Poems (Shore)/Irene's Dream
(Here probably occur four lines spoken to himself by Florestan while musing on the insanity commonly attributed to Irene
IRENE'S DREAM
The following poem, whose purpose, in what has been left of it, is not very distinctly developed, is the story of a shadowy being, called Irene, combining attributes of Emily the sister who died many years before, of the writer's own self, and of her fairyland fancies. The first eighteen lines were intended as a portraiture of that sister and were afterwards wrought with some variations into the "Elegies," where Emily is more fully depicted under the name of Erinna.
I—IRENE.
Irene died,—a flame extinguished soon—And flame she was, so fervent and so pure,In childhood never more than half a child,The grave young genius of the garden ground,And all its lesser life of birds and flowers—Still half a child in girlhood's eager prime; Like some bright stranger from a nobler starBewildered by the littleness of this.So—unlike others, though she knew it not,She lived on heights and knew not they were high—Apart and knew not that she lived alone.—The height, th' unlikeness, and the lonelinessShe would have known them all, but was to dieEre she had sent her soul abroad to chooseIts own true mates out of the crowded worldAnd work out its own beautiful task on earth.Some task was waiting for her—so we deem,Its hopes, its fears, and failures all untried.But a cloud came, no darker than a dream,And of a phantom of the mind she died.One morn she looked and spoke as through a veil,Her looks and voice, so delicately bright,Now muffled in a cold and dreary change,Yet could not tender questioning prevailTo learn what meant her mind's distemper strange.But as days passed she half shook off the dream,And now on the familiar ivory keysWould ponderingly a faltering music playAs if recalling some unwritten theme,Murmuring the while sweet words they scarce could catch,Ranged in so quaint a sequence that they yearned But once to hear the hinted music soarOn the full volume of her voice, but onceTo revel in the perfect pleasure; yetStill would she pause—then listen—rebegin,And always one sweet burden would melt in,Which, later, baffled yearning memory's search—Oft caught and lost as by some slippery spell,To make a want for ever in their souls,When the belov'd musician was no more.They asked her what her song meant—rapt awhileShe heard them not, then woke with half a smile;Yet answered gravely, "'Tis the Fairies' Song.You must all listen and remember it."Yet was it lost at last.Oft too she writ,A spot of crimson kindling on each cheek,Her eyes aflash with fever; but with careWould hide the written page if they drew nigherOr, questioned, with the petulant, bashful ireOf youthful genius, or perchance the hasteOf one who dreads a too short hour to waste,Made hurried answer, and bent down again.They watched her, grieving, but she spoke at lastIn her own studious sanctuary of artAll coloured and pervaded with herself(As still it is—bright relics set apart,And all her books untouched upon the shelf). To one child sister listening reverently,In words but vaguely understood she told,With sweetly serious voice and lustrous eye,All of her secret language could unfold."I pine away for ever for a dream,A something found at night, by daylight lost,So changing parts with life, its visions seemThe substance, and this waking world the ghost.I love you all, and wonder what I do—Thus strangely yearning for what is not you,But yearning always. In my dream, my homeRose up, a marble, white old Roman hall,All echoing space, and sunlight, and the land,It seemed, was Britain, Britain of old days,Or such it grew upon my memory.When I awoke—a square of waving grass,Rich in the green luxuriance of its prime,Blue with the dewy shine of hyacinths,On three sides bowered with chestnut avenues,Fronted the lovely mansion. I lived there,Closed in from war and danger, friend and foe,By guardian fairies who made everywhereA wild small music, like to tinkling laughter;And airy talks and rustlings followed after,Amongst the rustling foliage, to and fro.That calls backA day of girlhood. Once, the first of June— Do you remember?—you were all away,And I, that lovely golden afternoonWas lured, I know not by what spell, to strayOn, on to that forlorn, forbidden gate,My childhood's earliest dream of hopeless wonder;And then, for the first time, some unseen Fate,Soon as I touched them, split its leaves asunder.And in its mystery, mute and melancholy,I saw the lovely, desolate domain,The spell-bound, fire-wrecked walls of Fairy's Folly.That garden—Oh I cannot make it plain,The solemn slumber, the forgotten grace,The lovely lornness of that sweet dead place,Where blush-rose thickets and ceringa flowersStill careless strayed o'er the deserted ground,And violets white and blue crept through the bowers,And butterflies amongst the brambles roundFound out gay blossoms in their leaves enshrined,And old faint memories rose upon my mind—A violet legend