Poem VII

So was their sanctuary violated,So their fair college turned to hospital;At first with all confusion: by and bySweet order lived again with other laws:A kindlier influence reigned; and everywhereLow voices with the ministering handHung round the sick: the maidens came, they talked,They sang, they read: till she not fair beganTo gather light, and she that was, becameHer former beauty treble; and to and froWith books, with flowers, with Angel offices,Like creatures native unto gracious act,And in their own clear element, they moved.

But sadness on the soul of Ida fell,And hatred of her weakness, blent with shame.Old studies failed; seldom she spoke: but oftClomb to the roofs, and gazed alone for hoursOn that disastrous leaguer, swarms of menDarkening her female field: void was her use,And she as one that climbs a peak to gazeO'er land and main, and sees a great black cloudDrag inward from the deeps, a wall of night,Blot out the slope of sea from verge to shore,And suck the blinding splendour from the sand,And quenching lake by lake and tarn by tarnExpunge the world: so fared she gazing there;So blackened all her world in secret, blankAnd waste it seemed and vain; till down she came,And found fair peace once more among the sick.

And twilight dawned; and morn by morn the larkShot up and shrilled in flickering gyres, but ILay silent in the muffled cage of life:And twilight gloomed; and broader-grown the bowersDrew the great night into themselves, and Heaven,Star after Star, arose and fell; but I,Deeper than those weird doubts could reach me, layQuite sundered from the moving Universe,Nor knew what eye was on me, nor the handThat nursed me, more than infants in their sleep.

But Psyche tended Florian: with her oft,Melissa came; for Blanche had gone, but leftHer child among us, willing she should keepCourt-favour: here and there the small bright head,A light of healing, glanced about the couch,Or through the parted silks the tender facePeeped, shining in upon the wounded manWith blush and smile, a medicine in themselvesTo wile the length from languorous hours, and drawThe sting from pain; nor seemed it strange that soonHe rose up whole, and those fair charitiesJoined at her side; nor stranger seemed that hearsSo gentle, so employed, should close in love,Than when two dewdrops on the petals shakeTo the same sweet air, and tremble deeper down,And slip at once all-fragrant into one.

Less prosperously the second suit obtainedAt first with Psyche. Not though Blanche had swornThat after that dark night among the fieldsShe needs must wed him for her own good name;Not though he built upon the babe restored;Nor though she liked him, yielded she, but fearedTo incense the Head once more; till on a dayWhen Cyril pleaded, Ida came behindSeen but of Psyche: on her foot she hungA moment, and she heard, at which her faceA little flushed, and she past on; but eachAssumed from thence a half-consent involvedIn stillness, plighted troth, and were at peace.

Nor only these: Love in the sacred hallsHeld carnival at will, and flying struckWith showers of random sweet on maid and man.Nor did her father cease to press my claim,Nor did mine own, now reconciled; nor yetDid those twin-brothers, risen again and whole;Nor Arac, satiate with his victory.

But I lay still, and with me oft she sat:Then came a change; for sometimes I would catchHer hand in wild delirium, gripe it hard,And fling it like a viper off, and shriek'You are not Ida;' clasp it once again,And call her Ida, though I knew her not,And call her sweet, as if in irony,And call her hard and cold which seemed a truth:And still she feared that I should lose my mind,And often she believed that I should die:Till out of long frustration of her care,And pensive tendance in the all-weary noons,And watches in the dead, the dark, when clocksThrobbed thunder through the palace floors, or calledOn flying Time from all their silver tongues--And out of memories of her kindlier days,And sidelong glances at my father's grief,And at the happy lovers heart in heart--And out of hauntings of my spoken love,And lonely listenings to my muttered dream,And often feeling of the helpless hands,And wordless broodings on the wasted cheek--From all a closer interest flourished up,Tenderness touch by touch, and last, to these,Love, like an Alpine harebell hung with tearsBy some cold morning glacier; frail at firstAnd feeble, all unconscious of itself,But such as gathered colour day by day.

Last I woke sane, but well-nigh close to deathFor weakness: it was evening: silent lightSlept on the painted walls, wherein were wroughtTwo grand designs; for on one side aroseThe women up in wild revolt, and stormedAt the Oppian Law. Titanic shapes, they crammedThe forum, and half-crushed among the restA dwarf-like Cato cowered. On the other sideHortensia spoke against the tax; behind,A train of dames: by axe and eagle sat,With all their foreheads drawn in Roman scowls,And half the wolf's-milk curdled in their veins,The fierce triumvirs; and before them pausedHortensia pleading: angry was her face.

