The First Saved

Lucilla lives in yon half-hidden starBowered in a dreamy, soft-skied, watery vale,Where angels gather from bright worlds afar,To see her face, and listen to her tale.

As if all sunset revelled in the air,The rosy clouds float o’er her paradise,—Home of the once lone daughter of despairWho prayed through tears with ever downcast eyes.

The lucent hills pant in the azure beams,Behind empurpled steeps that blend belowWith trembling woods and crystal-bearing streams,And in the sky-paved water-mirrors glow.

As rising stars entangle in their spheresAll the blue ether round, her look of thoughtHangs in heaven’s light, where her sad life appearsA sunless vision in new sunshine wrought.

There doth she stand, bliss-stricken as by fear.On one soft hand she rests her chin and cheek,Paling with rapture ere the blush appear;And lips in tremors whisper that would speak.

‘Yes, I am here, and Heaven is undefiled!This sinless face and these all-loving eyesGod gave me when I was a little child,Because I was to be in Paradise.

‘I heard a voice and slavery’s loosened bondFell from my soul, awaking me to die;I looked into death’s mirror and beyondI saw these halls of immortality.

‘My wounded heart lay in this bosom deadEre it had loved—yet oft as I did prayThat these wan hands might labour for their bread,Hope only came to prayer but did not stay.

‘Sin compassed me, it was my deadly fate;Yet lovely visions in the darkness came,And I fled trembling to the Temple’s gateBut durst not cross the threshold for my shame.

‘While on the Temple’s steps I sat in tears,One came and spoke: I gazed and I adored!Then did a voice that only woman hearsWhisper within: I listened, self-abhorred.

‘’Twas He whose image visited my sleep.But still He spake to me in words that gaveA world, and had soul-echoes clear and deepWhich widened ever like the circling wave.

‘His image grew before my wondering mind—His, ’mid whose many griefs my life began.Enrapt I gazed, until my eyes were blind,On Him who in His pity dies for man.

‘When the blest vision ceased, my eyes would droopAnd in great dreams that holy Being meet;Then would He clothe me, lowly would He stoop,And with His hands anoint my weary feet.

‘Thenceforth He was the rock that safely drewMy heart to shelter, as the gentle shoreReceives the broken wave: to Him it flewAnd the lulled sorrow beat on me no more.

‘Then o’er me flowed that stream of heavenly graceWhich all my infant innocence restored:From that glad hour has rested on my faceThis happy gaze of one who has adored.

‘The living Saviour had my heart enthralled!I saw His face, in His blessed footsteps moved;And in my dreams His holy word recalled;I knew not who He was: I only loved.

‘Then did I but remember things to come,The reveries of pure delights above;Yes, to this blissful height my passion clomb,And sin was silenced in the hush of love.

‘In that o’ershadowing trance till death I lay:Peace weighed upon me like the Saviour’s kiss.Towards the beloved my eyes would fondly strayIn sleeping rapture and awaking bliss.

‘Death with dis-shadowed hand had come betimes,And bore my grave into the open skies.And then I hearkened to the heavenly chimesThat cheered my soul’s ascent to Paradise.

‘My end seemed consummated in the clouds:There with the purple morn my slumber broke;But tempting spirits hovered round in crowdsAnd gathered like a storm as I awoke.

‘Upon the Temple’s highest pinnacleThe Saviour stood in glory like the sun.The rapture of my soul was at the full:Eternal life had unawares begun.

‘He from that holy height upon me gazed;The angels in His glorious presence trod:With outstretched wings I rushed to them amazedAnd flew into the open arms of God.’

So you would leave me, little Rose?Dear child, with all your mother’s ways;That look she had in girlish days,The look that with your beauty grows.

Oft when you bring her to my mind,Before my heart has time for pain,In you she seems to live again,As though no sorrow were behind.

And when that happy, trustful gazeMeets him you love, yet more I seeYour mother as she looked at me:It is her own dear, watchful face.

And when he takes your hand in his,There flits across your lips and eyesHer own pleased smile of half surprise:It seems not like departed bliss.