on an ancient mound,Where only now that summer dream I found.I cannot make it plain, that wonder worldOf glory. Vaguely I remember nowA day of mystery in my childhood spent,Far off from here, in wandering at my willRound a deserted, beautiful domain And desolate ruined mansion which still stoodTo witness through the ages that man onceHad pleasure in the spot. Still on my senseFlashes the dreamy silver of that lakeWhich, as it lay neglected in its reeds,Mirrored with careless truth the blue, blue skyAnd rosy fancies of the setting sun,For my unshared delight.AssuredlyThat sweet, dead place was brought to life againIn my lost dream—a marble Roman hallThat seemed the growth of scarce historic timesRose up complete. Yet English was the land,English the garden. There I lived alone,Familiar with the creatures of the place,Wild squirrels, birds and insects, leaf and flower;And for all human friends a silent pair,The ancient surly woodman and his wife,Who in their ivied cot much rather seemedThe natural growth of those forgotten shadesThan servants and companions of my home.You were too young;[1] but I remember well Old Urien with the grizzling auburn locks,That on his sloping shoulders floated loose,And worn red jacket, with his wrinkled faceAnd grave spare speech, quaint as some foreign tongue.It was his very self I dreamed back there;In his low woodland hut he reigned supremeO'er tangled copse and thicket, and his axeRang with a sound of gloomy sovereignty;While silent Nesta in and out of doorsMoved busy as some weird and withered spider.The garden was my realm.And then at lastThere came a stranger visitor . . . . for whomI seemed to have been waiting all my life,So swiftly our souls met . . . . and then the pain,The loneliness, the blankness of my loss.
After the disappearance of the stranger, Irene describes how, in her dream, she, still dwelling in the old "Fairies' Folly," becomes intimate with those mysterious beings who are supposed now to have possession of it.
"And oh, that passing next from human lifeInto the lovely, mournful Fairy-land,Where beauteous Art, and knowledge of all things That books can teach, shone bright upon my soul,Without books—and the images and thoughtsOf noble fiction, such as we receive,Here, by dead written signs, into our soulWere lived around and with me, everywherePeopling the vivid atmosphere with formsThat here are only names—and none the lessMy heart was desolation. But my mindGrew great with wisdom, and with strange new truths—Now fading, as the days go, to a blank—Of all that dream-world nothing left but pain.*****In that dream I have lived out all my life,Exhausted all the possibilitiesKept bright on Time's horizon—such a glowOf more than earthly daylight left behindAs makes this earth one twilight—such a glimpse—This mystery's door—into the UniverseAs makes Earth seem a prison . . . .Such brief companionship with mighty souls,Such vast imaginations—gone from mePast all recovery—as have left my brainBereaved for ever . . . . Oh! And Love so strangeTurned to as strange a loss—in that one nightHave smit my life with loneliness, and left me,Amongst the known and the belov'd, forlorn., My last strength has been spent in filling upAs to unseen dictation—for I feelAs if it were my hand, not I, that wroteIn hurried words the outline of my dream,Such as may faintly render it to you—But oh, how faintly!"So she said and died,
II.—THE DREAM
This and the following Scenes must be supposed to be the record, unconsciously made by Irene, of what further happened in her dream.
Song of the Fairies
We servants of the myriad Federation,The sweet ascending scale of linked life,—How long shall we 'gainst man's rude domination,With harsh defacement rife,Array our things of beauty in a fruitless strife?
For ever as the alien soul of Man,Still the one discord in our harmony,Breaks in on the just balance of the planThat our sweet world lives by—Once happy as its fellows in yon infinite sky.
We soulless instincts, changing essences,Voices and colours wandering everywhere,Swarm round his wasteful track by slow degrees,The rude rents to repair,And with new growths replace the loss of what was fair.
With delicate mosses and with gracious weeds
*****
But souls there are that live in unisonWith all the beautiful in heaven and earth;Our darlings they—and each a lonely one,Predestined from its birthTo the pale gloriole of unkinned, unmated worth.
And such is she around whose nest we hoverAnd hold her footsteps from the world's high road,And all her being with a mystery cover,That in her wild abodeMankind may shun her beauty as the fool the toad.
Alas! we shield her but with fantasies;Our music is a phantom of man's mind;Yet brainless fancies oft and hollow lies,Mere nothings, thin as wind,Have shut out a whole world of beauty from mankind.
We whisper tales of some mysterious fate;That wise and fools alike, the good and bad,May shudder past her never-opened gate,As from a dungeon sad,And call the lovely, lonely creature mad.
