Lucile Part 18

XXI.

It was now Alfred's turn to feel roused and enraged.

But Lucile to himself was not pledged or engaged By aught that could sanction resentment. He said Not a word, but turn'd round, took the letter, and read...

THE COMTESSE DE NEVERS TO THE DUC DE LUVOIS.

"SAINT SAVIOUR.

"Your letter, which follow'd me here, makes me stay Till I see you again. With no moment's delay I entreat, I conjure you, by all that you feel Or profess, to come to me directly.

"LUCILE."

XXII.

"Your letter!" He then had been writing to her!

Coldly shrugging his shoulders, Lord Alfred said, "Sir, Do not let me detain you!"

The Duke smiled and bow'd; Placed the note in his bosom; address'd, half aloud, A few words to the messenger,... "Say your despatch Will be answer'd ere nightfall;" then glanced at his watch, And turn'd back to the Baths.

XXIII.

Alfred Vargrave stood still, Torn, distracted in heart, and divided in will.

He turn'd to Lucile's farewell letter to him.

And read over her words; rising tears made them dim: "Doubt is over; my future is fix'd now," they said.

"My course is decided." Her course? what! to wed With this insolent rival! With that thought there shot Through his heart an acute jealous anguish. But not Even thus could his clear worldly sense quite excuse Those strange words to the Duke. She was free to refuse Himself, free the Duke to accept, it was true: Even then, though, this eager and strange rendezvous, How imprudent! To some unfrequented lone inn, And so late (for the night was about to begin)-- She, companionless there!--had she bidden that man?

A fear, vague, and formless, and horrible, ran Through his heart.

XXIV.

At that moment he look'd up, and saw, Riding fast through the forest, the Duc de Luvois, Who waved his hand to him, and sped out of sight.

The day was descending. He felt 'twould be night Ere that man reached Saint Saviour.

XXV.

He walk'd on, but not Back toward Luchon: he walk'd on, but knew not in what Direction, nor yet with what object, indeed, He was walking, but still he walk'd on without heed.

XXVI.

The day had been sullen; but, towards his decline, The sun sent a stream of wild light up the pine.

Darkly denting the red light reveal'd at its back, The old ruin'd abbey rose roofless and black.

The spring that yet oozed through the moss-paven floor Had suggested, no doubt, to the monks there, of yore, The sight of that refuge where back to its G.o.d How many a heart, now at rest 'neath the sod, Had borne from the world all the same wild unrest That now prey'd on his own!

XXVII.

By the thoughts in his breast With varying impulse divided and torn, He traversed the scant heath, and reach'd the forlorn Autumn woodland, in which but a short while ago He had seen the Duke rapidly enter; and so He too enter'd. The light waned around him, and pa.s.s'd Into darkness. The wrathful, red Occident cast One glare of vindictive inquiry behind, As the last light of day from the high wood declined, And the great forest sigh'd its farewell to the beam, And far off on the stillness the voice of the stream Fell faintly.

XXVIII.

O Nature, how fair is thy face, And how light is thy heart, and how friendless thy grace!

Thou false mistress of man! thou dost sport with him lightly In his hours of ease and enjoyment; and brightly Dost thou smile to his smile; to his joys thou inclinest, But his sorrows, thou knowest them not, nor divinest.

While he woos, thou art wanton; thou lettest him love thee; But thou art not his friend, for his grief cannot move thee; And at last, when he sickens and dies, what dost thou?

All as gay are thy garments, as careless thy brow, And thou laughest and toyest with any new comer, Not a tear more for winter, a smile less for summer!

Hast thou never an anguish to heave the heart under That fair breast of thine, O thou feminine wonder!

For all those--the young, and the fair, and the strong, Who have loved thee, and lived with thee gayly and long, And who now on thy bosom lie dead? and their deeds And their days are forgotten! O hast thou no weeds And not one year of mourning,--one out of the many That deck thy new bridals forever,--nor any Regrets for thy lost loves, conceal'd from the new, O thou widow of earth's generations? Go to!

If the sea and the night wind know aught of these things, They do not reveal it. We are not thy kings.

CANTO VI.

I.

"The huntsman has ridden too far on the chase, And eldrich, and eerie, and strange is the place!

The castle betokens a date long gone by.

He crosses the courtyard with curious eye: He wanders from chamber to chamber, and yet From strangeness to strangeness his footsteps are set; And the whole place grows wilder and wilder, and less Like aught seen before. Each in obsolete dress, Strange portraits regard him with looks of surprise, Strange forms from the arras start forth to his eyes; Strange epigraphs, blazon'd, burn out of the wall: The spell of a wizard is over it all.

In her chamber, enchanted, the Princess is sleeping The sleep which for centuries she has been keeping.

If she smile in her sleep, it must be to some lover Whose lost golden locks the long gra.s.ses now cover: If she moan in her dream, it must be to deplore Some grief which the world cares to hear of no more.

But how fair is her forehead, how calm seems her cheek!

And how sweet must that voice be, if once she would speak!

He looks and he loves her; but knows he (not he!) The clew to unravel this old mystery?

And he stoops to those shut lips. The shapes on the wall, The mute men in armor around him, and all The weird figures frown, as though striving to say, 'Halt! invade not the Past, reckless child of Today!

And give not, O madman! the heart in thy breast To a phantom, the soul of whose sense is possess'd By an Age not thine own!'

"But unconscious is he, And he heeds not the warning, he cares not to see Aught but ONE form before him!

"Rash, wild words are o'er, And the vision is vanish'd from sight evermore!

And the gray morning sees, as it drearily moves O'er a land long deserted, a madman that roves Through a ruin, and seeks to recapture a dream.

Lost to life and its uses, withdrawn from the scheme Of man's waking existence, he wanders apart."

And this is an old fairy-tale of the heart.

It is told in all lands, in a different tongue; Told with tears by the old, heard with smiles by the young.

And the tale to each heart unto which it is known Has a different sense. It has puzzled my own.