Poems (Blagden)/Story of two lives

by Isa Blagden

 POEMS

THE STORY OF TWO LIVES.

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I.—HIS LIFE.

[Scene—An English Park. Time—Evening.]

My long deep swoon is o'er—I dimly feel
These palsied senses wake; and now, the wheel
Of Time, so long fast-locked, revolves again,—
Again I live through all that past of pain:
Regret and longing, shame, resentment, pride,
Conscience—too long suppressed, too oft defied—
Unite to sting me; every writhing nerve
Thrills into torture, till my senses swerve
Perplexed and racked. Life founders in the shock;
The mast is down . . . the ship has struck a rock.
When first this terror all my soul o'ercame,
I sate with her, the lady of my name.
'Mid this convulsion of all Time and Space
How strange to think of that familiar face!
The haughty features and the large bright eyes,
So keenly steadfast in their cold surprise.
Her jewelled fingers, white and thin, turned o'er
The journal of the day—no more! no more!
It all returns, the words are burning here,
And fall like molten lead upon my ear.

She read with languid, slow, indifferent tone,
Calm as a child, who throws in, one by one,
Pebbles, deep down into some mighty lake,
Reckless what stormy echoes they may wake.
Sudden she spoke, half pity, half disdain—
'Poor thing, how much she must have borne of pain!
Found dead, none knew her home, her name, her age;
One of those outcasts!" . . . rustled here the page,
Scorned by the dainty hand, the proud lip curled
As she read on: "Poor outcast of the world!
If killed by grief, disease, or hunger, none
Would ever know, for she had died, alone;
But one poor relic, in her hand held fast,
This squalid misery with some brighter past
Must once have bound —a soiled, torn heron's plume." . . .
God! what white Presence shivered through the room?
"How strangely pale you look! are you not well?"
She rose and left me.

           Ah! what bell
Was that she touched that rang so sharp a sound,—
Vibrating down the walls, and from the ground,
Louder and louder till it clove my brain,
Which throbbed and throbbed, and echoed it again?
Who groaned? Not I—I firmly laid my hand
Upon a chair; I could each pulse command.
But why should all things glow with sudden fire,
Or fade in sudden darkness? why require
To grope my way around by sense of touch,
As if I could not trust my sight as much?
Did no accusing phantom enter there,
Shadowy, impalpable, yet deathly fair?
Could those few words, read in that smooth, chill tone
Root up my being—leave it all o'erthrown?
And o'er the ruin did an angel come,
And roll away the stone from my heart's tomb?
I had, methought, bridged o’er my young despair—
I dreamed my prosperous manhood had no share
In that vain past—the records of that day
Hid (fool to think so) with that past away!
But memory lives wherever has been guilt—
The stain remains where'er the wine is spilt!
And though so hushed and still the present seemed
At times beneath its wave, strange shadows gleamed:
I looked with more of self-contempt than pain,
And proudly turned to busy life again.
All soft emotions I have long represt—
What need of garlands on a mailed breast?
So best; so marble hard my heart has grown
That what was foliage once, is now but stone,
Life petrified to flint. But what shines there?
Why do I tremble thus? Art still so fair?
Woman! did I love thee? Speak—speak! was thine
That death she read of? was that love-gift mine?
That heron-plume! are these the eyes, the mouth
Whose wooing sweetness passion-filled my youth?
Why dost thou rise before me thus? Adored,
Thy bare white arm uplifted as a sword,
What seek'st thou at my hands? was't not a Fate—
Betrayed, undone—did Love wrong more than Hate?
We loved. She was an orphan, poor and young,
My mother's ward; we to each other clung,
Playmates for years in yon dark ancient hall.
We loved, were parted, who dares blame our fall?
I bore a wealthy, old, patrician name,
My mother swore it should be kept from shame;
She thrust her from my side. Forgive me, Sweet!
Would God that day I perished at thy feet!

Time passed, and with it love. Alas! since then
My life has been as lives of other men:
Pleasure and pride, ambition, some success,
And a heart flattered into selfishness.
The past I soon forgot, as all men can:
Didst thou? but thou wert woman; I a man.

And once again we met; pearls gemmed thy hair,
Thy wasted cheek was pale, but yet how fair!
Doubting and eager, in thy hollow eyes
Methought I saw a struggling memory rise.
I turned away. "Thank Heaven," I said, "I'm free,
I have outgrown that weakness." Pharisee!
Because I flung a flower upon the road
For other men to trample—I thanked God!
Less sullied thou in body, soul, and heart,
Than I, who acted the self-righteous part;
Better the impulse of some warm, wild sin
Than the world's mildew, rotting all within;
Better a torrid than an arctic sky;
Better a fever than a leprosy!