III.—THE DREAM. MAY
A tourist on his native English ground,One sweet May afternoon, did FlorestanSeek for his dog strayed on some idle chase.There was a beauty in the land around,A sweet and tender sameness, grave perchanceAnd dim, in still mid-summer, but in springSmiling with all the ornaments of youth,When April's greenery, dropped here and thereWith light touch on the framework of the trees,Had spread and deepened to the bowery graceAnd snowy blossom of exuberant May.And low, veiled warblings wandering through the airAll in the loudest, maddest bird-song burst.And deepest thickets and the loneliest lanesVibrated to the midnight nightingale.And narrow pathways, parting the rich grass,Tempted the idler o'er the meadow stile,His feet bedropt with gold-dust as he walked, Whilst the twin syllables whose world-old fame(Unheeded by the singer) laughs to scornThe myriad-fancied poet of to-day,Still with new pleasure charmed the expectant ear,And quiet homesteads, with their garden gatesO'erarched by lilac and larburnum spraysOr veiled behind a vaporous rosy cloudOf apple-blossoms, to the passer-byHinted all Eden in a moment's glance.So, wandering and still seeking for his dog,Across a daisied flat his search at lastGuided him to a quiet little stileThe entrance to a solitary copseMargined with blue by dewy hyacinthsAnd walled in with white bowers of hawthorn bloom.And, as he paused a moment, gazing in,Two little maidens passing by, their handsFilled with gold blossoms from the cowslip mead,Cried, "Sir, you must not go there—no one everGoes near that place.""Why not, my little maids?What place is this?""'Tis called the Fairies' Folly.There is a house, but no one goes to it,Nor to the pleasure-grounds, nor yet this wood.""But who lives there?" "Only the lady, Sir—But she is mad.""Mad! And she lives alone?""Oh, Sir, old Urien's cot is in that wood,And his wife Nesta. Do not you go near him!All are afraid of him. Sometimes he comesAt evening to the village shop to buy,But no one speaks to him."And with a smile,Whilst the two little speakers stood aghast,Over the stile leapt Florestan, and stillCalling his truant, followed the woodpath.A growling summons from the hazel copse—Where with suspended axe and wrathful glareLifted his head the auburn-haired old man,Like one who hates the rest of humankind"You must go back, or 'twill be worse for youThe lady sees no strangers"—stayed him not.Keen impulse urged him on, till suddenlyAn archway of two meeting elm-tree boughsDisclosed a startling glitter of blue lake—On one side o'er a shrubbery's verdant growth,With pink and lilac and gold blooms enwrought,White glimpses of a house, a path alongThe water's reed-fringed margin, where the sunBrooded from May's warm sky, and gleaming things Danced ever in the air—led up his feetTo a small gate, the long grass round him stainedWith the blue shade of dewy hyacinths.Next came the joyous bark of his lost dog,Then a low murmur of sweet questioning sound;And into the green arch Irene stept.The creature fawning on her, her pure faceA luminous lily bent with asking looks,And gentle hands parrying each rough caress.[2]"She is not mad" within himself he said,As she raised up her head, rayed lightly roundBy the faint halo of her pale gold hair,And turned on him her earnest and strange eyes,Whose half-wild light seemed caught by comradeshipWith Nature's wild things. "No, she is not mad—She is inspired."Long after could he notHave uttered half his thoughts of what she wasIn thrice the words—But suddenly a thought Of wonder, joy, and terror together seemedTo kindle all her stillness into fire.Her lips part and her hands are clasped, and he,"Pardon, I seek this rebel."—All at onceHer face changed, and in quick low tones abruptShe spoke to him, "Your dog will not come back;He has chosen me instead."He called, and stillHis favourite closer to the lady pressed,While he with the vexed master's instinct stroveSome moments longer 'gainst the counter-charm,Loth to be foiled, and called and called in vain—Then yielded smiling, though reluctantly;"The dog is yours since he has made his choice.""And now," said she, "Osiris is his name."And on the pretty, happy, new-found friend—His tawny shagginess quivering at her touch—She shed such smile as the sweet Elfin QueenSheds on her last babe-changeling; then with eyesFixed on the stranger for a moment's spaceIn silence, "Come," said she with grave command,"Come now and see my garden."Instantly,Wondering and smiling at himself the while,But reverent of her strange simplicity,Obedient as the dog he followed her.
