To a lone man it comes not near; for how can trial take hold where there is nothing by which to try? A funeral? You reason with philosophy. A graveyard? You read Hervey and muse upon the wall. A friend dies? You sigh, you pat your dog, it is over. Losses? You it is forgotten. Calumny? retrench you light your pipe You laugh- you sleep. But with that childless wife clinging to you in love and sorrow what then? Can you take down Seneca now, and coolly blow the dust from the leaf tops? Can you crimp your lip with Voltaire? Can you smoke idly, your feet dangling with the ivies, your thoughts all waving fancies upon a churchyard wall — a wall that borders the grave of your boy? Can you amuse yourself by turning stinging Martial into rhyme? Can you pat your dog, and seeing him wakeful and kind, say, "It is enough"? Can you sneer at calumny, and sit by your fire dozing? Blessed, thought I again, is the man who escapes such trial as will measure the limit of patience and the limit of courage! But the trial comes: - colder and colder were growing the embers. That wife, over whom your love broods, is fading. Not beauty fading; that, now that your heart is wrapped in her being, would be nothing. She sees with quick eyes your dawning apprehension, and she tries hard to make that step of hers elastic. Your trials and your loves together have centered your affections. They are not now as when you were a lone man, widespread and superficial. They have caught from domestic attachments a finer tone and touch. They cannot shoot out tendrils into barren world soil and suck up thence strengthening nutriment. They have grown under the forcing glass of home roof, they will not now bear exposure. You do not now look men in the face as if a heart bond was linking you as if a community of feeling lay between. There is a heart bond that absorbs all others; there is a community that monopolizes your feeling. When the heart lay wide open, before it had grown upon and closed around particular objects, it could take strength and cheer from a hundred connections that now seem colder than ice. And now those particular objects-alas for you!-are failing. What anxiety pursues you! How you struggle to fancy — there is no danger; how she struggles to persuade you there is no danger! How it grates now on your ear the toil and turmoil of the city! It was music when you were alone; it was pleasant even, when from the din you were elaborating comforts for the cherished objects; - when you had such sweet escape as evening drew on. Now it maddens you to see the world careless while you are steeped in care. They hustle you in the street; they smile at you across the table; they bow carelessly over the way; they do not know what canker is at your heart. The undertaker comes with his bill for the dead boy's funeral. He knows your grief; he is respectful. You bless him in your soul. You wish the laughing street goers were all undertakers. Your eye follows the physician as he leaves your house is he wise? you ask yourself; is he prudent? is he the best? Did he never fail - is he never forgetful? And now the hand that touches yours, is it no thinner - no whiter than yesterday? Sunny days come when she revives; color comes back; she breathes freer; she picks flowers; she meets you with a smile: hope lives again. But the next day of storm she is fallen. She cannot talk even; she presses your hand. You hurry away from business before your time. What matter for clients who is to reap the rewards? What matter for fame whose eye will it brighten? What matter for riches-whose is the inheritance? You find her propped with pillows; she is looking over a little picture book bethumbed by the dear boy she has lost. She hides it in her chair; she has pity on you. Another day of revival, when the spring sun shines, and flowers open out of doors; she leans on your arm, and strolls into the garden where the first birds are singing. Listen to them with her; what memories are in bird songs! You need not shudder at her tears they are tears of Thanksgiving. Press the hand that lies light upon your arm, and you, too, thank God, while yet you may! You are early home-mid afternoon. Your step is not light it is heavy, terrible. They have sent for you. She is lying down; her eyes half closed; her breathing long and interrupted. She hears you; her eye opens; you put your hand in hers; yours trembles; - hers does not. Her lips move, it is your name. "Be strong," she says, "God will help you!" She presses harder your hand: "Adieu!" A long breath another; - you are alone again. No tears now, poor man! You cannot find them! -Again home early. There is a smell of varnish in your house. A coffin is there; they have clothed the body in decent graveclothes, and the undertaker is screwing down the lid, slipping round on tiptoe. Does he fear to waken her? He asks you a simple question about the inscription upon plate, rubbing it with his coat cuff. You look him straight in the eye; you motion to the door; you dare not speak. He takes up his hat and glides out stealthful as a cat. The man has done his work well for all. It is a nice coffin a very nice coffin! Pass your hand over it - how smooth! Some sprigs of mignonette are lying carelessly in a little gilt-edged saucer. She loved mignonette. - It is a good stanch table the coffin rests on; it is your table; you are a housekeeper a man of family! Aye, of family! - keep down outcry, or the nurse will be in. Look over at the pinched features; is this all that is left of her? And where is your heart now? No, don't thrust your nails into your hands, nor mangle your lip, nor grate your teeth together. If you could only weep! -Another day. The coffin is gone out. The stupid mourners have wept- what idle tears! She, with your crushed heart, has gone out! Will you have pleasant evenings at your home now? Go into the parlor that your prim housekeeper has made comfortable with clean hearth and blaze of sticks. Sit down in your chair; there is another velvet-cushioned one over against yours empty. You press your fingers on your eyeballs as if you would press out something that hurt the brain; but you cannot. Your head leans upon your hand; your eye rests upon the flashing blaze. Ashes always come after blaze. ! 1 Go now into the room where she was sick-softly, lest the prim housekeeper come after. They have put new dimity upon her chair; they have hung new curtains over the bed. They have removed from the stand its phials, and silver bell; they have put a little vase of flowers in their place; the perfume will not offend the sick sense now. They have half opened the window, that the room so long closed may have air. It will not be too cold. She is not there. -Oh, God!-thou who dost temper the wind to the shorn lamb-be kind! The embers were dark; I stirred them, there was no sign of life. My dog was asleep. The clock in my tenant's chamber had struck one. I dashed a tear or two from my eyes; - how they came there I know not. I half ejaculated a prayer of thanks, that such desolation had not yet come nigh me; and a prayer of hope that it might never come. In a half hour more, I was sleeping soundly. My Reverie was ended. NOT IN VAIN. BY HARTLEY COLERIDGE. [For biographical sketch, see Vol. 23, page 39.] LET me not deem that I was made in vain, Hath its own mission, and is duly sent For which the violet cared not while it stayed, Yet felt the lighter for its vanishing, Proved that the sun was shining by its shade. Then can a drop of the eternal spring, Shadow of living lights, in vain be made? BEHIND THE VEIL. BY ALFRED TENNYSON. (From "In Memoriam.") [ALFRED TENNYSON, BARON TENNYSON: English poet; born at Somersby, England, August 6, 1809; died at Aldworth, October 6, 1892. His first poems were published with his brother Charles, in a small volume entitled "Poems of Two Brothers," in 1827. Two years later he won the chancellor's gold medal for his prize poem, "Timbuctoo." The following year came his "Poems Chiefly Lyrical." In 1832 a new volume of miscellaneous poems was published, and was attacked savagely by the Quarterly Review. Ten years afterward another volume of miscellaneous verse was collected. In 1847 he published "The Princess," which was warmly received. In 1850 came In Memoriam," and he was appointed poet laureate to succeed Wordsworth. Among his other works may be mentioned: "Idylls of the King" (1859), "Enoch Arden" and "The Holy Grail" (1869), “Queen Mary" (1875), "Harold" (1876), "The Cup" (1884), Tiresias" (1885), "Locksley Hall Sixty Years After" (1886), "The Foresters" and "The Death of Enone" (1892).] OH YET We trust that somehow good To pangs of nature, sins of will, Defects of doubt, and taints of blood; " That nothing walks with aimless feet; That not a worm is cloven in vain; Behold, we know not anything; I can but trust that good shall fall So runs my dream: but what am I? |