken human form to live
More lovingly among us, and to die
More sadly for us, and to rise again
More radiantly before us; and of trust
In the Eternal Holiness which breathes
A rarer life within the soul, nor rests
Till all the being is attuned to God.
 And ever as they taught would Julius hang
His teaching on the teachings of the bards;
Would note the solid beams that still upheld
Their tottering temple, and essay to drive
The nail of doctrine in the surest place.
While, true as Julius to the differing type,
The Maccabee tore down the old beliefs,
And built the shining palace of the King
Sheer from the earth on unencumbered ground,
With no misgivings of the depths below.
Yet not in craft, but by a natural choice
Thus did the pilgrims. Even as the pine,
Shooting abruptly to the gracious sun,
Fringes his spiry height with russet cones;
While standing in close brotherhood, the oak,
Slow-rising on his broadened base of roots,
Thoughtfully bends his knotted arms, and moulds
A polished acorn finely here and there.
 So each was faithful to his proper trust;
So each was fruitful in his proper kind.
And as they passed about the Cymric wilds
They sowed immortal seed. But then as now
Not all the soil was fruitful. Then as now
The many who with open hearts embraced
The heavenly message, seemed but few to those
Who held them closely barred. For some were loath
To satisfy the hunger of their souls
With any Bread of Life unless they knew
The title to the field where grew the wheat,
Though all the while the inner instinct cried,
"Alas! I perish while thou cavillest."
Some closed their hearts through jealous reverence
For all their fathers reverenced of old.
Unmindful that the present sees the past
Such as it would, and throws a shifting light
Now here, now there, upon the narrowing track
Unrolled behind, while vaster intervals
Lie buried in the shade. Unmindful too
That not the distant years that are no more,
But these, the very days in which we live,
Are earth's old age:—that not our sires but we
Are the true ancients, on whose hoary heads
Time heaps his snows. But more, even as now,
Held back through utter earthliness: they saw
No beauty in the things unseen, nor felt
Their thrilling touch reach to the inmost soul,
Nor heard their still small voice, that overtops
To hearing ears the thunders of the world.
 Thus through the mourning land the pilgrims went,
And on her mountains swathed in tearful mists
Their soiled and weary feet were beautiful.
But in the midst of mighty thoughts, and aims
That stretched beyond the confines of the world,
They still remembered Guendolen, and still
Sought for her long-lost child. Yea, more than once,—
When worn with months of pilgrimage they came
To rest awhile within the herdsman's hut,
Where still she dwelt with Estrild and Cadair,—
Some glimpse of gold upon a maiden's head
Shining among the dark Silurian girls,
As shines some sunny-blossomed tree among
Its sombre woodland peers, turned them aside
To learn its owner's history. And in days
So gloomed with exile, treachery, and war,
Full many a Cymric orphan might be found
Whose brief life held a world of mystery.
Whose memory faintly traced benignant forms
That moved and smiled about her infant years,
Then slipped into the dark and came no more.
But ever as they searched into the tale
Some ruthless fact destroyed the lengthening clue,
And fair-haired Gladys, almost grasped, was gone.
 Meanwhile how slowly crept the days, the months,
The fearful years to Claudia, far away
Within the wicked city of the South.
For on her shrinking spirit closely pressed
The evil powers: the creeping hosts which haunt
The lower grounds of our frail being, and those
Whose proud wings darken all the upper air
Where the mind breathes. Not only in her home
The shadows deepened on her daily life,
The snares grew thicker round her trembling feet;
But all the broad horizon of the times
Now gathered blackness. Vilest cruelty
And viler luxury sapped the state, till Rome
Became one ghastly pitfall, ill-concealed
By glittering shows. The dull-souled Claudius
Had passed away; and in his stead arose
A madman by whose whitest deeds the worst
Wrought by his sire seemed pure and merciful;
Yet the degenerate city fawned and crouched
At Nero's feet. An ever-dwindling few,
Still faithful to the spirit of the past,
Might worship virtue secretly and mourn
The apostate times. But growing throngs on throngs,—
Senators, ladies of the noblest lines,
Knights of great name, rich freedmen, and a host
Of hired plebeians,—courted greedily
The gilded wheels that ground them in the dust.
