Poems (Shore)/Irene's Dream
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That wise and fools alike, the good and bad,
May shudder past her never-opened gate,
As from a dungeon sad,
And call the lovely, lonely creature mad.
III.—THE DREAM. MAY
IRENE'S DREAM
The following poem, whose purpose, in what has been left of it, is not very distinctly developed, is the story of a shadowy being, called Irene, combining attributes of Emily the sister who died many years before, of the writer's own self, and of her fairyland fancies. The first eighteen lines were intended as a portraiture of that sister and were afterwards wrought with some variations into the "Elegies," where Emily is more fully depicted under the name of Erinna.
I—IRENE.
Irene died,—a flame extinguished soon—
And flame she was, so fervent and so pure,
In childhood never more than half a child,
The grave young genius of the garden ground,
And all its lesser life of birds and flowers—
Still half a child in girlhood's eager prime;
Like some bright stranger from a nobler star
Bewildered by the littleness of this.
So—unlike others, though she knew it not,
She lived on heights and knew not they were high—
Apart and knew not that she lived alone.—
The height, th' unlikeness, and the loneliness
She would have known them all, but was to die
Ere she had sent her soul abroad to choose
Its own true mates out of the crowded world
And work out its own beautiful task on earth.
Some task was waiting for her—so we deem,
Its hopes, its fears, and failures all untried.
But a cloud came, no darker than a dream,
And of a phantom of the mind she died.
One morn she looked and spoke as through a veil,
Her looks and voice, so delicately bright,
Now muffled in a cold and dreary change,
Yet could not tender questioning prevail
To learn what meant her mind's distemper strange.
But as days passed she half shook off the dream,
And now on the familiar 1vory keys
Would ponderingly a faltering music play
As if recalling some unwritten theme,
Murmuring the while sweet words they scarce could catch,
Ranged in so quaint a sequence that they yearned
But once to hear the hinted music soar
On the full volume of her voice, but once
To revel in the perfect pleasure; yet
Still would she pause—then listen—rebegin,
And always one sweet burden would melt 1n,
Which, later, baffled yearning memory's search—
Oft caught and lost as by some slippery spell,
To make a want for ever in their souls,
When the belov'd musician was no more.
They asked her what her song meant—rapt awhile
She heard them not, then woke with half a smile;
Yet answered gravely, "'Tis the Fairies' Song.
You must all listen and remember it."
Yet was it lost at last.
Oft too she writ,
A spot of crimson kindling on each cheek,
Her eyes aflash with fever; but with care
Would hide the written page if they drew nigher
Or, questioned, with the petulant, bashful ire
Of youthful genius, or perchance the haste
Of one who dreads a too short hour to waste,
Made hurried answer, and bent down again.
They watched her, grieving, but she spoke at last
In her own studious sanctuary of art
All coloured and pervaded with herself
(As still it is—bright relics set apart,
And all her books untouched upon the shelf).
To one child sister listening reverently,
In words but vaguely understood she told,
With sweetly serious voice and lustrous eye,
All of her secret language could unfold.
"I pine away for ever for a dream,
A something found at night, by daylight lost,
So changing parts with life, its visions seem
The substance, and this waking world the ghost.
I love you all, and wonder what I do—
Thus strangely yearning for what is not you,
But yearning always. In my dream, my home
Rose up, a marble, white old Roman hall,
All echoing space, and sunlight, and the land,
It seemed, was Britain, Britain of old days,
Or such it grew upon my memory.
When I awoke—a square of waving grass,
Rich in the green luxuriance of its prime,
Blue with the dewy shine of hyacinths,
On three sides bowered with chestnut avenues,
Fronted the lovely mansion. I lived there,
Closed in from war and danger, friend and foe,
By guardian fairies who made everywhere
A wild small music, like to tinkling laughter;
And airy talks and rustlings followed after,
Amongst the rustling foliage, to and fro.
That calls back
A day of girlhood. Once, the first of June—
Do you remember?—you were all away,
And I, that lovely golden afternoon
Was lured, I know not by what spell, to stray
On, on to that forlorn, forbidden gate,
My childhood's earliest dream of hopeless wonder;
And then, for the first time, some unseen Fate,
Soon as I touched them, split its leaves asunder.
And 1in its mystery, mute and melancholy,
I saw the lovely, desolate domain,
The spell-bound, fire-wrecked walls of Fairy's Folly.
That garden—Oh I cannot make it plain,
The solemn slumber, the forgotten grace,
The lovely lornness of that sweet dead place,
Where blush-rose thickets and ceringa flowers
Still careless strayed o'er the deserted ground,
And violets white and blue crept through the bowers,
And butterflies amongst the brambles round
Found out gay blossoms in their leaves enshrined,
And old faint memories rose upon my mind—
A violet legend on an ancient mound,
Where only now that summer dream I found.
I cannot make it plain, that wonder world
Of glory. Vaguely I remember now
A day of mystery in my childhood spent,
Far off from here, in wandering at my will
Round a deserted, beautiful domain
And desolate ruined mansion which still stood
To witness through the ages that man once
Had pleasure in the spot. Still on my sense
Flashes the dreamy silver of that lake
Which, as it lay neglected in its reeds,
Mirrored with careless truth the blue, blue sky
And rosy fancies of the setting sun,
For my unshared delight.
Assuredly
That sweet, dead place was brought to life again
In my lost dream—a marble Roman hall
That seemed the growth of scarce historic times
Rose up complete. Yet English was the land,
English the garden. There I lived alone,
Familiar with the creatures of the place,
Wild squirrels, birds and insects, leaf and flower;
And for all human friends a silent pair,
The ancient surly woodman and his wife,
Who in their ivied cot much rather seemed
The natural growth of those forgotten shades
Than servants and companions of my home.
You were too young;[1] but I remember well
Old Urien with the grizzling auburn locks,
That on his sloping shoulders floated loose,
And worn red jacket, with his wrinkled face
And grave spare speech, quaint as some foreign tongue.
It was his very self I dreamed back there;
In his low woodland hut he reigned supreme
O'er tangled copse and thicket, and his axe
Rang with a sound of gloomy sovereignty;
While silent Nesta in and out of doors
Moved busy as some weird and withered spider.
The garden was my realm.
And then at last
There came a stranger visitor . . . . for whom
I seemed to have been waiting all my life,
So swiftly our souls met . . . . and then the pain,
The loneliness, the blankness of my loss.
And flame she was, so fervent and so pure,
In childhood never more than half a child,
The grave young genius of the garden ground,
And all its lesser life of birds and flowers—
Still half a child in girlhood's eager prime;
Like some bright stranger from a nobler star
Bewildered by the littleness of this.
So—unlike others, though she knew it not,
She lived on heights and knew not they were high—
Apart and knew not that she lived alone.—
The height, th' unlikeness, and the loneliness
She would have known them all, but was to die
Ere she had sent her soul abroad to choose
Its own true mates out of the crowded world
And work out its own beautiful task on earth.