I saw the forms: I knew not where I was:They did but look like hollow shows; nor moreSweet Ida: palm to palm she sat: the dewDwelt in her eyes, and softer all her shapeAnd rounder seemed: I moved: I sighed: a touchCame round my wrist, and tears upon my hand:Then all for languor and self-pity ranMine down my face, and with what life I had,And like a flower that cannot all unfold,So drenched it is with tempest, to the sun,Yet, as it may, turns toward him, I on herFixt my faint eyes, and uttered whisperingly:

'If you be, what I think you, some sweet dream,I would but ask you to fulfil yourself:But if you be that Ida whom I knew,I ask you nothing: only, if a dream,Sweet dream, be perfect. I shall die tonight.Stoop down and seem to kiss me ere I die.'

I could no more, but lay like one in trance,That hears his burial talked of by his friends,And cannot speak, nor move, nor make one sign,But lies and dreads his doom. She turned; she paused;She stooped; and out of languor leapt a cry;Leapt fiery Passion from the brinks of death;And I believed that in the living worldMy spirit closed with Ida's at the lips;Till back I fell, and from mine arms she roseGlowing all over noble shame; and allHer falser self slipt from her like a robe,And left her woman, lovelier in her moodThan in her mould that other, when she cameFrom barren deeps to conquer all with love;And down the streaming crystal dropt; and sheFar-fleeted by the purple island-sides,Naked, a double light in air and wave,To meet her Graces, where they decked her outFor worship without end; nor end of mine,Stateliest, for thee! but mute she glided forth,Nor glanced behind her, and I sank and slept,Filled through and through with Love, a happy sleep.

Deep in the night I woke: she, near me, heldA volume of the Poets of her land:There to herself, all in low tones, she read.

'Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font:The fire-fly wakens: wake thou with me.

Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a ghost,And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.

Now lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars,And all thy heart lies open unto me.

Now lies the silent meteor on, and leavesA shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.

Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,And slips into the bosom of the lake:So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slipInto my bosom and be lost in me.'

I heard her turn the page; she found a smallSweet Idyl, and once more, as low, she read:

'Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height:What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang)In height and cold, the splendour of the hills?But cease to move so near the Heavens, and ceaseTo glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine,To sit a star upon the sparkling spire;And come, for love is of the valley, come,For love is of the valley, come thou downAnd find him; by the happy threshold, he,Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize,Or red with spirted purple of the vats,Or foxlike in the vine; nor cares to walkWith Death and Morning on the silver horns,Nor wilt thou snare him in the white ravine,Nor find him dropt upon the firths of ice,That huddling slant in furrow-cloven fallsTo roll the torrent out of dusky doors:But follow; let the torrent dance thee downTo find him in the valley; let the wildLean-headed Eagles yelp alone, and leaveThe monstrous ledges there to slope, and spillTheir thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke,That like a broken purpose waste in air:So waste not thou; but come; for all the valesAwait thee; azure pillars of the hearthArise to thee; the children call, and IThy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound,Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet;Myriads of rivulets hurrying through the lawn,The moan of doves in immemorial elms,And murmuring of innumerable bees.'

So she low-toned; while with shut eyes I layListening; then looked. Pale was the perfect face;The bosom with long sighs laboured; and meekSeemed the full lips, and mild the luminous eyes,And the voice trembled and the hand. She saidBrokenly, that she knew it, she had failedIn sweet humility; had failed in all;That all her labour was but as a blockLeft in the quarry; but she still were loth,She still were loth to yield herself to oneThat wholly scorned to help their equal rightsAgainst the sons of men, and barbarous laws.She prayed me not to judge their cause from herThat wronged it, sought far less for truth than powerIn knowledge: something wild within her breast,A greater than all knowledge, beat her down.And she had nursed me there from week to week:Much had she learnt in little time. In partIt was ill counsel had misled the girlTo vex true hearts: yet was she but a girl--'Ah fool, and made myself a Queen of farce!When comes another such? never, I think,Till the Sun drop, dead, from the signs.'Her voicechoked, and her forehead sank upon her hands,And her great heart through all the faultful PastWent sorrowing in a pause I dared not break;Till notice of a change in the dark worldWas lispt about the acacias, and a bird,That early woke to feed her little ones,Sent from a dewy breast a cry for light:She moved, and at her feet the volume fell.