In such a scene she dwelt: as much alone
As a sane man immured with maniacs:
And but for Him whose presence like a dove
Brooded for ever on her troubled thoughts,
The wild despairs and fearful merriments
Had with a horrid fascination drawn
Her soul into the gulf. But still through all
His strength upheld her. Yes, at times it took
A shape of human succour. More than once
When her last spark of hope was almost quenched,
Her latest door of rescue seemed fast barred,
The spirit of Brân would reach her through the dark,
Divine her perils, and provide esсаре.
Or else Pomponia by a faithful slave,
Or by a sign when at the daily board
They met in terror of the watchful gleam
That shot from under Plautius' shaggy brows,
Would warn her darling. Or more strange than all,
Pudens himself, her dearest, worst of foes,
Would shine as her deliverer. For the knight,—
Though armed with all her sire's authority
To seize on Claudia and to bear her home,
His promised bride, spite of her wilfulness;
And urged yet more by his own passionate heart
That doted on her beauty, doting still
Through years of disappointment;—ever found
His resolution daunted and withheld
As by an unseen power, so that he shrank
Out of her sight abashed.
            So passed the years,
Four seeming endless years, since Julius went.
And in the fifth the evil powers closed round
Her trembling spirit for a last assault.
The spring breathed softly on the flowery world
Around the pleasant farm at Tusculum
Where Plautius bore her, and it seemed to melt
The firmness of her purpose. Then a voice,
A flattering voice, said sweetly in herself,—
'Do I not wrong kind Nature? Can it be
That these melodious musics of the world;
These lovely forms and hues that swell and shine
On every side; these most delicious scents
And flavours; these caresses of the breeze,
And of this soft turf where my limbs subside
With such an easy languor;—can it be
That all these things are prophecies in vain?
Lo! I have fasted many days, and made
This fruitful world a barren wilderness;
But God made all things good, and good for me.
Let me fling back the fivefold door of sense
And look abroad; yea, taste and handle all
That makes life worth the living. Why? my heart,
Why wast thou framed so softly, but to take
Impression from another, stronger heart?
When Pudens speaks, why does my every nerve
Thrill at his voice? Who strung my being thus?
Not I but God; Whom yet I think to serve
By flat denial of the tender claim.
If Pudens' love were like the lawless love
Of others, there were cause to shrink from it;
But is he not my own betrothed, and I
Bound to him by the will of Plautius,
Whom God has set above me as my sire?
My disobedience and my wilfulness
Drive him to deeper darkness, make him hate
The light that leads me from him; but methinks,
My hand in his upon the path of life,
He were a ready convert to my zeal.'
 And Claudia listened while the flattering voice
Poured on, with many a pensive pause between,
Its subtle music in her secret ear.
Music more ravishingly sweet than songs
Of the shy bird whose fitful, luscious notes
Thrill the rich twilights of the early June.
And as she listened her young heart confessed
Its weakness, and implored her to relent.
But dumbly resolute her spirit fell
Before the unseen shrine, and rose again
Renerved and vigorous, armed with holy thoughts.—
'Nay, liar as thou wast from evermore,
Man lives not by the lifeless bread alone,
But by the living word. Each several sense
May revel in a full satiety,
And yet, the essence of the man grow lean
And starve to perishing. And each may lack
Its object, yet the inner soul rejoice
In rich abundance of delight and peace.
But one thing thon say'st truly. God has made
All Nature good; yea, good for me, for all:
Good, not the best: a more transcendent good
He sets before the senses of the soul:
To grow through discipline of loss and pain,—
Yes, may be through a discipline of joy,—
Into His likeness. Dost thon mock at me?
O cruel tempter! asking of my heart—
Why not for thee this discipline of joy?
My heart is weak and cannot answer thee;
But my soul answers boldly to thy face,
I know not; but I know that earthly joy
For me as yet is a forbidden thing:
A blooming fruit which my rash hand would crash
To bitter ashes. Wherefore get thee hence.'