I sought once more my old ancestral hall;
All was so changed, it dared no ghosts recall.
Where the impassioned boy? the gentle girl?
There stood my bride, the daughter of an earl.
All praised the decent order of my life,
My graceful children, and my stately wife.
None saw but I, that where my daughters played,
There stood among them an appealing shade;
None knew that where their girlish voices sung,
A softer music in my ears had rung.
Yon woods glare vengeful red in day's decline,
For there, a young bright life was poured like wine!

When from the church pealed loud the hour of prayer,
I entered with a self-applauding air;
Observance of these rites to God is due,
My station claims my presence in my pew;
I doubt the dogma, but respect the form,
Nor yawn unless the tedious day be warm.
I gravely hear of life, of sin, of death,
And sanction give to Him of Nazareth:
Religion is a social state machine;
A fence to keep the untutored herd within.
I listen, and I hear unmoved the doom—
"Woe, woe to him through whom offences come!"

But now the frozen surface of the stream
Breaks wide; below, the heaving waters gleam.
How quietly I have recalled all this,
And yet, between me and this Past there is
A murdered Life! What is it that I feel?
I think I swooned, and still my senses reel.
What chance divorced me from my Life? uptorn
From all which made my life until this morn.
I rushed into the air exhausted, spent;
My wife, saw she I staggered as I went?
My stainless wife, that she should live to have
A husband weeping o'er a wanton's grave!
But why, if thou wert vile, and lost, and weak,
Should I thus suffer? I adjure thee, speak!
Here must have been some early warp towards sin,
And soon or late the self-same course had been.
Had we not loved the end had been the same . . .
Ah no! that lie is burnt out as with flame.
'Twas I who sinned, 'twas I who failed thy trust;
I the forsworn, the perjured, false, unjust;
On me the guilt of thy betrayal lies;
I led thy virtue down the slope to vice.
Am I at last to this conviction brought?
What fearful horror in that damning thought!
The pseudo-virtues which I claim as mine,
My cold decorums, and the bigot line
By which I nicely gauged all human act—
Shrivel before the terror of this fact.
Large is my ruin, utter and complete,
The world's vain creeds are ashes at my feet.
I tear this grass, I fling it to the sky,
My hollow faith, its paltry forms defy—
I blaspheme God, and Fate, and Man, and all,
Because she fell as such must ever fall.
I glance on high at yon relentless heaven,
Its stern attesting witness has been given,
And there is sentence in its silence. Where
Obtain remission from my doubts? The air
Is void of answer; all is still; no sound
Save ripe loose acorns rustling to the ground
With sudden, muffled, fall . . . and, hark! a song
Borne faintly by the echoes. While among
The wild dark coverts of this haunted wood
I've crept to die, by vengeful shades pursued,
My wife is singing in our home; so wide
The fate-drawn rifts which soul from soul divide.
Strange, how those notes seem searching to be heard,
Ringing and sharp, like dagger-thrusts, each word;
Strange, too, how that clear crystal voice of hers
Chills the fond pathos of the quaint old verse:
"Youth, Love, and Death," persistently repeat
The echoes that refrain, "Sweet, angel sweet."
Must then the inexorable third come in,
Where'er the first their Orphic rhyme begin?—
Alas! that concord—one poor life fulfilled,
That mournful sequence one poor heart has stilled;
And I am hastening to the self-same fate,
I break the tardy hinges of the gate,
Await me Love! enfranchised on that shore,
The world's false claims assert their rule no more!—
I dare not live. I dare not once again
Fold round my soul those weary bonds of pain,
And, with a hideous mockery, resume
My life of yore—a dead man from the tomb.
My voice sounds strangely for familiar speech—
And how through these remorseful spasms reach
The polished jargon, which must be the food
Of worldly needs. I would not if I could!