Some task was waiting for her—so we deem,
Its hopes, its fears, and failures all untried.
But a cloud came, no darker than a dream,
And of a phantom of the mind she died.
One morn she looked and spoke as through a veil,
Her looks and voice, so delicately bright,
Now muffled in a cold and dreary change,
Yet could not tender questioning prevail
To learn what meant her mind's distemper strange.
But as days passed she half shook off the dream,
And now on the familiar 1vory keys
Would ponderingly a faltering music play
As if recalling some unwritten theme,
Murmuring the while sweet words they scarce could catch,
Ranged in so quaint a sequence that they yearned
But once to hear the hinted music soar
On the full volume of her voice, but once
To revel in the perfect pleasure; yet
Still would she pause—then listen—rebegin,
And always one sweet burden would melt 1n,
Which, later, baffled yearning memory's search—
Oft caught and lost as by some slippery spell,
To make a want for ever in their souls,
When the belov'd musician was no more.
They asked her what her song meant—rapt awhile
She heard them not, then woke with half a smile;
Yet answered gravely, "'Tis the Fairies' Song.
You must all listen and remember it."
Yet was it lost at last.
Oft too she writ,
A spot of crimson kindling on each cheek,
Her eyes aflash with fever; but with care
Would hide the written page if they drew nigher
Or, questioned, with the petulant, bashful ire
Of youthful genius, or perchance the haste
Of one who dreads a too short hour to waste,
Made hurried answer, and bent down again.
They watched her, grieving, but she spoke at last
In her own studious sanctuary of art
All coloured and pervaded with herself
(As still it is—bright relics set apart,
And all her books untouched upon the shelf).
To one child sister listening reverently,
In words but vaguely understood she told,
With sweetly serious voice and lustrous eye,
All of her secret language could unfold.
"I pine away for ever for a dream,
A something found at night, by daylight lost,
So changing parts with life, its visions seem
The substance, and this waking world the ghost.
I love you all, and wonder what I do—
Thus strangely yearning for what is not you,
But yearning always. In my dream, my home
Rose up, a marble, white old Roman hall,
All echoing space, and sunlight, and the land,
It seemed, was Britain, Britain of old days,
Or such it grew upon my memory.
When I awoke—a square of waving grass,
Rich in the green luxuriance of its prime,
Blue with the dewy shine of hyacinths,
On three sides bowered with chestnut avenues,
Fronted the lovely mansion. I lived there,
Closed in from war and danger, friend and foe,
By guardian fairies who made everywhere
A wild small music, like to tinkling laughter;
And airy talks and rustlings followed after,
Amongst the rustling foliage, to and fro.
That calls back
A day of girlhood. Once, the first of June—
Do you remember?—you were all away,
And I, that lovely golden afternoon
Was lured, I know not by what spell, to stray
On, on to that forlorn, forbidden gate,
My childhood's earliest dream of hopeless wonder;
And then, for the first time, some unseen Fate,
Soon as I touched them, split its leaves asunder.
And 1in its mystery, mute and melancholy,
I saw the lovely, desolate domain,
The spell-bound, fire-wrecked walls of Fairy's Folly.
That garden—Oh I cannot make it plain,
The solemn slumber, the forgotten grace,
The lovely lornness of that sweet dead place,
Where blush-rose thickets and ceringa flowers
Still careless strayed o'er the deserted ground,
And violets white and blue crept through the bowers,
And butterflies amongst the brambles round
Found out gay blossoms in their leaves enshrined,
And old faint memories rose upon my mind—
A violet legend on an ancient mound,
Where only now that summer dream I found.
I cannot make it plain, that wonder world
Of glory. Vaguely I remember now
A day of mystery in my childhood spent,
Far off from here, in wandering at my will
Round a deserted, beautiful domain
And desolate ruined mansion which still stood
To witness through the ages that man once
Had pleasure in the spot. Still on my sense
Flashes the dreamy silver of that lake
Which, as it lay neglected in its reeds,
Mirrored with careless truth the blue, blue sky
And rosy fancies of the setting sun,
For my unshared delight.
Assuredly
That sweet, dead place was brought to life again
In my lost dream—a marble Roman hall
That seemed the growth of scarce historic times
Rose up complete. Yet English was the land,
English the garden. There I lived alone,
Familiar with the creatures of the place,
Wild squirrels, birds and insects, leaf and flower;
And for all human friends a silent pair,
The ancient surly woodman and his wife,
Who in their ivied cot much rather seemed
The natural growth of those forgotten shades
Than servants and companions of my home.
You were too young;[1] but I remember well
Old Urien with the grizzling auburn locks,
That on his sloping shoulders floated loose,
And worn red jacket, with his wrinkled face
And grave spare speech, quaint as some foreign tongue.
It was his very self I dreamed back there;
In his low woodland hut he reigned supreme
O'er tangled copse and thicket, and his axe
Rang with a sound of gloomy sovereignty;
While silent Nesta in and out of doors
Moved busy as some weird and withered spider.
The garden was my realm.
And then at last
There came a stranger visitor . . . . for whom
I seemed to have been waiting all my life,
So swiftly our souls met . . . . and then the pain,
The loneliness, the blankness of my loss.
After the disappearance of the stranger, Irene describes how, in her dream, she, still dwelling in the old "Fairies' Folly," becomes intimate with those mysterious beings who are supposed now to have possession of it.
"And oh, that passing next from human life
Into the lovely, mournful Fairy-land,
Where beauteous Art, and knowledge of all things
That books can teach, shone bright upon my soul,
Without books—and the images and thoughts
Of noble fiction, such as we receive,
Here, by dead written signs, into our soul
Were lived around and with me, everywhere
Peopling the vivid atmosphere with forms
That here are only names—and none the less
My heart was desolation. But my mind
Grew great with wisdom, and with strange new truths—
Now fading, as the days go, to a blank—
Of all that dream-world nothing left but pain.
*****
In that dream I have lived out all my life,
Exhausted all the possibilities
Kept bright on Time's horizon—such a glow
Of more than earthly daylight left behind
As makes this earth one twilight—such a glimpse—
This mystery's door—into the Universe
As makes Earth seem a prison . . . .
Such brief companionship with mighty souls,
Such vast imaginations—gone from me
Past all recovery—as have left my brain
Bereaved for ever . . . . Oh! And Love so strange
Turned to as strange a loss—in that one night
Have smit my life with loneliness, and left me,
Amongst the known and the belov'd, forlorn.,
My last strength has been spent in filling up
As to unseen dictation—for I feel
As if it were my hand, not I, that wrote
In hurried words the outline of my dream,
Such as may faintly render it to you—
But oh, how faintly!"