 The tempting voice that spoke within her heart
Was silent after this a little space.
The days passed on, the heavy April rains
Saddened the skies, and all her spirit sank
In chill depression. Then it spoke again:
No more in flattering tones, but with a hard,
Metallic ring of self-abandonment:—
'Yea, 'tis too true. I erred, wooing myself
To taste the sweetness I must never know.
I am a miserable, orphaned wretch
Without a home, a country, or a name.
Doubtless my Maker has forgotten me.
What boots to Him my petty faithfulness?
I, a poor atom in the rolling mass,
The long procession of the lives of men,
Of what account am I in such a sum,
Whose reckoning runs beyond my farthest thought?
Can the light feather of my littleness,
Laid here or there, be strong to discompose
The balance of the skies? And if my God
Cared for my safety, would He snatch away
My main support, my father Julius,
Yea, and Pomponia, mother of my love,
And leave me all unguided and alone?
That were mere madness. Nay, it is most plain
Sooner or later I must yield and fall.
Then why not now, and save myself at least
The miserable dread? Moreover too,
If that I am, as once I fondly dreamed,
One of His chosen children, I am safe.'
 And Claudia listened while the jarring voice
That spoke within the chamber of her heart
Rang its harsh changes on the true and false,
Until her soul grew dizzy and confused,
Until the solid ground of consciousness
Reeled round and seemed to open. Yet her soul,
Though sinking, sank before the feet of God
And rose re-strengthened, armed with holy thoughts.
Then thus she answered—
             'Dost thou think to fright
My weakness thus, O coward enemy?
True, God has given His angels charge to keep
My feet in all my ways, but not in thine.
My way lies only where my Lord appoints,
I may not tempt Him, choosing other paths.
And darest thou to whisper in my heart
He loves me not, He cares not for my love,
My lord, who died a thousand deaths for me?
Nay, though He slay me will I trust in Him.
The longest night must issue in the day,
The morning breaks already in my soul.'
 Again, a little space, the voice that spoke
Within the chamber of her heart was still.
The days passed on, the glorious summer burst
From clear Italian skies, and Claudia felt
The pride of the rich season swell within.
 Then spoke the evil spirit once again.
But neither in soft, flattering tones, nor yet
With a harsh ring of self-abandonment;
But with a stirring, trumpet-like appeal,
That echoed from some higher place and seemed.
To summon her to follow. Then she rose
Out of her meek abasement and went up
The mount of exaltation, while the voice
Sounded superbly, saying in her heart,—
Methinks not many would have safely borne
The tests that try the temper of my mind,
Try but to prove its strength. But I begin
At length to know myself. The softnesses
That vanquish others come not near my soul:
They touch but on the surface of the sense
Like wandering birds that skim the unfathomed sea,
But leave no trace behind. And solitude
And sorrow do not conquer my resolves.
I feel within a self-contenting strength
Which never fails, though all things round me fail.
It were a most ungrateful modesty
To doubt my difference from my peers, and this
Hints at a difference in our destinies.
'Tis said they speak of me at Cæsar's court;
That Martialis framed an epigram
Touching the gold locks and the violet eyes,
And how the Roman and the British dames
Disputed for the honour of my birth.
Strange things have happened in these days. Perchance
I yet might be Augusta, were it not
For this exclusive, almost sullen faith.
But 'twere an aim beneath me: deep within
I feel the stirring of strange powers that mock
At thrones and empires. Rather let me be
One of those rarely royal souls that take
Their times and fellows captive at their will,
By the resistless thought and wingéd word:
Nor only so, but stretch their sovereignty
O'er distant ages, races yet unborn.
How gloriously Apollo's statue stands!
Fair image of the thought that fires my soul;
A graceful god; divinely beautiful;
Divinely free from sorrow; whom no touch
Of rude hands dare assail. But yet no need
To quit the service of the Crucified.
I well might worship Him in secret still:
He looks but at the heart. These foolish gods
Of heathendom are nought but empty names.
Sprinkling a little incense on their shrines,
I bind myself to nothing, while I win
The glory of the kingdoms of the world.'
