For one, the youngest, hardly more than boy, Hurt in that night of sudden ruin and wreck, Lay lingering out a three-years' death-in-life. They could not leave him. After he was gone, The two remaining found a fallen stem; And Enoch's comrade, careless of himself, Fire-hollowing this in Indian fashion, fell Sun-stricken, and that other lived alone.
With clamor. Downward from his mountain gorge
Stept the long-haired long-bearded solitary,
Brown, looking hardly human, strangely clad,
Muttering and mumbling, idiotlike it seem'd,
With inarticulate rage, and making signs
They knew not what: and yet he led the way
To where the rivulets of sweet water ran;
And ever as he mingled with the crew,
In those two deaths he read God's warning "wait." And heard them talking, his long-bounden tongue
The mountain wooded to the peak, the lawns And winding glades high up like ways to Heaven, The slender coco's drooping crown of plumes, The lightning flash of insect and of bird, The lustre of the long convolvuluses That coil'd around the stately stems, and ran Ev'n to the limit of the land, the glows And glories of the broad belt of the world, All these he saw; but what he fain had seen He could not see, the kindly human face, Nor ever hear a kindly voice, but heard The myriad shriek of wheeling ocean-fowl, The league-long roller thundering on the reef, The moving whisper of huge trees that branch'd And blossom'd in the zenith, or the sweep Of some precipitous rivulet to the wave, As down the shore he ranged, or all day long Sat often in the seaward-gazing gorge, A shipwreck'd sailor, waiting for a sail : No sail from day to day, but every day The sunrise broken into scarlet shafts Among the palms and ferns and precipices; The blaze upon the waters to the east; The blaze upon his island overhead; The blaze upon the waters to the west;
Was loosen'd, till he made them understand:
Whom, when their casks were fill'd they took aboard,
And there the tale he utter'd brokenly,
Scarce credited at first but more and more,
Amazed and melted all who listen'd to it:
And clothes they gave him and free passage home,
But oft he work'd among the rest and shook
His isolation from him. None of these
Came from his county, or could answer him,
If question'd, aught of what he cared to know.
And dull the voyage was with long delays,
The vessel scarce sea-worthy; but evermore
His fancy fled before the lazy wind
Returning, till beneath a clouded moon
He like a lover down thro' all his blood
Drew in the dewy meadowy morning-breath
Of England, blown across her ghostly wall:
And that same morning officers and men
Levied a kindly tax upon themselves,
Pitying the lonely man, and gave him it:
Then moving up the coast they landed him,
Ev'n in that harbor whence he sail'd before.
There Enoch spoke no word to any one,
But homeward,-home,-what home? had he a home?
His home he walk'd. Bright was that afternoon,
Then the great stars that globed themselves in Sunny but chill; till drawn thro' either chasm,
The hollower-bellowing ocean, and again The scarlet shafts of sunrise-but no sail.
There, often as he watch'd or seem'd to watch, So still, the golden lizard on him paused, A phantom made of many phantoms moved Before him haunting him, or he himself Moved haunting people, things and places, known Far in a darker isle beyond the line; The babes, their babble, Annie, the small house, The climbing street, the mill, the leafy lanes, The peacock-yewtree and the lonely Hall, The horse he drove, the boat he sold, the chill November dawns and dewy-glooming downs, The gentle shower, the smell of dying leaves, And the low moan of leaden-color'd seas.
Once likewise, in the ringing of his ears, Tho' faintly, merrily-far and far awayHe heard the pealing of his parish bells; Then, tho' he knew not wherefore, started up Shuddering, and when the beauteous hateful isle Return'd upon him, had not his poor heart Spoken with That, which being everywhere Lets none, who speaks with Him, seem all alone, Surely the man had died of solitude.
Thus over Enoch's early-silvering head The sunny and rainy seasons came and went Year after year. His hopes to see his own, And pace the sacred old familiar fields, Not yet had perish'd, when his lonely doom Came suddenly to an end. Another ship (She wanted water) blown by baffling winds Like the Good Fortune, from her destined course, Stay'd by this isle, not knowing where she lay; For since the mate had seen at early dawn Across a break on the mist-wreathen isle The silent water slipping from the hills, They sent a crew that landing burst away
In search of stream or fount, and fill d the shores
Where either haven open'd on the deeps,
Roll'd a sea-haze and whelm'd the world in gray
Cut off the length of highway on before,
And left but narrow breadth to left and right
Of wither'd holt or tilth or pasturage.