So she said and died,
Into the lovely, mournful Fairy-land,
Where beauteous Art, and knowledge of all things
That books can teach, shone bright upon my soul,
Without books—and the images and thoughts
Of noble fiction, such as we receive,
Here, by dead written signs, into our soul
Were lived around and with me, everywhere
Peopling the vivid atmosphere with forms
That here are only names—and none the less
My heart was desolation. But my mind
Grew great with wisdom, and with strange new truths—
Now fading, as the days go, to a blank—
Of all that dream-world nothing left but pain.
*****
In that dream I have lived out all my life,
Exhausted all the possibilities
Kept bright on Time's horizon—such a glow
Of more than earthly daylight left behind
As makes this earth one twilight—such a glimpse—
This mystery's door—into the Universe
As makes Earth seem a prison . . . .
Such brief companionship with mighty souls,
Such vast imaginations—gone from me
Past all recovery—as have left my brain
Bereaved for ever . . . . Oh! And Love so strange
Turned to as strange a loss—in that one night
Have smit my life with loneliness, and left me,
Amongst the known and the belov'd, forlorn.,
My last strength has been spent in filling up
As to unseen dictation—for I feel
As if it were my hand, not I, that wrote
In hurried words the outline of my dream,
Such as may faintly render it to you—
But oh, how faintly!"
So she said and died,
II.—THE DREAM
This and the following Scenes must be supposed to be the record, unconsciously made by Irene, of what further happened in her dream.
Song of the Fairies
We servants of the myriad Federation,
The sweet ascending scale of linked life,—
How long shall we 'gainst man's rude domination,
With harsh defacement rife,
Array our things of beauty in a fruitless strife?
The sweet ascending scale of linked life,—
How long shall we 'gainst man's rude domination,
With harsh defacement rife,
Array our things of beauty in a fruitless strife?
For ever as the alien soul of Man,
Still the one discord in our harmony,
Breaks in on the just balance of the plan
That our sweet world lives by—
Once happy as its fellows in yon infinite sky.
Still the one discord in our harmony,
Breaks in on the just balance of the plan
That our sweet world lives by—
Once happy as its fellows in yon infinite sky.
We soulless instincts, changing essences,
Voices and colours wandering everywhere,
Swarm round his wasteful track by slow degrees,
The rude rents to repair,
And with new growths replace the loss of what was fair.
With delicate mosses and with gracious weeds
Voices and colours wandering everywhere,
Swarm round his wasteful track by slow degrees,
The rude rents to repair,
And with new growths replace the loss of what was fair.
With delicate mosses and with gracious weeds
*****
But souls there are that live in unison
With all the beautiful in heaven and earth;
Our darlings they—and each a lonely one,
Predestined from its birth
To the pale gloriole of unkinned, unmated worth.
With all the beautiful in heaven and earth;
Our darlings they—and each a lonely one,
Predestined from its birth
To the pale gloriole of unkinned, unmated worth.
And such is she around whose nest we hover
And hold her footsteps from the world's high road,
And all her being with a mystery cover,
That in her wild abode
Mankind may shun her beauty as the fool the toad.
And hold her footsteps from the world's high road,
And all her being with a mystery cover,
That in her wild abode
Mankind may shun her beauty as the fool the toad.
Alas! we shield her but with fantasies;
Our music is a phantom of man's mind;
Yet brainless fancies oft and hollow lies,
Mere nothings, thin as wind,
Have shut out a whole world of beauty from mankind.
We whisper tales of some mysterious fate;Our music is a phantom of man's mind;
Yet brainless fancies oft and hollow lies,
Mere nothings, thin as wind,
Have shut out a whole world of beauty from mankind.
That wise and fools alike, the good and bad,
May shudder past her never-opened gate,
As from a dungeon sad,
And call the lovely, lonely creature mad.
III.—THE DREAM. MAY
A tourist on his native English ground,
One sweet May afternoon, did Florestan
Seek for his dog strayed on some idle chase.
There was a beauty in the land around,
A sweet and tender sameness, grave perchance
And dim, in still mid-summer, but in spring
Smiling with all the ornaments of youth,
When April's greenery, dropped here and there
With light touch on the framework of the trees,
Had spread and deepened to the bowery grace
And snowy blossom of exuberant May.
And low, veiled warblings wandering through the air
All in the loudest, maddest bird-song burst.
And deepest thickets and the loneliest lanes
Vibrated to the midnight nightingale.
And narrow pathways, parting the rich grass,
Tempted the idler o'er the meadow stile,
His feet bedropt with gold-dust as he walked,
Whilst the twin syllables whose world-old fame
(Unheeded by the singer) laughs to scorn
The myriad-fancied poet of to-day,
Still with new pleasure charmed the expectant ear,
And quiet homesteads, with their garden gates
O'erarched by lilac and larburnum sprays
Or veiled behind a vaporous rosy cloud
Of apple-blossoms, to the passer-by
Hinted all Eden in a moment's glance.
So, wandering and still seeking for his dog,
Across a daisied flat his search at last
Guided him to a quiet little stile
The entrance to a solitary copse
Margined with blue by dewy hyacinths
And walled in with white bowers of hawthorn bloom.
And, as he paused a moment, gazing 1n,
Two little maidens passing by, their hands
Filled with gold blossoms from the cowslip mead,
Cried, "Sir, you must not go there—no one ever
Goes near that place."
"Why not, my little maids?
What place is this?"
"'Tis called the Fairies' Folly.
There is a house, but no one goes to it,
Nor to the pleasure-grounds, nor yet this wood."
"But who lives there?"
"Only the lady, Sir—
But she is mad."
"Mad! And she lives alone?"
"Oh, Sir, old Urien's cot is in that wood,
And his wife Nesta. Do not you go near him!
All are afraid of him. Sometimes he comes
At evening to the village shop to buy,
But no one speaks to him."
And with a smile,
Whilst the two little speakers stood aghast,
Over the stile leapt Florestan, and still
Calling his truant, followed the woodpath.
A growling summons from the hazel copse—
Where with suspended axe and wrathful glare
Lifted his head the auburn-haired old man,
Like one who hates the rest of humankind
"You must go back, or 'twill be worse for you
The lady sees no strangers"—stayed him not.
Keen impulse urged him on, till suddenly
An archway of two meeting elm-tree boughs
Disclosed a startling glitter of blue lake—
On one side o'er a shrubbery's verdant growth,
With pink and lilac and gold blooms enwrought,
White glimpses of a house, a path along
The water's reed-fringed margin, where the sun
Brooded from May's warm sky, and gleaming things
Danced ever in the air—led up his feet
To a small gate, the long grass round him stained
With the blue shade of dewy hyacinths.
Next came the joyous bark of his lost dog,
Then a low murmur of sweet questioning sound;
And into the green arch Irene stept.