'Blame not thyself too much,' I said, 'nor blameToo much the sons of men and barbarous laws;These were the rough ways of the world till now.Henceforth thou hast a helper, me, that knowThe woman's cause is man's: they rise or sinkTogether, dwarfed or godlike, bond or free:For she that out of Lethe scales with manThe shining steps of Nature, shares with manHis nights, his days, moves with him to one goal,Stays all the fair young planet in her hands--If she be small, slight-natured, miserable,How shall men grow? but work no more alone!Our place is much: as far as in us liesWe two will serve them both in aiding her--Will clear away the parasitic formsThat seem to keep her up but drag her down--Will leave her space to burgeon out of allWithin her--let her make herself her ownTo give or keep, to live and learn and beAll that not harms distinctive womanhood.For woman is not undevelopt man,But diverse: could we make her as the man,Sweet Love were slain: his dearest bond is this,Not like to like, but like in difference.Yet in the long years liker must they grow;The man be more of woman, she of man;He gain in sweetness and in moral height,Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world;She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care,Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind;Till at the last she set herself to man,Like perfect music unto noble words;And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time,Sit side by side, full-summed in all their powers,Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be,Self-reverent each and reverencing each,Distinct in individualities,But like each other even as those who love.Then comes the statelier Eden back to men:Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and calm:Then springs the crowning race of humankind.May these things be!'Sighing she spoke 'I fearThey will not.''Dear, but let us type them nowIn our own lives, and this proud watchword restOf equal; seeing either sex aloneIs half itself, and in true marriage liesNor equal, nor unequal: each fulfilsDefect in each, and always thought in thought,Purpose in purpose, will in will, they grow,The single pure and perfect animal,The two-celled heart beating, with one full stroke,Life.'And again sighing she spoke: 'A dreamThat once was mine! what woman taught you this?'

'Alone,' I said, 'from earlier than I know,Immersed in rich foreshadowings of the world,I loved the woman: he, that doth not, livesA drowning life, besotted in sweet self,Or pines in sad experience worse than death,Or keeps his winged affections clipt with crime:Yet was there one through whom I loved her, oneNot learnèd, save in gracious household ways,Not perfect, nay, but full of tender wants,No Angel, but a dearer being, all diptIn Angel instincts, breathing Paradise,Interpreter between the Gods and men,Who looked all native to her place, and yetOn tiptoe seemed to touch upon a sphereToo gross to tread, and all male minds perforceSwayed to her from their orbits as they moved,And girdled her with music. Happy heWith such a mother! faith in womankindBeats with his blood, and trust in all things highComes easy to him, and though he trip and fallHe shall not blind his soul with clay.''But I,'Said Ida, tremulously, 'so all unlike--It seems you love to cheat yourself with words:This mother is your model. I have heardof your strange doubts: they well might be: I seemA mockery to my own self. Never, Prince;You cannot love me.''Nay but thee' I said'From yearlong poring on thy pictured eyes,Ere seen I loved, and loved thee seen, and sawThee woman through the crust of iron moodsThat masked thee from men's reverence up, and forcedSweet love on pranks of saucy boyhood: now,Given back to life, to life indeed, through thee,Indeed I love: the new day comes, the lightDearer for night, as dearer thou for faultsLived over: lift thine eyes; my doubts are dead,My haunting sense of hollow shows: the change,This truthful change in thee has killed it. Dear,Look up, and let thy nature strike on mine,Like yonder morning on the blind half-world;Approach and fear not; breathe upon my brows;In that fine air I tremble, all the pastMelts mist-like into this bright hour, and thisIs morn to more, and all the rich to-comeReels, as the golden Autumn woodland reelsAthwart the smoke of burning weeds. Forgive me,I waste my heart in signs: let be. My bride,My wife, my life. O we will walk this world,Yoked in all exercise of noble end,And so through those dark gates across the wildThat no man knows. Indeed I love thee: come,Yield thyself up: my hopes and thine are one:Accomplish thou my manhood and thyself;Lay thy sweet hands in mine and trust to me.'