On the nigh-naked tree the Robin piped
Disconsolate, and thro' the dripping haze
The dead weight of the dead leaf bore it down,
Thicker the drizzle grew, deeper the gloom;
Last, as it seem'd, a great mist-blotted light
Flared on him, and he came upon the place.
Then down the long street having slowly stolen, His heart foreshadowing all calamity,
His eyes upon the stones, he reach'd the home
Where Annie lived and loved him, and his babes
In those far-off seven happy years were born;
But finding neither light nor murmur there
(A bill of sale gleam'd thro' the drizzle) crept
Still downward thinking "dead or dead to me!"
Down to the pool and narrow wharf he went, Seeking a tavern which of old he knew, A front of timber-crost antiquity, So propt, worm-eaten, ruinously old. He thought it must have gone; but he was gone Who kept it: and his widow, Miriam Lane, With daily-dwindling profits held the house; A haunt of brawling seamen once, but now Stiller, with yet a bed for wandering men. There Enoch rested silent many days.
But Miriam Lane was good and garrulous, Nor let him be, but often breaking in, Told him, with other annals of the port, Not knowing-Enoch was so brown, so bow'd So broken-all the story of his house. His baby's death, her growing poverty, How Philip put her little ones to school, And kept them in it, his long wooing her, Her slow consent, and marriage, and the birth Of Philip's child: and o'er his countenance
But Enoch yearn'd to see her face again;
"If I might look on her sweet face again
And know that she is happy." So the thought
Haunted and harass'd him, and drove him forth
At evening when the dull November day
Was growing duller twilight, to the hill.
There he sat down gazing on all below:
There did a thousand memories roll upon him,
Unspeakable for sadness. By and by
The ruddy square of comfortable light,
Far-blazing from the rear of Philip's house,
Allured him, as the beacon-blaze allures
The bird of passage, till he madly strikes
Against it, and beats out his weary life.
For Philip's dwelling fronted on the street,
The latest house to landward; but behind,
With one small gate that open'd on the waste,
Flourish'd a little garden square and wall'd:
And in it throve an ancient evergreen,
A yewtree, and all round, it ran a walk
Of shingle, and a walk divided it:
But Enoch shunn'd the middle walk and stole
Up by the wall, behind the yew; and thence
That which he better might have shunn'd, if griefs
Like his have worse or better, Enoch saw.
For cups and silver on the burnish'd board
Sparkled and shone; so genial was the hearth;
And on the right hand of the hearth he saw
Philip, the slighted suitor of old times,
Stout, rosy, with his babe across his knees;
And o'er her second father stoopt a girl,
A later but a loftier Aunie Lee,
Fair-hair'd and tall, and from her lifted hand
Dangled a length of ribbon and a ring
To tempt the babe, who rear'd his creasy arms,
Caught at and ever miss'd it, and they laugh'd:
And on the left hand of the hearth he saw
The mother glancing often toward her babe,
But turning now and then to speak with him,
Her son, who stood beside her tall and strong,
And saying that which pleased him, for he smiled.
Now when the dead man come to life beheld
His wife his wife no more, and saw the babe
Hers, yet not his, upon the father's knee,
And all the warmth, the peace, the happiness,
And his own children tall and beautiful,
And him, that other, reigning in his place,
Lord of his rights and of his children's love,—
Then he, tho' Miriam Lane had told him all,
Because things seen are mightier than things heard,
Stagger'd and shook, holding the branch, and fear'd
To send abroad a shrill and terrible cry,
Which in one moment, like the blast of doom,
Would shatter all the happiness of the hearth.
He therefore turning softly like a thief,
Lest the harsh shingle should grate underfoot,
And feeling all along the garden-wall,
Lest he should swoon and tumble and be found,
Crept to the gate, and open'd it, and closed,
As lightly as a sick man's chamber-door,
Behind him, and came out upon the waste.