The creature fawning on her, her pure face
A luminous lily bent with asking looks,
And gentle hands parrying each rough caress.[2]
"She is not mad" within himself he said,
As she raised up her head, rayed lightly round
By the faint halo of her pale gold hair,
And turned on him her earnest and strange eyes,
Whose half-wild light seemed caught by comradeship
With Nature's wild things. "No, she is not mad—
She is inspired."
Long after could he not
Have uttered half his thoughts of what she was
In thrice the words—But suddenly a thought
Of wonder, joy, and terror together seemed
To kindle all her stillness into fire.
Her lips part and her hands are clasped, and he,
"Pardon, I seek this rebel."—All at once
Her face changed, and in quick low tones abrupt
She spoke to him, "Your dog will not come back;
He has chosen me instead."
He called, and still
His favourite closer to the lady pressed,
While he with the vexed master's instinct strove
Some moments longer 'gainst the counter-charm,
Loth to be foiled, and called and called in vain—
Then yielded smiling, though reluctantly;
"The dog is yours since he has made his choice."
"And now," said she, "Osiris is his name."
And on the pretty, happy, new-found friend—
His tawny shagginess quivering at her touch—
She shed such smile as the sweet Elfin Queen
Sheds on her last babe-changeling; then with eyes
Fixed on the stranger for a moment's space
In silence, "Come," said she with grave command,
"Come now and see my garden."
Instantly,
Wondering and smiling at himself the while,
But reverent of her strange simplicity,
Obedient as the dog he followed her.
One sweet May afternoon, did Florestan
Seek for his dog strayed on some idle chase.
There was a beauty in the land around,
A sweet and tender sameness, grave perchance
And dim, in still mid-summer, but in spring
Smiling with all the ornaments of youth,
When April's greenery, dropped here and there
With light touch on the framework of the trees,
Had spread and deepened to the bowery grace
And snowy blossom of exuberant May.
And low, veiled warblings wandering through the air
All in the loudest, maddest bird-song burst.
And deepest thickets and the loneliest lanes
Vibrated to the midnight nightingale.
And narrow pathways, parting the rich grass,
Tempted the idler o'er the meadow stile,
His feet bedropt with gold-dust as he walked,
Whilst the twin syllables whose world-old fame
(Unheeded by the singer) laughs to scorn
The myriad-fancied poet of to-day,
Still with new pleasure charmed the expectant ear,
And quiet homesteads, with their garden gates
O'erarched by lilac and larburnum sprays
Or veiled behind a vaporous rosy cloud
Of apple-blossoms, to the passer-by
Hinted all Eden in a moment's glance.
So, wandering and still seeking for his dog,
Across a daisied flat his search at last
Guided him to a quiet little stile
The entrance to a solitary copse
Margined with blue by dewy hyacinths
And walled in with white bowers of hawthorn bloom.
And, as he paused a moment, gazing 1n,
Two little maidens passing by, their hands
Filled with gold blossoms from the cowslip mead,
Cried, "Sir, you must not go there—no one ever
Goes near that place."
"Why not, my little maids?
What place is this?"
"'Tis called the Fairies' Folly.
There is a house, but no one goes to it,
Nor to the pleasure-grounds, nor yet this wood."
"But who lives there?"
"Only the lady, Sir—
But she is mad."
"Mad! And she lives alone?"
"Oh, Sir, old Urien's cot is in that wood,
And his wife Nesta. Do not you go near him!
All are afraid of him. Sometimes he comes
At evening to the village shop to buy,
But no one speaks to him."
And with a smile,
Whilst the two little speakers stood aghast,
Over the stile leapt Florestan, and still
Calling his truant, followed the woodpath.
A growling summons from the hazel copse—
Where with suspended axe and wrathful glare
Lifted his head the auburn-haired old man,
Like one who hates the rest of humankind
"You must go back, or 'twill be worse for you
The lady sees no strangers"—stayed him not.
Keen impulse urged him on, till suddenly
An archway of two meeting elm-tree boughs
Disclosed a startling glitter of blue lake—
On one side o'er a shrubbery's verdant growth,
With pink and lilac and gold blooms enwrought,
White glimpses of a house, a path along
The water's reed-fringed margin, where the sun
Brooded from May's warm sky, and gleaming things
Danced ever in the air—led up his feet
To a small gate, the long grass round him stained
With the blue shade of dewy hyacinths.
Next came the joyous bark of his lost dog,
Then a low murmur of sweet questioning sound;
And into the green arch Irene stept.
The creature fawning on her, her pure face
A luminous lily bent with asking looks,
And gentle hands parrying each rough caress.[2]
"She is not mad" within himself he said,
As she raised up her head, rayed lightly round
By the faint halo of her pale gold hair,
And turned on him her earnest and strange eyes,
Whose half-wild light seemed caught by comradeship
With Nature's wild things. "No, she is not mad—
She is inspired."
Long after could he not
Have uttered half his thoughts of what she was
In thrice the words—But suddenly a thought
Of wonder, joy, and terror together seemed
To kindle all her stillness into fire.
Her lips part and her hands are clasped, and he,
"Pardon, I seek this rebel."—All at once
Her face changed, and in quick low tones abrupt
She spoke to him, "Your dog will not come back;
He has chosen me instead."
He called, and still
His favourite closer to the lady pressed,
While he with the vexed master's instinct strove
Some moments longer 'gainst the counter-charm,
Loth to be foiled, and called and called in vain—
Then yielded smiling, though reluctantly;
"The dog is yours since he has made his choice."
"And now," said she, "Osiris is his name."
And on the pretty, happy, new-found friend—
His tawny shagginess quivering at her touch—
She shed such smile as the sweet Elfin Queen
Sheds on her last babe-changeling; then with eyes
Fixed on the stranger for a moment's space
In silence, "Come," said she with grave command,
"Come now and see my garden."
Instantly,
Wondering and smiling at himself the while,
But reverent of her strange simplicity,
Obedient as the dog he followed her.
(Here probably occur four lines spoken to himself by Florestan while musing on the insanity commonly attributed to Irene
By common minds who run but where they're led.)
He thought the while, "No marvel she's misread:
Her beautiful monotony of leisure,
Her delicate dream-life under the green trees,
Her eyes (that but in Nature seek all pleasure)
To these are but a shape of soul disease."
He thought the while, "No marvel she's misread:
Her beautiful monotony of leisure,
Her delicate dream-life under the green trees,
Her eyes (that but in Nature seek all pleasure)
To these are but a shape of soul disease."
*****
And so, as Fate would have it, did these two
Wander together through those sweet May hours,
Intent the while, she on the strange delight
Of showing so much beauty to new eyes,
The first to share it with her—he on her—
Still more and more bewitched with novelty,
And all with hasty admiration fired
At her strange serious talk and earnest ways;
But tempered with the half-shy consciousness
Native to hearts that ofttimes in extremes
Have passed through all, as yet unworn and young.