By common minds who run but where they're led.)He thought the while, "No marvel she's misread:Her beautiful monotony of leisure,Her delicate dream-life under the green trees,Her eyes (that but in Nature seek all pleasure)To these are but a shape of soul disease."
*****
And so, as Fate would have it, did these twoWander together through those sweet May hours,Intent the while, she on the strange delightOf showing so much beauty to new eyes,The first to share it with her—he on her—Still more and more bewitched with novelty,And all with hasty admiration firedAt her strange serious talk and earnest ways;But tempered with the half-shy consciousnessNative to hearts that ofttimes in extremesHave passed through all, as yet unworn and young.To him emotions ever came as new—Unguarded fires—reflection later came.
IV.—THE LILY OF THE VALLEY
(Florestan and Irene)
Flor. No, I will tell you nothing of my world,—That which I see and know and do in it—And what you too will see and know one day,Till I hear more of this strange life of yours;But what a life! And what a loneliness!Have you thus always lived companionless,Expending heart and soul on heartless thingsAnd soulless? Have you nothing else to love? Irene. But what more need I then to have? I loveAll that's around me. Every tint and shadeOf flower, or leaf, or moss. . . . .Is answered by a tender thought in me.From seed to blossom I work for and with them.We are one family.Flor.You are contentTo love without return then?Irene.Without otherReturn than fancy in their beauty reads,And fragrance still more delicate than song.But in the warm and gay and restless lifeOf birds and butterflies and little softFour-footed things, indeed my heart expands To its full joy—each in their way, they love me.You do not understand how good, how true,How perfect are their natures. And in truthThere are more things you know not I could tell;For, though alone, I have not been untaught. Flor. You are a priestess speaking mysteries.Tell me of this strange science that you boast,And who your teachers are.Irene.They are my dreams.My dreams recall to me what infancyWitnessed perhaps, and heard unconsciously.I have no waking memory of the timeWhen I was not an orphan.Flor. Oh, go on! Irene. I am used to the strange things that come tome;Yet sometimes I have moments of deep wonder.Father and mother I have never known;But in my dreams they talk to me and teach me.My father to this very lawn has led me,And with a soundless voice and shadowy presenceHas pointed out and named to me the stars,From whence the secrets of the UniverseShall one day be revealed to our blind raceNow feeling in the dark—where, step by step,From planet up to planet, sun to sun,Each centre of new Planet-worshippers— The ignorant craving spirit of mankindShall travel to that unknown Something whichHas no name yet, nor history. . . . .For tales and feeble fancies fill its place—But shall be found yet when the time is ripe,And man's intelligence, with every ageDoubling and trebling its once laboured pace,Shall soon move boldly to its awful goal.So to that Future I send up my thoughts,If e'er these garden bounds seem strait to me,And live at large in the whole Universe. Flor. You seem to me the prophetess of DeathAnd not the priestess of a living Faith.But tell me more of this dream-teaching.Irene.MuchI feel and could not tell—taught without words. Flor. How did you learn to make the creatures love you?This very dog has felt the spell and brokenHis faith to me for you.Irene.It was my mother—The mother of my dreams—for oft she usedTo visit me and take me by the hand—With smiles so sweet as sometimes made indeedMy heart to ache with longing when I waked—And led me round the garden, showing meThe lovely kinship of its various growths, Leaf, flower, and stem and fibre of the plant,A gracious mimicry of livelier life,Pointing the links that chain the least and lowestTo life placed on the summit of the scale.She taught me all the language of the birds,And made it seem a human speech to me;And all the meaning of that fearless joyThat fills the world with movement.Flor.Tell me more.The life you praise seems half a miracle.Whence came these parents in their lifetime whoIn dreams thus watch over your orphanhood?And did they leave you friendless and alone? Irene. I am not friendless. I could tell you more,But you are almost smiling.Flor.No, not so—Or if I smile, I reverence your wordsFor your faith's sake and loftiness of thought.I learn from you more than I could repayBy any teaching from the world without. Irene. I know not whence my parents came; I thinkNot they, but some yet older habitantBuilt this lone mansion, which you say is likeA foreign stranger from some southern climeSurprised to find itself on English soil. Flor. I have seen such in Italy—but now I long to hear more. How are you not friendless?What human creature save that