"Too hard to bear! why did they take me thence?
O God Almighty, blessed Saviour, Thou
That didst uphold me on my lonely isle,
Uphold me, Father, in my loneliness
A little longer! aid me, give me strength
Not to tell her, never to let her know.
Help me not to break in upon her peace.
My children too! must I not speak to these?
They know me not. I should betray myself.
Never: no father's kiss for me,- the girl
So like her mother, and the boy, my son."
There speech and thought and nature fail'd a little,
And he lay tranced: but when he rose and paced
Back toward his solitary home again,
All down the long and narrow street he went
Beating it in upon his weary brain,
As tho' it were the burthen of a song,
"Not to tell her, never to let her know."
He was not all unhappy. His resolve
Upbore him, and firm faith, and evermore
Prayer from a living source within the will,
And beating up thro' all the bitter world,
Like fountains of sweet water in the sea,
Kept him a living soul. "This miller's wife,"
He said to Miriam, "that you told me of,
Has she no fear that her first husband lives ?"
"Ay, ay, poor soul," said Miriam, "fear enow!
If you could tell her you had seen him dead,
Why, that would be her comfort:" and he thought,
"After the Lord has call'd me she shall know,
I wait His time," and Enoch set himself,
Scorning an alms, to work whereby to live.
Almost to all things could he turn his hand.
Cooper he was and carpenter, and wrought
To make the boatmen fishing-nets, or help'd
At lading and unlading the tall barks,
That brought the stinted commerce of those days:
Thus earn'd a scanty living for himself:
Yet since he did but labor for himself,
Work without hope, there was not life in it
Whereby the man could live; and as the year
Roll'd itself round again to meet the day
When Enoch had return'd, a languor came
Upon him, gentle sickness, gradually
Weakening the man, till he could do no more,
But kept the house, his chair, and last his bed
And Enoch bore his weakness cheerfully.
For sure no gladlier does the stranded wreck
See thro' the gray skirts of a lifting squall
The boat that bears the hope of life approach
To save the life despair'd of, than he saw
Death dawning on him, and the close of all.
For thro' that dawning gleam'd a kindlier hope On Enoch thinking, "After I am gone, Then may she learn I loved her to the last." He call'd aloud for Miriam Lane and said, "Woman, I have a secret-only swear, Before I tell you-swear upon the book Not to reveal it, till you see me dead." "Dead," clamor'd the good woman, "hear him talk I warrant, man, that we shall bring you round." "Swear," added Enoch sternly, "on the book." And on the book, half-frighted, Miriam swore. Then Enoch rolling his gray eyes upon her, "Did you know Enoch Arden of this town?" "Know him?" she said, "I knew him far away. Ay, ay, I mind him coming down the street; Held his head high, and cared for no man, he." Slowly and sadly Enoch answer'd her; "His head is low, and no man cares for him. I think I have not three days more to live;
And there he would have knelt, but that his I am the man." At which the woman gave knees
Were feeble, so that falling prone he dug
His fingers into the wet earth, and pray'd.
A half-incredulous, half-hysterical cry.
"You Arden, you! nay,-sure he was a foot
Higher than you be." Enoch said again,
"My God has bow'd me down to what I am; My grief and solitude have broken me; Nevertheless, know you that I am he
He never meant us anything but good.
But if my children care to see me dead,
Who hardly knew me living, let them come,
Who married but that name has twice been I am their father; but she must not come,
I married her who married Philip Ray.
Sit, listen." Then he told her of his voyage,
His wreck, his lonely life, his coming back,
His gazing in on Annie, his resolve,
And how he kept it. As the woman heard,
Fast flow'd the current of her easy tears,
While in her heart she yearn'd incessantly
To rush abroad ali round the little haven,
Proclaiming Enoch Arden and his woes;
But awed and promise-bounden she forbore,
Saying only, "See your bairns before you go!