To him emotions ever came as new—
Unguarded fires—reflection later came.
Wander together through those sweet May hours,
Intent the while, she on the strange delight
Of showing so much beauty to new eyes,
The first to share it with her—he on her—
Still more and more bewitched with novelty,
And all with hasty admiration fired
At her strange serious talk and earnest ways;
But tempered with the half-shy consciousness
Native to hearts that ofttimes in extremes
Have passed through all, as yet unworn and young.
To him emotions ever came as new—
Unguarded fires—reflection later came.
IV.—THE LILY OF THE VALLEY
(Florestan and Irene)
Flor. No, I will tell you nothing of my world,—
That which I see and know and do in it—
And what you too will see and know one day,
Till I hear more of this strange life of yours;
But what a life! And what a loneliness!
Have you thus always lived companionless,
Expending heart and soul on heartless things
And soulless? Have you nothing else to love?
Irene. But what more need I then to have? I love
All that's around me. Every tint and shade
Of flower, or leaf, or moss. . . . .
Is answered by a tender thought in me.
From seed to blossom I work for and with them.
We are one family.
Flor.You are content
To love without return then?
Irene.Without other
Return than fancy in their beauty reads,
And fragrance still more delicate than song.
But in the warm and gay and restless life
Of birds and butterflies and little soft
Four-footed things, indeed my heart expands
To its full joy—each in their way, they love me.
You do not understand how good, how true,
How perfect are their natures. And in truth
There are more things you know not I could tell;
For, though alone, I have not been untaught.
Flor. You are a priestess speaking mysteries.
Tell me of this strange science that you boast,
And who your teachers are.
Irene.They are my dreams.
My dreams recall to me what infancy
Witnessed perhaps, and heard unconsciously.
I have no waking memory of the time
When I was not an orphan.
Flor. Oh, go on!
Irene. I am used to the strange things that come tome;
Yet sometimes I have moments of deep wonder.
Father and mother I have never known;
But in my dreams they talk to me and teach me.
My father to this very lawn has led me,
And with a soundless voice and shadowy presence
Has pointed out and named to me the stars,
From whence the secrets of the Universe
Shall one day be revealed to our blind race
Now feeling in the dark—where, step by step,
From planet up to planet, sun to sun,
Each centre of new Planet-worshippers—
The ignorant craving spirit of mankind
Shall travel to that unknown Something which
Has no name yet, nor history. . . . .
For tales and feeble fancies fill its place—
But shall be found yet when the time is ripe,
And man's intelligence, with every age
Doubling and trebling its once laboured pace,
Shall soon move boldly to its awful goal.
So to that Future I send up my thoughts,
If e'er these garden bounds seem strait to me,
And live at large in the whole Universe.
Flor. You seem to me the prophetess of Death
And not the priestess of a living Faith.
But tell me more of this dream-teaching.
Irene.Much
I feel and could not tell—taught without words.
Flor. How did you learn to make the creatures love you?
This very dog has felt the spell and broken
His faith to me for you.
Irene.It was my mother—
The mother of my dreams—for oft she used
To visit me and take me by the hand—
With smiles so sweet as sometimes made indeed
My heart to ache with longing when I waked—
And led me round the garden, showing me
The lovely kinship of its various growths,
Leaf, flower, and stem and fibre of the plant,
A gracious mimicry of livelier life,
Pointing the links that chain the least and lowest
To life placed on the summit of the scale.
She taught me all the language of the birds,
And made it seem a human speech to me;
And all the meaning of that fearless joy
That fills the world with movement.
Flor.Tell me more.
The life you praise seems half a miracle.
Whence came these parents in their lifetime who
In dreams thus watch over your orphanhood?
And did they leave you friendless and alone?
Irene. I am not friendless. I could tell you more,
But you are almost smiling.
Flor.No, not so—
Or if I smile, I reverence your words
For your faith's sake and loftiness of thought.
I learn from you more than I could repay
By any teaching from the world without.
Irene. I know not whence my parents came; I think
Not they, but some yet older habitant
Built this lone mansion, which you say is like
A foreign stranger from some southern clime
Surprised to find itself on English soil.
Flor. I have seen such in Italy—but now
I long to hear more. How are you not friendless?
What human creature save that surly pair
Comes to your lonely home?
Irene.No human creature—
Not wholly human—and I see them not—
But they are here and watch me.
Flor.Nay, but who?
Irene. My kindly Fairies. They are more to me
Than Urien is, or Nesta.
Flor.Now indeed
You make me smile. But I am wrong; you have
Some hidden undermeaning you will surely
Deign to unfold.
Irene. You never then have lived
In fairy-haunted places, nor perchance
Know what they are?
Flor.Tell me all that you know.
My fairies only live in tales and ballads.
Irene. I know what my dreams teach me and will tell you
What I have learnt from them—how, long of yore,
When these once seething isles had passed at length
From shape to shape, and each extravagance—
As nightmares, monstrous beauty, ugliness
Colossal in its daring—to the firm
Mould it is cast in now, a race of men
Unknown, unnamed, a guess, a mystery,
Peopled its o'ergrown and fantastic wilds,
But in some sweeping ruin passed away,
As great primeval forests fall in flames;
And the new race that burnt it off the land,
As a devouring fire, was heir to all . . . .
Flor. Continue—do not hesitate; I hear
With reverence . . . . This or something like to this,
I do know. Tell me more.
Irene. How strange it seems
To talk about the mysteries of things
At last to human ears in the broad day.
I have lived so long in silence and in dreams.
Flor. And I, fresh from the noisy, busy world
Of glare and labour, find it strange to light
On such a green oasis of sweet rest,
And hear the beauteous marvels told at leisure
By one who toils not, and who lives on beauty.
Finish your wonder-tale.
Irene. You know then how
Some shadows linger still of the old race,
Which, dwindled to a shadow of itself,
Survives in the frail elfin essences,
Bloodless and sinewless and beautiful,
That now arc fading fast to nothingness,
But still in some rare chosen spots are found—
Such as this garden.
Flor. Are you very sure
Of any fairy presence save your own?
When have you seen these elves with bodily eyes?
Irene. Not seen . . . . but felt. You do not understand
How one may have a conscious certainty
Of what one has not seen. But I 4ave seen,
Or almost seen, ofttime e'en in broad noon,
In the wide halls and chambers of the house,
A flitting of swift shadows on the walls,
Just glimpsed and gone, giving a consciousness
Of some invisible companionship.
And on this very lawn, on summer nights,
A whole new world awakes, and is astir.