surly pairComes to your lonely home?Irene.No human creature—Not wholly human—and I see them not—But they are here and watch me.Flor.Nay, but who? Irene. My kindly Fairies. They are more to meThan Urien is, or Nesta.Flor.Now indeedYou make me smile. But I am wrong; you haveSome hidden undermeaning you will surelyDeign to unfold.Irene. You never then have livedIn fairy-haunted places, nor perchanceKnow what they are?Flor.Tell me all that you know.My fairies only live in tales and ballads. Irene. I know what my dreams teach me and will tell youWhat I have learnt from them—how, long of yore,When these once seething isles had passed at lengthFrom shape to shape, and each extravagance—As nightmares, monstrous beauty, uglinessColossal in its daring—to the firmMould it is cast in now, a race of menUnknown, unnamed, a guess, a mystery, Peopled its o'ergrown and fantastic wilds,But in some sweeping ruin passed away,As great primeval forests fall in flames;And the new race that burnt it off the land,As a devouring fire, was heir to all . . . . Flor. Continue—do not hesitate; I hearWith reverence . . . . This or something like to this,I do know. Tell me more.Irene. How strange it seemsTo talk about the mysteries of thingsAt last to human ears in the broad day.I have lived so long in silence and in dreams. Flor. And I, fresh from the noisy, busy worldOf glare and labour, find it strange to lightOn such a green oasis of sweet rest,And hear the beauteous marvels told at leisureBy one who toils not, and who lives on beauty.Finish your wonder-tale.Irene. You know then howSome shadows linger still of the old race,Which, dwindled to a shadow of itself,Survives in the frail elfin essences,Bloodless and sinewless and beautiful,That now arc fading fast to nothingness,But still in some rare chosen spots are found—Such as this garden.Flor. Are you very sure Of any fairy presence save your own?When have you seen these elves with bodily eyes? Irene. Not seen . . . . but felt. You do not understandHow one may have a conscious certaintyOf what one has not seen. But I have seen,Or almost seen, ofttime e'en in broad noon,In the wide halls and chambers of the house,A flitting of swift shadows on the walls,Just glimpsed and gone, giving a consciousnessOf some invisible companionship.And on this very lawn, on summer nights,A whole new world awakes, and is astir.Oft as the moon falls bright upon the sward,These tall tree forms in solemn concourse met—Slim darksome spire and lofty rounded towerSeem, each with his black shadow at his foot,Like creatures conscious of a secret doom;All through the solemn silence on the watchTo hear the wild talk of the nightingale,As with a silver shock it suddenlyPierces the silence from the sombre wood,And all the garden rings with a new life;And all my chamber, as I listening lie,Thrills with the startling outburst that proclaims,In syllables as distinct as yours and mine,Things I could never tell to you again In any human language. Then it isI know all wakeful creatures of the nightAre sharers in the fairy revelry;Nay, sometimes, as I sink again to sleep,With all that music trembling through my dreams,A tiny, tinkling laughter blends with it,And airy talk and rustlings to and fro,Out in the rustling garden. Up I start,And catch the last faint stirring of the smallTumult below—then all is still again,And I again am baffled.Flor. So I fearYou will be always. You are too alone.I would I could persuade you to come forthAnd see what life is. There are other thingsThan flowers and gardens on our planet, Earth;And they are worth your seeing.Irene. Tell me of them.'Twill be a new delight to hear such thingsSafe in my quiet home. Tell me your lifeAnd all you do. An hour ago I asked you,And yet you have not answered me.Flor. An hour!A lifetime rather. Such an hour as this.
*****
Irene.I can scarce believeHow little time ago we had not met. Flor. And I must go. But may I come again? Irene. Yes, come and tell me what the world is like. Flor. And may I take a lily back with me? Irene. I never yet have gathered flower or bud,Lest the slight life should feel a tiny pang. Flor. Adieu, then. Irene. Did I grieve you? Here, then, take it!
She gave the tiny stem with all its pearlsIn the green sheath half folded from the light,Into his reverent hand. As if to speak,He lingered yet a moment, while the scentOf those dear flower bells, like veiled music, charmedHis senses—then abruptly turned and went.And as he passed upon his way he sawThe white hall gleam through fresh-leaved chestnut boughsThat overbowered the three sides of a squareOf waving grass. The house filled up the fourth,A sunlit dream.Then, as the little gateOf a rich flowering shrubbery let him throughInto the wide green slope of pleasure ground,He saw again the shining lake below.With careless truth reflecting as it lay,The rosy fancies of the setting sun.