I dare not now deceive myself; I know
I never loved her as I love her now.
I love her with her shame; I love her sin;
Not the pure child who first my love did win,
But the lost woman, fallen, desperate,
Brute passion's hireling slave, the purchased mate
Of villains, and of fools, a mark for scorn;
Not the white flower which from my youth was torn,
But the poor ravaged weed, which I flung down
To be a byword for the virtuous town.
I try to image thee as thou wert then;
I see thee, prey and toy of dastard men.
Was that soft, golden hair all faded, dim?
Did those poor eyelids, 'neath their swollen rim,
Lose the arch sweetness of that bending curve
Which gave those eyes their delicate reserve?
Was it all marred and broke, that tender line
Of the small throat, so soft, so white, so fine?—
How impotent is Life! I would give all—
My fair possessions, and my ancient hall,
My stainless name, the world's so just esteem,
All that my pride could hope, ambition's dream—
To wander through some lawless misery,
Forlorn, and homeless, and outcast . . . with Thee!
To clasp once more the form upon that bed,
In its soiled rags. My God! found dead, found dead!

Night's darkness gathers o'er the accusing skies,
The boding stars await a sacrifice—
I must arise from this damp tear-stained ground,
Where all my life seems bleeding through one wound.
I would each pang were prelude of disease,
Some fierce and mortal fever, which should seize
Me, sweeping onwards with its fatal power.
Too late, too late, I have lived o'er that hour—
By my own hand I've sworn to die—(what shout
Of devil mirth)—my sin has found me out.

I pause; I would not startle from her nest
Yon timid bird, low hovering to her rest,
Low calling to her young and to her mate—
I now know pity, tenderness—too late
Dost thou assert thyself. Oh, broken heart!
Oh mad! oh fool! oh blind! thou wert, thou art.

Still there: nay look not on me thus, Adored!—
Thy bare white arm uplifted as a sword,—
With all that questioning sorrow and despair.
Those eyes wild weeping, loosely streaming hair—
That death in life, that terror, that surprise,
As on that day of parting sacrifice.
Through Time, through Space, through all Eternity,
Must I still hear that wild, remorseful cry—
It speaks my doom, e'en as I reach the goal,
It is my curse—"Oh man, restore my soul!"

II.— HER LIFE.

[Scene—A London Street. Time—Evening.]

I wander up into the crowded street,
I hear the rolling wheels, the busy feet,
I see the misty rings, round lamps, which shine
Far in the distance, as a double line
Of clouded brightness, piercing night’s dim track,
(Glittering like nails upon a coffin black)—
And am no more afraid, for life is here;
Below, I am alone, with Death and Fear.

How oft I’ve paused, when all was not yet o’er,
Where yon red globes, above the druggist’s door,
Warned me that I could enter in, and find
The cheaply purchased end of all; unbind
This chain of life, which then held strong and fast—
I now can wait; that guilty wish has passed.

The air revives me, and I lose the dread
Which haunts me when alone. When I am dead
I shall not be more lone and still than there,
In that damp cellar gloom—no fire, no air—
Although, so near, the gaudy, reckless town
In its triumphant life heaves up and down.

I always feared the darkness as a child.
A child? could I have ever been a child?
Light-hearted, innocent, and glad and free?
One such long since I knew . . . was she like me?
Did I love snowdrops, and the lambs in spring?
The little birds, each soft and helpless thing?
I could be gentle then . . . ah me! how strange,
These thoughts rise, now, to torture and avenge!
They say that drowning men can thus recall
Their whole lives through, as sinking, slow, they fall;
Are the wild waters closing o'er my head,
That thus I see the Past before me spread?
I see the terrace gleaming in the sun,
The golden plain ere reaping was begun,
The church-tower hid beneath close ivy sheaves,
The pigeons fluttering o'er the moss-grown eaves,
The garden bright, with summer’s sweetest flowers,
Its quaint pleached walks, its gold laburnum bowers;
I see the jasmine's white and dainty graces,
Black hollyhocks, with laughing negro-faces,
The red geranium's ardent crest of flame,
And mignonnette, from which he took my name . . .
I see a girl amid those flowers at play—
A boy is near—two human buds, whose May
Has ripened with the flowers—both, how fair!
Was he the boy? was I the girl, who there
Stood hand in hand? Then did that road begin
Which led from Eden to a world of sin.

My parents served his mother. From their grave
She took me to her home, and swore to save
My life from all their lives, she said, had borne.
Oh, better had I lived as poor, forlorn
As thou, my mother; better on thy bier
Had I been slain, than sent to perish there!
The lady kept me in her ancient hall
(There was my Paradise, and there my fall)
Until she found her son dared love me—then
She banished me. He followed, and again
She came between us. Did I love or hate
When I sent back her bounty? Oh, too late
I felt remorse, and grief, and shame, and scorn—
The veil was rent, the fond illusion torn!