Oft as the moon falls bright upon the sward,
These tall tree forms in solemn concourse met—
Slim darksome spire and lofty rounded tower
Seem, each with his black shadow at his foot,
Like creatures conscious of a secret doom;
All through the solemn silence on the watch
To hear the wild talk of the nightingale,
As with a silver shock it suddenly
Pierces the silence from the sombre wood,
And all the garden rings with a new life;
And all my chamber, as I listening lie,
Thrills with the startling outburst that proclaims,
In syllables as distinct as yours and mine,
Things I could never tell to you again
In any human language. Then it is
I know all wakeful creatures of the night
Are sharers in the fairy revelry;
Nay, sometimes, as I sink again to sleep,
With all that music trembling through my dreams,
A tiny, tinkling laughter blends with it,
And airy talk and rustlings to and fro,
Out in the rustling garden. Up I start,
And catch the last faint stirring of the small
Tumult below—then all is still again,
And I again am baffled.
Flor. So I fear
You will be always. You are too alone.
I would I could persuade you to come forth
And see what life 1s. There are other things
Than flowers and gardens on our planet, Earth;
And they are worth your seeing.
Irene. Tell me of them.
'Twill be a new delight to hear such things
Safe in my quiet home. Tell me your life
And all you do. An hour ago I asked you,
And yet you have not answered me.
Flor. An hour!
A lifetime rather. Such an hour as this.
That which I see and know and do in it—
And what you too will see and know one day,
Till I hear more of this strange life of yours;
But what a life! And what a loneliness!
Have you thus always lived companionless,
Expending heart and soul on heartless things
And soulless? Have you nothing else to love?
Irene. But what more need I then to have? I love
All that's around me. Every tint and shade
Of flower, or leaf, or moss. . . . .
Is answered by a tender thought in me.
From seed to blossom I work for and with them.
We are one family.
Flor.You are content
To love without return then?
Irene.Without other
Return than fancy in their beauty reads,
And fragrance still more delicate than song.
But in the warm and gay and restless life
Of birds and butterflies and little soft
Four-footed things, indeed my heart expands
To its full joy—each in their way, they love me.
You do not understand how good, how true,
How perfect are their natures. And in truth
There are more things you know not I could tell;
For, though alone, I have not been untaught.
Flor. You are a priestess speaking mysteries.
Tell me of this strange science that you boast,
And who your teachers are.
Irene.They are my dreams.
My dreams recall to me what infancy
Witnessed perhaps, and heard unconsciously.
I have no waking memory of the time
When I was not an orphan.
Flor. Oh, go on!
Irene. I am used to the strange things that come tome;
Yet sometimes I have moments of deep wonder.
Father and mother I have never known;
But in my dreams they talk to me and teach me.
My father to this very lawn has led me,
And with a soundless voice and shadowy presence
Has pointed out and named to me the stars,
From whence the secrets of the Universe
Shall one day be revealed to our blind race
Now feeling in the dark—where, step by step,
From planet up to planet, sun to sun,
Each centre of new Planet-worshippers—
The ignorant craving spirit of mankind
Shall travel to that unknown Something which
Has no name yet, nor history. . . . .
For tales and feeble fancies fill its place—
But shall be found yet when the time is ripe,
And man's intelligence, with every age
Doubling and trebling its once laboured pace,
Shall soon move boldly to its awful goal.
So to that Future I send up my thoughts,
If e'er these garden bounds seem strait to me,
And live at large in the whole Universe.
Flor. You seem to me the prophetess of Death
And not the priestess of a living Faith.
But tell me more of this dream-teaching.
Irene.Much
I feel and could not tell—taught without words.
Flor. How did you learn to make the creatures love you?
This very dog has felt the spell and broken
His faith to me for you.
Irene.It was my mother—
The mother of my dreams—for oft she used
To visit me and take me by the hand—
With smiles so sweet as sometimes made indeed
My heart to ache with longing when I waked—
And led me round the garden, showing me
The lovely kinship of its various growths,
Leaf, flower, and stem and fibre of the plant,
A gracious mimicry of livelier life,
Pointing the links that chain the least and lowest
To life placed on the summit of the scale.
She taught me all the language of the birds,
And made it seem a human speech to me;
And all the meaning of that fearless joy
That fills the world with movement.
Flor.Tell me more.
The life you praise seems half a miracle.
Whence came these parents in their lifetime who
In dreams thus watch over your orphanhood?
And did they leave you friendless and alone?
Irene. I am not friendless. I could tell you more,
But you are almost smiling.
Flor.No, not so—
Or if I smile, I reverence your words
For your faith's sake and loftiness of thought.
I learn from you more than I could repay
By any teaching from the world without.
Irene. I know not whence my parents came; I think
Not they, but some yet older habitant
Built this lone mansion, which you say is like
A foreign stranger from some southern clime
Surprised to find itself on English soil.
Flor. I have seen such in Italy—but now
I long to hear more. How are you not friendless?
What human creature save that surly pair
Comes to your lonely home?
Irene.No human creature—
Not wholly human—and I see them not—
But they are here and watch me.
Flor.Nay, but who?
Irene. My kindly Fairies. They are more to me
Than Urien is, or Nesta.
Flor.Now indeed
You make me smile. But I am wrong; you have
Some hidden undermeaning you will surely
Deign to unfold.
Irene. You never then have lived
In fairy-haunted places, nor perchance
Know what they are?
Flor.Tell me all that you know.
My fairies only live in tales and ballads.
Irene. I know what my dreams teach me and will tell you
What I have learnt from them—how, long of yore,
When these once seething isles had passed at length
From shape to shape, and each extravagance—
As nightmares, monstrous beauty, ugliness
Colossal in its daring—to the firm
Mould it is cast in now, a race of men
Unknown, unnamed, a guess, a mystery,
Peopled its o'ergrown and fantastic wilds,
But in some sweeping ruin passed away,
As great primeval forests fall in flames;
And the new race that burnt it off the land,
As a devouring fire, was heir to all . . . .
Flor. Continue—do not hesitate; I hear
With reverence . . . . This or something like to this,
I do know. Tell me more.
Irene. How strange it seems
To talk about the mysteries of things
At last to human ears in the broad day.
I have lived so long in silence and in dreams.
Flor. And I, fresh from the noisy, busy world
Of glare and labour, find it strange to light
On such a green oasis of sweet rest,
And hear the beauteous marvels told at leisure
By one who toils not, and who lives on beauty.
Finish your wonder-tale.
Irene. You know then how
Some shadows linger still of the old race,
Which, dwindled to a shadow of itself,
Survives in the frail elfin essences,
Bloodless and sinewless and beautiful,
That now arc fading fast to nothingness,
But still in some rare chosen spots are found—
Such as this garden.
Flor. Are you very sure
Of any fairy presence save your own?
When have you seen these elves with bodily eyes?
Irene. Not seen . . . . but felt. You do not understand
How one may have a conscious certainty
Of what one has not seen. But I 4ave seen,
Or almost seen, ofttime e'en in broad noon,
In the wide halls and chambers of the house,
A flitting of swift shadows on the walls,
Just glimpsed and gone, giving a consciousness
Of some invisible companionship.