 And Claudia listened while the trumpet voice
Thus sounded in the chamber of her heart.
Her pulse beat strangely, and the mounting blood
Kindled her cheek and flushed her breadth of brows,
While her eyes flashed ambition, But at length
The wily tempter overreached himself,
A horror seized upon her shuddering soul,
And at the feet of God she fell, to rise
Strong in His strength; re-armed with holy thoughts.
Then thus she answered to the evil one:—
 'False, boastful spirit, all thy potent skill
Fails to conceal thee. Thy bold blasphemy
Stands forth unveiled and hideous, breaking through
Its thin disguise. But were I all thou say'st,
Would that give cause to turn against the hand
That made me such? Would that thy swelling words
Of flattery were true! that I were more
A thousand-fold than thou hast dared to say!
Then were my life a worthier offering
On the pure altar of the God of gods,
My Father, my Redeemer. Yet e'en then
How worthless a return for His vast love!
How torn and blemished in His holy eyes!'
 Then, baffled utterly, the voice was still.
But Claudia, like to one who in the games
Strives for the mastery with a cruel foe
And hardly wins, lay prostrate, almost dead.
For many days her weary soul crept through
Its little round of duty and of love,
Feebly, and almost blindly. But the while,
The unseen messengers of God encamped
About her lonely path, and held her steps,
And strengthened and renewed her inmost heart
With costly cordials from the heavenly store.
 And in those days she prayed, and said,
                    "O Lord!
Thou knowest all things, Thou dost know I love
Thee above all. Not as I ought to love,
Not with the joyous instinct of Thy saints,
Yet still sincerely with a love that longs
To grow beyond its feeble self, and change
Its languid preference for a glowing zeal.
Yea, Lord, Thou knowest all things: Thou dost know
I have been sorely pressed on every side:
My feet have almost gone from under me:
My steps have well-nigh slipped: the enemy
Has fought against me furiously; and though
Thou through Thy strength hast made me conqueror,
Yet am I sorely bruised and broken now.
Pity me, Lord! Thou knowest all my frame:
Remember I am dust! and therefore prone
To cleave thereto. Thou who before I was
Didst choose the mould wherein it pleased
Thee To cast my being, Thou dost fully know
The yearning weakness of my woman's heart.
Save me, my Father! save me from myself.
Let not my foes assail me suddenly,
While thus I languish. O most tender heart
Of Christ! have pity on my feebleness,
And send me succour, ere it be too late!"
 Meanwhile far off upon the Cymric shores,
Through all the early and the later spring,
And through the glowing centre of the year,
The pilgrims pushed their peaceful victories.
But when the summer waned and all the vales
Stood thick with golden sheaves whose tasselled heads
Drooped in the sun, there came a messenger
To Cadair's hut; where as their custom was
At harvest tide, although with unused arms,
They swayed the sickle in the narrow field
Won from the forest by the herdsman's skill.
 Thrice welcome was the word that messenger
Had borne within his girdle, writ at large
On creamy vellum, sealed with the king's seal.
 "Greetings be multiplied, O friends beloved,
To you and to the faithful household round,
And chiefly to our sister Guendolen.
Know that our exile ends, and that we seek
The mist-wreathed isle again. With us our sire,
Our queen, our daughter, and her Roman lord,
With others dear to us and dear to you:—
The spouse and children of the Maccabee,
And one beside. We charge you, spread not forth
The fame of this our coming, lest the few
That still have held their fealty should arise
To greet us as their king, and shed their blood
For that which cannot be; for we have sworn.
 "Now when this reaches you at harvest time
In Cadair's hut, then know in that same day
Our galley grates the shore. Forthwith arise:
Beyond Trefrân, beyond Dunraven's hill
Pursue the sunset, till a river bars
Your farther steps. Thence turning inland track
The river's course along a winding vale
For nigh three leagues. Then will the valley's head
Branch out in antlers to the right and left.
Adown the open vale upon the right
A still stream glides below a rock-crowned hill.
Adown the narrow glen upon the left
A torrent roars among huge tumbled rocks.