Oh, not to share in innocence and ease,
But only for bare life, on bended knees
I prayed for service, work; but hunted, tossed,
From depth to depth, the world proclaimed me lost.
'Twas sin to be a coward as I was;
I was afraid to starve; I thought the laws
Were harsh and stern; men spoke of prisons, or
Would mocking point where frowned the workhouse door,
But none gave help. Oh, in that fearful coil
Which like a whirlpool sucked me in, I know
Each phase of suffering, from the wretched toil
Which keeps out Death, but gives not Life: to sew
Whole days, whole nights; week after week to seam
Till walls and floors whirl round as in a dream;
To that despair which finds even this withdrawn . .
"Some ebb in trade." Oh, why are women born!
After long years I saw him once again,
I was so stunned, I scarcely felt the pain;
I trembled not, but, calm, I met his eye,
Which scanned me through, and yet I did not die.
No love was in my life, I learned "to smile
Beneath the gas," my heart all cold the while;
Deaf, dumb, and blind, a prey to passions rude;
Alas! I had no home, no bed, no food!

I strove to 'scape from this accursed state
One dismal eve, I stood beside a gate,
It was a "Refuge," and I trembling rung . . .
"No room—all full;" the iron portal swung,
And I was left without—and that hope died—
In vain three more, my weary footsteps tried:
At last the workhouse.^[1] Oh my God! the shame,
The Board of Guardians and their cruel blame;
The terrors of those cells, that dread dark ward,
Its jeering blasphemies, its vice ignored,
Unguessed, by even such as I till then . . .
Is there a lower Hell? Yet righteous men
Have dreamed that here was refuge, peace, reform,
A shelter from the world's inclement storm.
Herded together, ruled by gyve and rope,
Evil grew rampant, evil with no hope
Here or hereafter, strong enough to save
The soul alive in that unresting grave!

I know not how I left, or where I went,
All impulse, courage, energy, were spent—
Warped as by fire, both age and sex effaced,
(That lava holds no trace of woman's breast),
I lost all shame; I robbed—or begged for food,
And "homeless 'mid a thousand homes I stood."

How oft beneath the vast and echoing arch,
Which strides across the river's stately march,
I've crawled to lay my weary hopeless head,
While loud above I heard the City's tread!
With sinking pulse, and dizzy, swimming brain,
Torn by stiff aching cramps, and racked with pain,
Haunted by feverish dreams, while far below,
Lulling, and cool, I heard the waters flow—
A moment to feel tempted, then to shrink
Back, back from that beguiling, awful, brink;
The start—recoil—the tottering to one's feet—
Once more, once more, into the hideous street,
Blindly to grope back into life anew . . .
Father, forgive, we know not what we do!

As I one night was pacing to and fro,
A woman met and spoke to me; though low
Her voice, her words had power to probe, yet heal,
Mild, yet incisive, bright and strong as steel.
She told me she had been to the far East,
Had traced the steps of each Evangelist—
Had stood where once stood wide the Temple door,
And where our Jesus spoke, "Go, sin no more."^[2]
One eve, she said, as slow the sun went down,
She saw, as there she paused and mused alone,
A shepherd, bearing back into the fold
A little yearling lamb, all starved and cold,
And tired and bleeding, for its truant feet
Had rambled from green paths and meadows sweet
Until it reached the Dead Sea's bitter wave,
Where the foul waters fouler deserts lave;
But there it had been found, and thence brought home
With gentlest care and love—"Thus God says come,
To you; will you not come, my child? for see,
The same Good Shepherd seeks for you and me."
Her outstretched hand upheld me for a time.
I found a service. Was it such a crime
That I concealed my past—my present state
From all my former guilt to separate?
Some old companions found me; whence I came
Was thus betrayed; they called me by my name,
And I stood helpless—for that name was known—
The door was shut, and I was bid "begone!"