And on this very lawn, on summer nights,
A whole new world awakes, and is astir.
Oft as the moon falls bright upon the sward,
These tall tree forms in solemn concourse met—
Slim darksome spire and lofty rounded tower
Seem, each with his black shadow at his foot,
Like creatures conscious of a secret doom;
All through the solemn silence on the watch
To hear the wild talk of the nightingale,
As with a silver shock it suddenly
Pierces the silence from the sombre wood,
And all the garden rings with a new life;
And all my chamber, as I listening lie,
Thrills with the startling outburst that proclaims,
In syllables as distinct as yours and mine,
Things I could never tell to you again
In any human language. Then it is
I know all wakeful creatures of the night
Are sharers in the fairy revelry;
Nay, sometimes, as I sink again to sleep,
With all that music trembling through my dreams,
A tiny, tinkling laughter blends with it,
And airy talk and rustlings to and fro,
Out in the rustling garden. Up I start,
And catch the last faint stirring of the small
Tumult below—then all is still again,
And I again am baffled.
Flor. So I fear
You will be always. You are too alone.
I would I could persuade you to come forth
And see what life 1s. There are other things
Than flowers and gardens on our planet, Earth;
And they are worth your seeing.
Irene. Tell me of them.
'Twill be a new delight to hear such things
Safe in my quiet home. Tell me your life
And all you do. An hour ago I asked you,
And yet you have not answered me.
Flor. An hour!
A lifetime rather. Such an hour as this.
*****
Irene.I can scarce believe
How little time ago we had not met.
Flor. And I must go. But may I come again?
Irene. Yes, come and tell me what the world is like.
Flor. And may I take a lily back with me?
Irene. I never yet have gathered flower or bud,
Lest the slight life should feel a tiny pang.
Flor. Adieu, then.
Irene. Did I grieve you? Here, then, take it!
How little time ago we had not met.
Flor. And I must go. But may I come again?
Irene. Yes, come and tell me what the world is like.
Flor. And may I take a lily back with me?
Irene. I never yet have gathered flower or bud,
Lest the slight life should feel a tiny pang.
Flor. Adieu, then.
Irene. Did I grieve you? Here, then, take it!
She gave the tiny stem with all its pearls
In the green sheath half folded from the light,
Into his reverent hand. As if to speak,
He lingered yet a moment, while the scent
Of those dear flower bells, like veiled music, charmed
His senses—then abruptly turned and went.
And as he passed upon his way he saw
The white hall gleam through fresh-leaved chestnut boughs
That overbowered the three sides of a square
Of waving grass. The house filled up the fourth,
A sunlit dream.
Then, as the little gate
Of a rich flowering shrubbery let him through
Into the wide green slope of pleasure ground,
He saw again the shining lake below.
With careless truth reflecting as 1t lay,
The rosy fancies of the setting sun.
In the green sheath half folded from the light,
Into his reverent hand. As if to speak,
He lingered yet a moment, while the scent
Of those dear flower bells, like veiled music, charmed
His senses—then abruptly turned and went.
And as he passed upon his way he saw
The white hall gleam through fresh-leaved chestnut boughs
That overbowered the three sides of a square
Of waving grass. The house filled up the fourth,
A sunlit dream.
Then, as the little gate
Of a rich flowering shrubbery let him through
Into the wide green slope of pleasure ground,
He saw again the shining lake below.
With careless truth reflecting as 1t lay,
The rosy fancies of the setting sun.
V.—THE ROSE
Irene craved for Florestan's return—
The sweet surprise of his companionship
Kept fresh its strangeness thro' the quiet hours.
And now she listened for a newer voice
As once she listened for the nightingale.
The light vicissitudes of life in dreams,
The round of flowery change, incomplete loves
Of half-souled creatures, now no more sufficed.
She longed to share her joy in them with one
Who loved them too. She felt the human charm.
A world of things to ask and say sprang up
Ever within her—and at last he came.
With shining looks she met him in the hall.
The heart-beat of a startling joy had called
A moment's rose upon her pearl bright cheek.
Then once more the soft cloud came o'er her face.
The sweet surprise of his companionship
Kept fresh its strangeness thro' the quiet hours.
And now she listened for a newer voice
As once she listened for the nightingale.
The light vicissitudes of life in dreams,
The round of flowery change, incomplete loves
Of half-souled creatures, now no more sufficed.
She longed to share her joy in them with one
Who loved them too. She felt the human charm.
A world of things to ask and say sprang up
Ever within her—and at last he came.
With shining looks she met him in the hall.
The heart-beat of a startling joy had called
A moment's rose upon her pearl bright cheek.
Then once more the soft cloud came o'er her face.
*****
Here the account of the Dream breaks off; and with it apparently the author's intention as to the final issue of the story is changed. The writer, resuming the subject after a long pause, left behind her the ideal Irene, the shadowy resemblance of her long-lost sister and herself, and determined to make the character the vehicle of thoughts which the observations of life had gradually stored up in her. She used it to depict various phases of woman's life and destiny in the present day. Irene dies, it is true, but not of a "Phantom of the Mind." She has been induced by Florestan to enter the world which she has never known, and where she is speedily desillusionée. Her lover deserts her and she goes through stages of anguish, which terminate in a resolution to rise above the sense of her own personal wrongs and devote herself to the betterment of the human social sphere she has entered, and in whose real and deep interest she seems to have found a substitute for the imaginary world of her girlhood. But all that is left us of this second more human part of the story consists in fragments, which we give as we find them. The first of these is apparently a conversation of Irene and a friend, probably one of the spirit-world who looks coldly yet with prescience on the passions and griefs of the humankind.
Irene. I made part
Once for a short time of a human world,
Warm with the glow of a fond human love.
I know not if I missed of my true self
In loving thus, but I will live henceforth
My shadowy life and never look behind.
Friend. His life, too, as it wears, will lose its bloom;
He will meet storm-clouds, like the rest of men,
For all the brilliance of the present hour.
But think not they will bring him back to you,
You are past out of his thick crowded life.
The stage upon his journey left behind
He never will return to.
Irene.Will he not then
Ever think tenderly of my true love?
If in the hurrying battlefield of life
A random hand should strike a limb from me,
I can forgive that wrong, aye, learn one day
To love the hasty wronger; but, oh, tell me
If my own friend beside me in the ranks
Murders me with an ever-bleeding wound,
Must I forgive him? Must I love him still?
Forgive him, yes. If writhing in my pangs
I tore him as wild, wounded creatures tear,
The pain I gave would only double mine.
But—I love him? Ah, that is the torturing pang—
To love that which we scorn, and suffer from it
Oneself, a sense of humbling and disgrace.
I scorn the poor false heart that cheated mine,
The wavering heart that wasted mine away,
The thief who robbed me of the years to come,
And doomed them to so desolate a close.