Follow the torrent till its calming voice
Yields to the murmur of a waterfall.
Cross at the ford below the fall and search
The wooded heights above, and you shall find
A rustic dwelling. There await in peace
Our coming. These are writ by Caradoc."
 Speechless with joy and wonder at the first,
Then with a tangled tide of questions, poured
In the confused ears of the messenger,
They heard the thrice-bless'd news, and straight arose
To follow where the king had pointed them;
And Guendolen would fain have followed too,
But hearkened to their counsel, and delayed
Until the lodge were fitted to receive
Its royal guests.
        Upon the second morn
They tracked the vale below the rock-crowned height
That lifted grey and ivied battlements
Against the purple heath of distant hills.
But since the unshorn forest filled the land
It was but here and there between the boughs
They caught a distant glimmer of the crags;
But here and there athwart the underwood,—
Thick with tall ferns, and hemlocks silvery green,
And flecked with flakes of sunlight,—could they see
The glitter of the river in the sun.
Along a rough and tangled forest-track
They pressed with eager steps. The Maccabee
With vigorous limbs beat back the encroaching boughs,
Clearing the path for Julius' reverend form,
Bent low with years and toils; and as he snapped
The shining toughness of the hazel stems,
And crushed the giant hemlocks under foot,
And flung back brief directions and replies
To Julius in the rear, he seemed inspired
As with a double life. Whene'er he spoke,
Although the theme were trivial, his deep tones
Were mellow with a secret joy, his looks
Shed on the meanest things a gorgeous light.
A ray shot outwards from the dazzling hope
That glorified his heart; the hope that soon,—
So God preserved her in the hours between,—
His eyes so long divorced from her sweet looks,
His ears so long bereft of her sweet voice,
His life so long the restless widower
Of her meek wisdom, should be filled once more
With Miriam's presence.
            So the Maccabee
Pushed onwards eagerly, and Julius' heart
Was light, and lightly rose on wings of praise.
To both the myriad myriad leaves and flowers,—
Each happy with its sparkle of the sun,
Or with its cool nest of translucent shade;—
And all the countless creatures of the wood,
Insects and birds and nimble-footed things
That glanced across the dappled ground, or sprang
From bough to bough, seemed like an instrument
Of many strings, played by a master's hand,
Tuned to the joy that sang within their hearts.
 So went the dewy morning-hours. But now
The languor of the limbs began to steal
Upon the watching brain, began to numb
Its active workings; till at length one thought
Repeated in the same unvaried chime
Was all it could. Then for the Maccabee
Rang to and fro the king's heart-thrilling phrase:—
"With others dear to us and dear to you."
And if a playful wavelet of the stream
Swerved to the side against a mossy root
It softly said to him,—'and dear to you.'
While ever in the ears of Julius rang
"And one beside;" and all the teeming life
Within the woods re-echoed,—'one beside.'
 Thus then they fared along; and when they reached
The antlers of the vale, the drowsy noon
Lulled all the warm earth and the glowing sky.
Each bush that greenly dotted the hill side
Slept on its own blue carpeting of shade,
And all the tender voices of the wood
Drooped faint and low. Yet onward, onward still
The pilgrims pushed unflagging, through the glen
Where the white torrent poured through tumbled rocks.
And when the creeping shadows might be seen
To have veered a little eastward, they could hear
The deep-toned murmur of a waterfall
Above the jangle of the nearer stream.
And when the sun, aslant through sloping boughs,
Trickled in jewels down the enamelled bark
Of beech and ash and ruddy sycamore,
They saw beyond the border of the wood
The tremulous, silvery flashing of the fall.
And now the path, emerging from the trees,
Led its white track across a pebbly beach
That floored the hollow scooped by the cascade.
Here for a space the stream unrolled itself
Smooth as a riband on the level stones,
And narrowed by the drought. Behind, the cliffs
Were streaked and stained far upwards; for the storms
And thaws of winter filled the hollow gulf
With eddying whirlpools, whose long swell upswept
Against the rocky walls, now greenly gay
With ivy-wreaths and fringes of the fern.