I was not worse than others. Through my tears
I heard a cry which told of sharper fears—
A cry more wild and desperate than my own.
I saw a girl flung down upon a stone,
Sobbing with fright—I almost feared to speak,
But went towards her; and she raised a meek
And tear-stained face, with pleading, clinging trust—
"Oh! will you help me?" What a stormy gust
Of wrath and hatred rose within me then
'Gainst all this rigid world of righteous men!
Outcasts and homeless—here, two human lives
Were left to perish; yet these men had wives
And sisters; little girls upon their knee . . .
But have no pity; must she end like me?
She was an orphan, by the parish placed
With a bad mistress, artful, vile, unchaste,
Who had ill-treated, starved her, then had bid
Her do, with drunken oaths, what others did.
She had refused, had been thrust out, and now
She was so frightened, blushes dyed her brow.
She had a friend—far off—if she could reach
Her house she would be safe. With timid speech
She told me this, then pointed to her dress—
No bonnet—cloak—and she was penniless.
Her tears fell faster—"I must beg," she said;
"I know not where to-night to lay my head."
I gave her the poor trifle I had saved;
My shawl I gave her; I too long had braved,
More lightly clad, the winds, the rain, the night,
To fear them now. Her pure child's face shone bright
With joy—"I owe you more than life," she said.
"Tell me your name." I silent shook my head.
Then for a moment was that frank young mouth
Pressed close to mine. Oh God! how my lost youth
Rose from its tomb, as those fresh lips pressed mine!
I drank each kiss as dying men drink wine.
She hastened on, and I, alone once more,
Felt calm. The bitterness of death was o'er.
I'd given my all—but she was saved; for me
It mattered nought—could I more wretched be?
As I thus stood—a sharp and piercing pain
Shot through my side—again, and once again—
As if a knife was searching through my breast,
To find my heart, and give its tumult rest.
It passed, and left a sense of dim release,
I knew that pain was harbinger of peace.

I found a shelter on that very night—
A, cellar loathsome, dark, but with the right
Of solitude, I need no more; by day
I earn, or beg, a trifle, then I stay
Quite still, exhausted, for long hours—no pain—
No care—in this last conflict I shall gain.

Sometimes I creep up for a little air,
As now; but rarer grows the wish, more rare.
Some of my old, impatient restlessness
Stirred in my heart to-night—beneath my dress
It throbs like a poor hunted thing, which fears,
And madly still resists the leaguered spears;
Fights its hard fight for life, as stags, they say,
Wounded to death, will yet keep death at bay.

And thus I come once more, for air and light,
It was so piteous in that dreary night;
And then, perchance, some kindly passer-by
Will speak some word to soothe me, ere I die,
If not, in yon poor street, I think I know
A friend, to whom undoubting I could go
For help in this last hour;—a labouring man
And poor, but kind, as oft we poor ones can
Be kind to one another. Though so late,
He will be working still; they cannot wait
Who need his work—his hard, ill-omened trade,
To make the coffins of the pauper dead.
Tis here, the shutter is not closed—I see.
Let me look in. He's working. By his knee,
I see her well, in matron-beauty stands
A woman; and a baby's tiny hands
Are clasped around her neck. Could I have been
A wife and mother! Oh my God!—what sin
To murmur now!—all is, and must be, best.
And yet—and yet—a baby on my breast
Had been a shield secure, a hope, an aim.
The long-spent ashes kindle into flame
At the bare thought. Dare I repine at Fate?
Oh! hush, poor broken heart,—too late, too late!

How wide my thoughts are wandering to-night!
These three I gaze on dimly in the light,
Through that small dusty pane—recall to me
A famous picture of a group of three,
Seen in that grand old chapel of the Hall,
Over the altar set, midst tapers tall—
Painted by Raphael, so the legend saith—
The Virgin and the Babe of Nazareth.
This scene recalls that picture—parent love—
The emblem and the type of God's great Love—
The glory will fill up my darkness, I,
Soothed by its sweetness, now, can calmly die.
I will not enter in—poor friends, I go—
May God bless both—I need no kind word now.
I will go down to my dark home again.
What! do these stiffening fingers still retain
In their loose hold, this soiled, torn, heron's plume,—
Pledge of a love that led me to this doom?
"It was his crest," he said, which I should wear,
And laughing placed it waving in my hair;
He swore to leave all else, whate'er might be,
If I but sent that plume, to fly to me.
I dared not send it.—I am now alone;
May God forgive him as I long have done!
I know there has been wrong, but mine seems worst—
The guilt, the blame, be mine—I have no thirst
For aught but to forgive, and be forgiven;
I cling for mercy to God's feet—Oh Heaven!—
How that fair picture deepens in the night!
I hear a voice—I see a radiant light—
A hand held out which stills this aching breast—
"Come unto me, and I will give you rest."

1. Vide 'Uncommercial Traveller.'
2. Vide 'Cities of the Past'