I scorn him, but I suffer, suffer still.
Friend. He made no vow, he broke no pledge to you;
And what cares love for vows? Be still his friend!
Irene. How found true friendship on a love betrayed?
If he had come to me in generous pain,
And said "Forgive me! I did love you once,
But now I love another." Then at least
I could have honoured him for his brave truth,
And for the truth's sake would have pardoned him,
Mourning that imperfection in myself
Which made my heart so powerless to hold his.
But thus to leave me feeling in the dark
In blind despair, to know how first, and why,
I lost my treasure, whether it slipped from me.
Oh, I complain not that he weds with her,
Since her he loves, not me; but could I know,
Could I but know that he did love me once,
I were content.
+>Friend. But that you cannot know;
For men deny their love when it is passed,
Deny first and forget it afterwards.
Nothing in this world ever 1s explained.
You will live sighing but to hear one word,
And you will die without it. It must be,
For you were happy when you were beloved,
And you were beautiful when you were happy:
But now you are not happy nor beloved,
And therefore are no longer beautiful.
Irene. He thinks 1t then
Meet homage to a pure and happy love
To falsify the past? Can a true love
Degrade the soul so?
Once for a short time of a human world,
Warm with the glow of a fond human love.
I know not if I missed of my true self
In loving thus, but I will live henceforth
My shadowy life and never look behind.
Friend. His life, too, as it wears, will lose its bloom;
He will meet storm-clouds, like the rest of men,
For all the brilliance of the present hour.
But think not they will bring him back to you,
You are past out of his thick crowded life.
The stage upon his journey left behind
He never will return to.
Irene.Will he not then
Ever think tenderly of my true love?
If in the hurrying battlefield of life
A random hand should strike a limb from me,
I can forgive that wrong, aye, learn one day
To love the hasty wronger; but, oh, tell me
If my own friend beside me in the ranks
Murders me with an ever-bleeding wound,
Must I forgive him? Must I love him still?
Forgive him, yes. If writhing in my pangs
I tore him as wild, wounded creatures tear,
The pain I gave would only double mine.
But—I love him? Ah, that is the torturing pang—
To love that which we scorn, and suffer from it
Oneself, a sense of humbling and disgrace.
I scorn the poor false heart that cheated mine,
The wavering heart that wasted mine away,
The thief who robbed me of the years to come,
And doomed them to so desolate a close.
I scorn him, but I suffer, suffer still.
Friend. He made no vow, he broke no pledge to you;
And what cares love for vows? Be still his friend!
Irene. How found true friendship on a love betrayed?
If he had come to me in generous pain,
And said "Forgive me! I did love you once,
But now I love another." Then at least
I could have honoured him for his brave truth,
And for the truth's sake would have pardoned him,
Mourning that imperfection in myself
Which made my heart so powerless to hold his.
But thus to leave me feeling in the dark
In blind despair, to know how first, and why,
I lost my treasure, whether it slipped from me.
Oh, I complain not that he weds with her,
Since her he loves, not me; but could I know,
Could I but know that he did love me once,
I were content.
+>Friend. But that you cannot know;
For men deny their love when it is passed,
Deny first and forget it afterwards.
Nothing in this world ever 1s explained.
You will live sighing but to hear one word,
And you will die without it. It must be,
For you were happy when you were beloved,
And you were beautiful when you were happy:
But now you are not happy nor beloved,
And therefore are no longer beautiful.
Irene. He thinks 1t then
Meet homage to a pure and happy love
To falsify the past? Can a true love
Degrade the soul so?
THE LAST FRAGMENT
The Doctor spoke her doom and went his way.
And she—soon as the quiverings of the flesh
That arc within the torture-chamber's door
Where Death is waiting, calmed themselves again—
Sank down upon herc ouch and thought and thought,
"I die who have not lived! Too late, too soon!
To die a martyr in the burning flame
Without the martyr's hope, the martyr's cause!
The restless strife to cease and nothing done!
For this I have loved, have lost and scorned my love,
Have dreamed of goodness and a bettered world,
Have loathed my race, writhed at my sisters' wrongs,
Abhorred as hypocrites our masters, men,
The slaves of vice and folly, who have learnt
The list of woman's virtues well by heart;
To preach them to us with paternal smile,
Or pelt them at us with unhallowed sneers—
Then blushed repentant of my scorn, and asked
How am I better who have dreamed and yearned,
And passionately talked, but never yet
Have lifted up a finger for my kind?"
*****
No more I love you, now I only love
That which I thought you were; I have my dream
Unrealised, and therefore still my dream.
He has the real, he has all he sought;
And found it nothing.
And she—soon as the quiverings of the flesh
That arc within the torture-chamber's door
Where Death is waiting, calmed themselves again—
Sank down upon herc ouch and thought and thought,
"I die who have not lived! Too late, too soon!
To die a martyr in the burning flame
Without the martyr's hope, the martyr's cause!
The restless strife to cease and nothing done!
For this I have loved, have lost and scorned my love,
Have dreamed of goodness and a bettered world,
Have loathed my race, writhed at my sisters' wrongs,
Abhorred as hypocrites our masters, men,
The slaves of vice and folly, who have learnt
The list of woman's virtues well by heart;
To preach them to us with paternal smile,
Or pelt them at us with unhallowed sneers—
Then blushed repentant of my scorn, and asked
How am I better who have dreamed and yearned,
And passionately talked, but never yet
Have lifted up a finger for my kind?"
*****
No more I love you, now I only love
That which I thought you were; I have my dream
Unrealised, and therefore still my dream.
He has the real, he has all he sought;
And found it nothing.
Another version, only conceived, with no attempt made to put it into words, was to represent Irene as not only forsaken but betrayed; and the author's purpose was to show how a woman may rise above the wronger and the wrong to heights whence she can look down at once on the fact, her own weakness, the social punishment and disgrace, and the unworthy one himself, with the just view, the calm compassion, only not contempt, of a true and deep-felt superiority. She will not dwell for ever on the past in weak and exaggerated penitence and humility; she will go forward with all the power and wisdom her past experience has given her, to a purer air and nobler objects. This would have been a difficult lesson to work out, and possibly beyond the writer's powers; she contented herself with meditating deeply on the problem as brought in real life before her.
- ↑ It is evident that Irene is here narrating her recent dream, though in this picture of the old couple she describes the figures she had really known in her childhood in that day's visit, or, as other passages would imply, that residence of some duration in the old hall called the Fairies' Folly. The woodman and his wife were actual acquaintances of the authoress in her childhood.
- ↑ In another version follow the lines—And there he saw throned on a rustic chair,
With lilac-fretted robes, a sorceress-queen,
For so she seemed, who stretched her regal hand
Toward the twos and threes of twittering things
Who perched and fluttered off, and perched again,
Or for a moment crowned her pale bright hair,
And at her feet his little truant lay.