Ah! what a heart-locked memory stirs—I look, ’tis she, and you are gone!Yes, though so many springs have flown,Her peace remains, our love is hers.

She sees your arms my neck enclose;She sees your lips upon my brow.No truer hour of love than nowAwaits your heart, my happy Rose!

How they come back those days of old!And now that ’tis your wedding-eve,Now that for other scenes you leave,One happy legend shall be told,—

Told in this home, this sunny valeThat for long years has been our own,Sacred in days that long have goneTo many another lover’s tale.

It was an hour like this, the sunWas sinking, yet had far to go:The richness of his overflowDown river, wood, and pasture shone.

Two lovers in this porch had metWhere often they had met in play:’Twas on this memorable day—As though that sun had never set.

These grey-mossed tiles still ’neath it scorch;The glare and shade still side by sideAslant the mullioned casements glideFrom yon old gable to the porch.

A youth has hurried from these walls—He stops, as in a day-dream stands:His shadow with fast-folded handsAs from yon stone sun-dial falls.

His eyes are full of one loved faceSunk pallid in her fingers cleft;The long-loved one who just had leftIn timid haste his wild embrace.

The love that with her childhood grewHad still to her unruffled clung;Engaging, playful, ever young,—And without change was ever new.

Not its glad pastimes she disowns;He drew her to a higher love;But while the pale emotion stroveShe fled from his impassioned tones.

Transparent isles of rushes bindThe rivers light with bars of greenThat catch the water’s blue between,To where it darkens in the wind.

There lies his boat, and now the sun,Still going westward with the stream,Appears to tow him on his dreamAs they advance in unison.

Along the white and yellow meads,Which buttercup and daisy share,The crowding cattle idly stareAs he winds through the matted reeds.

But her loved image fills his mind,And, ever gazing at him, screensHis eyes from those long-happy scenes,As he drifts by them, nature-blind.

The white-flowered weed whose tresses float,Combed by the stream and water-waved,Seems her bright hair in crystal laved,Struggling to overtake his boat.

His sculls drip o’er the glossy wash:The ripple of the mellow tideHe scarce feels o’er their edges glide;He lists not for the thrilling plash,

But thinks, when last the tide he clove,How bank-side elms before him flew,And quiet lay the distant viewOf woodland hill where dwelt his love.

His memory holds it as the streamHolds all the shining summer round:The sky, the woods, the very soundOf cuckoos chanting in a dream.

And how she loved the grey old bridge!Those arches mirrored deep below,That meet the pillars row to row,Quivering from their ruffled ridge—

Three tunnels open to the skies!The tasselled mosses as they float,Now still, now heaving with the boatThat passes while the vision flies.

As melt, with all the watery heaven,Those arches hanging o’er a sky—So in the quiet of a sighThe yearnings of his soul seemed riven.

The far-off boom of yonder weirNow rushes down the narrowed day:Like sirens battling with the spray,Once came its music to her ear.

The sun now trembles like a ballHeaven-forged and glittering in its blast;A pale green halo round him cast—Half quenched behind the waterfall.

White streaks are creeping through the shade;The moon climbs up the poplar trees:But a loved form of light he sees,As if her spirit walked the glade.

Well might it be, as since hath seemed,—So holy are the vanished years.But then her cheeks were under tears:It was on them the moonlight gleamed.

Her sobbings at his bosom fall;Fonder than words can tell, they sayHer heart was his, half love, half play,But now all love she gives it all.

’Twas she, your mother! While she hungHer head, and hid her tears, and creptTo me, as one who, erring, wept;Wept more the closer that she clung;

She seemed an infant in my arms—Kissed me as would a child bereaved:And then, as ’twere for joy, she grieved—Her heart released from its alarms.

God bless you, Rose! That loving face—Could she but see it! Well I knewHer thoughts when last she looked at you,Who now have grown up in her place.

Ah, leave me, Rose! these memories stirDepths that you may not dream of, child!These tears till now your love has wiled;Leave me, that I may think of her.