yet still but Avarice;The stamp may vary—you the coin may call
'Ambition,' 'Power,' 'Success,'—but Gold is all.
Mine is the memoir of a selfish age:
Turn every leaf—slight difference in the page;
Through each, the same fierce struggle to secure
Earth's one great end—distinction from the Poor;
All our true wealth, like alchemists of old,
Fused in the furnace—for a grain of gold.
IX.
"Well then, we parted—to make brief the tale,
I take my orders, and my leave, set sail;
For weeks, for months, fond letters, long nor few,
Keep hope alive with love for ever new:
If she had suffer'd, she betray'd it not;
All save one sweetness—'that we loved' forgot.
She never named her father;—once indeed
The name was writ, but blurr'd;—it was decreed That she should fill the martyr-measure—hide Not the dart only, but the bleeding side, And, wholly generous in the offering made, Veil even sorrow, lest it should upbraid.
"At length one letter came—the last; more blest In faith, in love, false hope, than all the rest; But at the close some hastier lines appear, Tremblingly writ, and stain'd with many a tear, In which, less said than timorously implied (The maid still blushing through the secret bride), I heard her heart through that far distance beat: The hour Eve's happiest daughter dreads to meet— The hour of Nature's agony was nigh— Husband and father, false one, where was I?
"Slow day on slow day, unrevealing, crept,
And still its ice the freezing silence kept:
Fear seized my soul, I could no longer brook
The voiceless darkness which the daylight took.
I feign'd excuse for absence;—left the shore:
Fair blow the winds;—behold her home once more!
"Her home! a desert! Still, though rank and wild,
On the rank grass the heedless floweret smiled;
Still by the porch you heard the ungrateful bee;
Still brawl'd the brooklet's unremembering glee;
But they—the souls of the sweet pastoral ground?
Green o'er the father rose the sullen mound!
Amidst his poor he slept; his end was known— Life's record rounded with the funeral stone: But she?—but Mary?—but my child?—what dews Fall on their graves?—what herbs which heaven renews Pall their pure clay?—Oh! were it mine at least To weep, belovèd, where your relics rest!— Bear with me, Morvale—pity if you can— These thoughts unman me—no, they prove me man!" "Man of the cities," with a mutter'd scorn, Groan'd the stern Nomad from the lands of Morn— "Man of the sleek, far-looking prudence, which Beggars life's May, life's Autumn to enrich; Which, the deed doing, halts not in its course, But, the deed done, finds comfort in remorse. Man, in whom sentiment, the bloodless shade Of noble passion, alternates with trade— Hard in his error—feeble in his tears, And huckstering love, yet prattling of the spheres!" So mused the sombre savage, till the pale And self-gnaw'd worldling nerved him to his tale:— "The hireling watch'd the bed where Mary lay, In stranger arms my first-born saw the day. Below—unseen his travail, all unknown His war with Nature, sate the sire alone: He had not thrust the one he still believed, If silent, sinless, or in sin deceived— He had not thrust her from a father's door; So Shame came in, and cower'd upon the floor, And face to face with Shame, he sate to hear The groan above bring torture to his ear. In that sad night, when the young mother slept, Forth from his door the elder mourner crept; Absent for days, none knowing whither bent, Till back return'd abruptly as he went. With a swift tremulous stride he climb'd the stair, } Through the closed chamber gleam'd his silver hair, } And Mary heard his voice soft—pitying—as in prayer! } 'Child, child, I was too hard!—But woe is wild; Now I know all!—again I clasp my child!' Within his arms, upon his heart again His Mary lay, and strove for words in vain; She strove for words, but better spoke through tears The love the heart through silence vents and hears.
"All this I gather'd from the nurse, who saw
The scene, which dews from hireling eyes could draw;
So far;—her sob the pastor heard, and turn'd,
Waved his wan hand, nor what more chanced she learn'd.
"Next morn in death the happier father lay,
From sleep to Heaven his soul had pass'd away;
He had but lived to pardon and to bless
His child;—emotion kills in its excess,
And that task done, why longer on the rack
Stretch the worn frame?—God's mercy call'd him back.
The day they buried him, while yet the strife
Of sense and memory raged for death and life
In Mary's shatter'd brain, her father's friend,
Whose hand, perchance, had sped him to his end,
Whose zeal officious had explored, reveal'd
My name, the half, worse half, of all conceal'd,
Sought her, and saw alone: When gone, a change
Came o'er the victim, terrible and strange;
All grief seem'd hush'd—a stern tranquillity
Calm'd the wan brow and fix'd the glassy eye;
She spoke not, moved not, wept not—on her breast
Slept Earth's new stranger—not more deep its rest.
They fear'd her in that mood—with noiseless tread
Stole from the room; and, ere the morn, she fled.
Gone the young Mother with her babe!—no trace;
As the wind goes, she vanish'd from the place;
They search'd the darkness of the wood, they pried
Into the secrets of the tempting tide,
In vain—unseen on earth as in the wave,
Where life found refuge or despair a grave."
"And is this all?" said Morvale—
"No, my thought
Guess'd at
