Poems (Hinxman)/The Hall and the Cottage
THE HALL AND THE COTTAGE.
I know a stately pillared Hall; Around it sweeps the sunny park,Gay gardens where the fountains fall, And walks with beech and cedar dark.
But o'er a humbler scene than these One turret looks of the proud pile,A dingle in the wood it sees, From which the Cottage casements smile.
And when some showers of yellow leaves November o'er the turf has strown,The pigeons on the drooping eaves, The porch, the garden-pales, are shown.
This turret fronts the glowing west, It stands from household noise removed,Its peace, its view of sylvan rest, The Maiden of the mansion loved.
Here many a happy hour had sped With books, with pencils—in fair dreams—In secret works of hand or head— Youth's bashful, yet ambitious schemes.
Sweet hours! but oft by adverse call Disturbed, and therefore held more dear;For she, the fairest light of all, Must 'mid the radiant guests appear.
The boat is ready on the lake, The bows are strung—the palfreys prance;Her slender hand the harp must wake, Her fairy foot must lead the dance.
Gay was she, and such scenes could please, But, with a fervent mind endued,She turned in truer love from these Back to her graceful solitude.
At first she turned in joy serene, Then hopes delicious there were nurst;At last she turned that there, unseen, The storms of agony might burst.
Then, doleful room, what plaintive calls, What outstretched arms that grasped the air,Were witnessed by thy silent walls! Ah, woe! when youth must learn despair.
Part II.
What time she met this utter blight. It was mid Summer on the earth,And cruel seemed the golden light, And full of scorn the thrush's mirth.
Even twilight was too calm, too sweet; She could not bear the soft wind's touch;She paced the floor with aimless feet; She hid her face upon the couch.
But storms have no continuous life; The tumult of despair must die;A calm succeeds the fruitless strife, The settling of dead misery.
When now the earlier twilights gloomed, And Autumn touched the reddening bower,Nature had o'er her reassumed An altered phase of former power.
The breathless mist, the leaf afloat, The sad, cold yellow in the west,Faint snatches from the robin's throat, Were not unanswered in her breast.
Her weary spirit was allowed A sense of freedom undefined;It drifted with the drifting cloud, It wandered with the evening wind.
And in the shadowy, whispering air It seemed another voice to know,And of a presence was aware That with its own had leave to flow.
So from her window would she lean Day after day, as twilight grew,And soon the cottage walls between The failing foliage came to view.
And as in dreamy mood she gazed, She marked how oft, her work in hand,Though blithe within the firelight blazed, A maiden at the porch would stand;
And sauntered down the garden walk; And how a youth was at the stile;She seemed to hear the murmured talk, To see the blush, the happy smile!
Her wasted love that burned within Rose up in bitter strength at first;Ah, count it not an envious sin, The sudden pang, the plaintive burst!
It passed, and though a quiet grief Would often dim her gazing eyes,A gradual fountain of relief Seemed from that daily sight to rise.
Her lonely heart a tissue wove Of tender wishes round the twain.She blessed them in their humble love, She prayed they ne'er might know her pain.
When she took up her evening watch, Ah, little dreamt the cottage maid,What eyes were bent with her's to catch The figure issuing from the shade.
Ah, little,—as the lovers stood, That window reddening to the west,And marked its flash in idle mood,— The blessing murmured thence was guessed!
Part III.
By this the Winter air blew keen, And rime had touched the naked trees;She cannot from her window lean, She shrinks before the chilling breeze.
What marvel? when that faded cheek, That languid eye and motion, showIn course how slackened and how weak The springs of life within her flow.
Too sad, too common in its truth,— Ah, briefly be the tale passed o'er,—The slow decay of health in youth When youthful joy has fled before.
Be from her weary pillow brought This single record, sad and sweet,How oft she visited in thought That pair as she had seen them meet.
How, when she heard the North-wind rave, Or watched the slowly freezing mist,She wondered if their love was brave To hold through this the wonted tryst:—
"Or, haply now, that need is o'er; The joy that crowns their own dear hearthFlings music on the tempest's roar, And gives a summer to the earth.
"But what," she pondered, "if they prove Such wasted hopes as I have known?If. poverty and pride our love In one adversity have thrown?
"O then be mine no barren grief! My hand the seed of joy shall cast,Whose boughs shall spread with flower and leaf When I and all my woes are past."
And soon strange tidings of their friend Came to the pair who worked and loved,And hoped some day a happy end Might crown affection duly proved.
And soon do other walls beside The maiden's dwelling rise to view;—There shall the lover lead his bride, While yet the coming Spring is new.
Part IV.
The Spring comes smiling on betimes, As blithe the happy day to crown;Red swells the bud upon the limes, The willow wears her yellow down.
The thrush takes up her evening strain, O'er ringing fallows mounts the lark,The primrose stars the village lane And knolls and hollows of the park.
But sweeter than the sweet Spring air, And calmer than the calm blue skies,The hopes that stir the happy Pair, The light that fills the Lady's eyes.
Within those lucid depths no more The trembling mist of tears collects;The fever of that heart is o'er That soon a full repose expects.
She views the tract of woe behind, As travellers dream of once-seen lands,The undying love within her mind Calm as a marble statue stands.
But in this hush, a single thought That holds of earth has leave to stir;'Tis with the coming bridal fraught, The humble bliss built up by her.
The wedding-day draws on apace, The span of lingering life is brief,—She turns to those her pleading eyes Who tend her in remorseful grief;
And prays, whate'er befall meantime, That still that joy have no delay—"O let," she cried, "their wedding-chime Ring, if so be, my soul away!
"Or let it, as I fain would choose, Take up the echoes of my knell,That ere my grave be closed, the news May o'er the listening churchyard swell."
Part V.
The Hall is crowded as of yore, From other lips is heard the song,Bright faces come and go before The window whence she gazed so long.
Whatever silent memories last, The clouds she watched, the withered leaf,Seem not more swept into the past Than that short phase of life and grief.
Yet traces are there which survive: There is a hearth, a household band,Where sweet affections grow and thrive, The fairer for the planter's hand.
And in the churchyard lies a mound Thick with the violets of the Spring,Wherein a holier sleep is found, And whence shall spread a brighter wing;
Because, although one early blow Its tender fibres could destroy,The heart within could make its woe The well-spring of another's joy.
Nov. 23. 1850.