Eh, let me fetch 'em, Arden," and arose
Eager to bring them down, for Enoch hung
A moment on her words, but then replied:
"Woman, disturb me not now at the last, But let me hoid my purpose till I die. Sit down again; mark me and understand, While I have power to speak. I charge you now, When you shall see her, tell her that I died Blessmg her, praying for her, loving her; Save for the bar between us, loving her As when she laid her head beside my own. And tell my daughter Annie, whom I saw So like her mother, that my latest breath Was spent in blessing her and praying for her. And tell my son that I died blessing him. And say to Philip that I blest him too;
For my dead face would vex her after-life.
And now there is but one of all my blood,
Who will embrace me in the world-to-be:
This hair is his: she cut it off and gave it,
And I have borne it with me all these years,
And thought to bear it with me to my grave:
But now my mind is changed, for I shall see him,
My babe in bliss: wherefore when I am gone,
Take, give her this, for it may comfort her;
It will moreover be a token to her
That I am he."
He ceased; and Miriam Lane
Made such a voluble answer promising all,
That once again he roll'd his eyes upon her
Repeating all he wish'd, and once again
She promised.
Then the third night after this,
While Enoch slumber'd motionless and pale,
And Miriam watch'd and dozed at intervals,
There came so loud a calling of the sea,
That all the houses in the haven rang.
He woke, he rose, he spread his arms abroad
Crying with a loud voice "A sail! a sail!
I am saved;" and so fell back and spoke no more
So past the strong heroic soul away. And when they buried him the little port Had seldom seen a costlier funeral.
DUST are our frames; and, gilded dust, our pride
Looks only for a moment whole and sound;
Like that long-buried body of the king,
Found lying with his urns and ornaments,
Which at a touch of light, an air of heaven,
Slipt into ashes and was found no more.
Here is a story which in rougher shape
Came from a grizzled cripple, whom I saw
Sunning himself in a waste field alone-
Old, and a mine of memories-who had served,
Long since, a bygone Rector of the place,
And been himself a part of what he told.
SIR AYLMER AYLMER, that almighty man,
The county God-in whose capacious hall,
Hung with a hundred shields, the family tree
Sprang from the midriff of a prostrate king-
Whose blazing wyvern weathercock'd the spire,
Stood from his walls and wing'd his entry-gates
And swang besides on many a windy sign-
Whose eyes from under a pyramidal head
Saw from his windows nothing save his own-
What lovelier of his own had he than her,
His only child, his Edith, whom he loved
As heiress and not heir regretfully?
But he that marries her marries her name 39
This fiat somewhat soothed himself and wife,
His wife a faded beauty of the Baths,
Insipid as the queen upon a card;
Her all of thought and bearing hardly more
Than his own shadow in a sickly sun.
A land of hops and poppy-mingled corn,
Little about it stirring save a brook!
A sleepy land where under the same wheel
The same old rut would deepen year by year;
Where almost all the village had one name;
Where Aylmer follow'd Aylmer at the Hall
And Averill Averill at the Rectory
Thrice over: so that Rectory and Hall,
Bound in an immemorial intimacy,
Were open to each other: tho' to dream
That Love could bind them closer well had made
The hoar hair of the Baronet bristle up
With horror, worse than had he heard his priest
Preach an inverted scripture, sons of men
Daughters of God; so sleepy was the land.
And might not Averill, had he will'd it so, Somewhere beneath his own low range of roofs, Have also set his many-shielded tree? There was an Aylmer-Averill marriage once, When the red rose was redder than itself, And York's white rose as red as Lancaster's, With wounded peace which each had prick'd death.
"Not proven," Averill said, or laughingly, "Some other race of Averills "-prov'n or no, What cared he? what, if other or the same? He lean'd not on his fathers but himself. But Leolin, his brother, living oft
With Averill, and a year or two before
Call'd to the bar, but ever call'd away
By one low voice to one dear neighborhood,
Would often, in his walks with Edith, claim
A distant kinship to the gracious blood
That shook the heart of Edith hearing him.
Sanguine he was: a but less vivid hue
Than of that islet in the chestnut-bloom
Flamed in his cheek and eager eyes, that still
Took joyful note of all things joyful, beam'd
Beneath a manelike mass of rolling gold,
Their best and brightest, when they dwelt on hers
Edith, whose pensive beauty, perfect else,
But subject to the season or the mood,
Shone like a mystic star between the less
And greater glory varying to and fro,
We know not wherefore; bounteously made,
And yet so finely, that a troublous touch
Thinn'd, or would seem to thin her in a day,
A joyous to dilate, as toward the light.
And these had been together from the first.
Leolin's first nurse was, five years after, hers:
So much the boy foreran; but when his date
Doubled her own, for want of playmates, he
(Since Averill was a decade and a half
His elder, and their parents underground)
Had tost his ball and flown his kite, and roll'd
His hoop to pleasure Edith, with her dipt
Against the rush of the air in the prone swing,
Made blossom-ball or daisy-chain, arranged
Her garden, sow'd her name and kept it green
In living letters, told her fairy-tales,
Show'd her the fairy footings on the grass,
The little dells of cowslip, fairy palms,
The petty marestail forest, fairy pines,
Or from the tiny pitted target blew
What look'd a flight of fairy arrows aim'd
All at one mark, all hitting: make-believes
For Edith and himself: or else he forged,
But that was later, boyish histories
Of battle, bold adventure, dungeon, wreck,
Flights, terrors, sudden rescues, and true love
Crown'd after trial; sketches rude and faint,
But where a passion yet unborn perhaps
Lay hidden as the music of the moon
Sleeps in the plain eggs of the nightingale.
And thus together, save for college-times
Or Temple-eaten terms, a couple, fair
As ever painter painted, poet sang,
Or Heav'n in lavish bounty moulded, grew.
And more and more, the maiden woman-grown,
He wasted hours with Averill; there, when first
The tented winter-field was broken up
Into that phalanx of the summer spears
That soon should wear the garland; there again
When burr and bine were gather'd; lastly there
At Christmas; ever welcome at the Hall,
to On whose dull sameness his full tide of youth
Broke with a phosphorescence cheering even
My lady; and the Baronet yet had laid
No bar between them: dull and self-involved,
Tall and erect, but bending from his height
With half-allowing smiles for all the world,
And mighty courteous in the main-his pride
Lay deeper than to wear it as his ring-
He, like an Aylmer in his Aylmerism,
Would care no more for Leolin's walking with her
Than for his old Newfoundland's, when they ran
To loose him at the stables, for he rose
Twofooted at the limit of his chain,
Roaring to make a third: and how should Love,
Whom the cross-lightnings of four chance-met eyes
Flash into fiery life from nothing, follow
Such dear familiarities of dawn?
Seldom, but when he does, Master of all.
Sir Aylmer half forgot his lazy smile
Of patron "Good! my lady's kinsman! good!"
My lady with her fingers interlock'd,
And rotatory thumbs on silken knees,
Call'd all her vital spirits into each ear
To listen: unawares they flitted off,
Busying themselves about the flowerage
That stood from out a stiff brocade in which,
The meteor of a splendid season, she,
Once with this kinsman, ah so long ago,
Stept thro' the stately minuet of those days:
But Edith's eager fancy hurried with him
So these young hearts not knowing that they loved, Suatch'd thro' the perilous passes of his life:
Not she at least, nor conscious of a bar
Between them, nor by plight or broken ring
Bound, but an immemorial intimacy,
Wander'd at will, but oft accompanied
By Averill: his, a brother's love, that hung
With wings of brooding shelter o'er her peace,
Might have been other, save for Leolin's-
Who knows? but so they wander'd, hour by hour
Gather'd the blossom that rebloom'd, and drank
The magic cup that fill'd itself anew.
A whisper half reveal'd her to herself.
For out beyond her lodges, where the brook
Vocal, with here and there a silence, ran
By sallowy rims, arose the laborers' homes,
A frequent haunt of Edith, on low knolls
That dimpling died into each other, huts
At raudom scatter'd, each a nest in bloom.
Her art, her hand, her counsel all had wrought
About them: here was one that, summer-blanch'd,
Was parcel-bearded with the traveller's-joy
In Autumn, parcel ivy-ciad; and here
The warm-blue breathings of a hidden hearth
Broke from a bower of vine and honeysuckle:
One look'd all rosetree, and another wore
A close-set robe of jasmine sown with stars:
This had a rosy sea of gillyflowers
About it; this a milky-way on earth,
Like visions in the Northern dreamer's heavens,
A hly-avenue climbing to the doors;
One, almost to the martin-haunted eaves
A summer burial deep in hollyhocks;
Each, its own charm: and Edith's everywhere:
And Edith ever visitant with him,
He but less loved than Edith, of her poor:
For she-so lowly-lovely and so loving,
Queenly responsive when the loyal hand
Rose from the clay it work'd in as she past,
Not sowing hedgerow texts and passing by,
Nor dealing goodly counsel from a height
That makes the lowest hate it, but a voice
Of comfort and an open hand of help,
A splendid presence flattering the poor roofs
Revered as theirs, but kindlier than themselves
To ailing wife or wailing infancy
Or old bedridden palsy,-was adored;
He, loved for her and for himself.
A grasp
Having the warmth and muscle of the heart,
A childly way with children, and a laugh
Ringing like proven golden coinage true,
Were no false passport to that easy realm,
Where once with Leolin at her side the girl,
Nursing a child, and turning to the warmth
The tender pink five-beaded baby-soles,
Heard the good mother softly whisper "Bless,
God bless 'em; marriages are made in Heaven."
A flash of semi-jealousy clear'd it to her.
My Lady's Indian kinsman unannounced
With half a score of swarthy faces came.
His own, tho' keen and bold and soldierly,
Sear' by the close ecliptic, was not fair:
Fairer his talk, a tongue that ruled the hour,
Tho' seeming boastful: so when first he dash'd
into the chronicle of a deedful day,
Till Leolin ever watchful of her eye
Hated him with a momentary hate.
Wife-hunting, as the rumor ran, was he:
I know not, for he spoke not, only shower'd
His oriental gifts on every one
And most on Edith: like a storm he came,
And shook the house, and like a storm he went.
Among the gifts he left her (possibly
He flow'd and ebb'd uncertain, to return
When others had been tested) there was one,
A dagger, in rich sheath with jewels on it
Sprinkled about in gold that branch'd itself
Fine as ice-ferns on January panes
Made by a breath. I know not whence at first,
Nor of what race, the work; but as he told
The story, storming a hill-fort of thieves
He got it; for their captain after fight,
His comrades having fought their last below,
Was climbing up the valley; at whom he shot:
Down from the beetling crag to which he clung
Tumbled the tawny rascal at his feet,
This dagger with him, which when now admired
By Edith whom his pleasure was to please,
At once the costly Sahib yielded to her.
And Leolin, coming after he was gone,
Tost over all her presents petulantly:
And when she show'd the wealthy scabbard, saying
"Look what a lovely piece of workmanship!"
Slight was his answer "Well-I care not for it:"
Then playing with the blade he prick'd his hand,
"A gracious gift to give a lady, this!"
"But would it be more gracious," ask'd the girl,
"Were I to give this gift of his to one
That is no lady?" "Gracious? No," said he.
"Me?-but I cared not for it. O pardon me,
I seem to be ungraciousness itself."
"Take it," she added sweetly, "tho' his gift;
For I am more ungracious ev'n than you,
I care not for it either;" and he said
"Why then I love it:" but Sir Aylmer past,
And neither loved nor liked the thing he heard.
The next day came a neighbor. Blues and reds
They talk'd of: blues were sure of it, he thought:
Then of the latest fox-where started-kill'd
In such a bottom: "Peter had the brush,
My Peter, first:" and did Sir Aylmer know
That great pock-pitten fellow had been caught?
Then made his pleasure echo, hand to hand,
And rolling as it were the substance of it
Between his palms a moment up and down-
"The birds were warm, the birds were warm upon
We have him now:" and had Sir Aylmer heard-
Nay, but he must-the land was ringing of it-
This blacksmith-border marriage-one they knew-
Raw from the nursery-who could trust a child?
That cursed France with her egalities!
And did Sir Aylmer (deferentially
With nearing chair and lower'd accent) think-
For people talk'd—that it was wholly wise
To let that handsome fellow Averill walk
So freely with his daughter? people talk'd—
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