V.—THE ROSE
Irene craved for Florestan's return—The sweet surprise of his companionshipKept fresh its strangeness thro' the quiet hours.And now she listened for a newer voiceAs once she listened for the nightingale.The light vicissitudes of life in dreams,The round of flowery change, incomplete lovesOf half-souled creatures, now no more sufficed.She longed to share her joy in them with oneWho loved them too. She felt the human charm.A world of things to ask and say sprang upEver within her—and at last he came.With shining looks she met him in the hall.The heart-beat of a startling joy had calledA moment's rose upon her pearl bright cheek.Then once more the soft cloud came o'er her face.
*****
Here the account of the Dream breaks off; and with it apparently the author's intention as to the final issue of the story is changed. The writer, resuming the subject after a long pause, left behind her the ideal Irene, the shadowy resemblance of her long-lost sister and herself, and determined to make the character the vehicle of thoughts which the observations of life had gradually stored up in her. She used it to depict various phases of woman's life and destiny in the present day. Irene dies, it is true, but not of a "Phantom of the Mind." She has been induced by Florestan to enter the world which she has never known, and where she is speedily desillusionée. Her lover deserts her and she goes through stages of anguish, which terminate in a resolution to rise above the sense of her own personal wrongs and devote herself to the betterment of the human social sphere she has entered, and in whose real and deep interest she seems to have found a substitute for the imaginary world of her girlhood. But all that is left us of this second more human part of the story consists in fragments, which we give as we find them. The first of these is apparently a conversation of Irene and a friend, probably one of the spirit-world who looks coldly yet with prescience on the passions and griefs of the humankind.
Irene. I made partOnce for a short time of a human world,Warm with the glow of a fond human love.I know not if I missed of my true self In loving thus, but I will live henceforthMy shadowy life and never look behind. Friend. His life, too, as it wears, will lose its bloom;He will meet storm-clouds, like the rest of men,For all the brilliance of the present hour.But think not they will bring him back to you,You are past out of his thick crowded life.The stage upon his journey left behindHe never will return to.Irene.Will he not thenEver think tenderly of my true love?If in the hurrying battlefield of lifeA random hand should strike a limb from me,I can forgive that wrong, aye, learn one dayTo love the hasty wronger; but, oh, tell meIf my own friend beside me in the ranksMurders me with an ever-bleeding wound,Must I forgive him? Must I love him still?Forgive him, yes. If writhing in my pangsI tore him as wild, wounded creatures tear,The pain I gave would only double mine.But—I love him? Ah, that is the torturing pang—To love that which we scorn, and suffer from itOneself, a sense of humbling and disgrace.I scorn the poor false heart that cheated mine,The wavering heart that wasted mine away, The thief who robbed me of the years to come,And doomed them to so desolate a close.I scorn him, but I suffer, suffer still. Friend. He made no vow, he broke no pledge to you;And what cares love for vows? Be still his friend! Irene. How found true friendship on a love betrayed?If he had come to me in generous pain,And said "Forgive me! I did love you once,But now I love another." Then at leastI could have honoured him for his brave truth,And for the truth's sake would have pardoned him,Mourning that imperfection in myselfWhich made my heart so powerless to hold his.But thus to leave me feeling in the darkIn blind despair, to know how first, and why,I lost my treasure, whether it slipped from me.Oh, I complain not that he weds with her,Since her he loves, not me; but could I know,Could I but know that he did love me once,I were content.Friend. But that you cannot know;For men deny their love when it is passed,Deny first and forget it afterwards. Nothing in this world ever is explained.You will live sighing but to hear one word,And you will die without it. It must be,For you were happy when you were beloved,And you were beautiful when you were happy:But now you are not happy nor beloved,And therefore are no longer beautiful.Irene. He thinks it thenMeet homage to a pure and happy loveTo falsify the past? Can a true loveDegrade the soul so?
THE LAST FRAGMENT
The Doctor spoke her doom and went his way.And she—soon as the quiverings of the fleshThat arc within the torture-chamber's doorWhere Death is waiting, calmed themselves again—Sank down upon herc ouch and thought and thought,"I die who have not lived! Too late, too soon!To die a martyr in the burning flameWithout the martyr's hope, the martyr's cause!The restless strife to cease and nothing done!For this I have loved, have lost and scorned my love, Have dreamed of goodness and a bettered world,Have loathed my race, writhed at my sisters' wrongs,Abhorred as hypocrites our masters, men,The slaves of vice and folly, who have learntThe list of woman's virtues well by heart;To preach them to us with paternal smile,Or pelt them at us with unhallowed sneers—Then blushed repentant of my scorn, and askedHow am I better who have dreamed and yearned,And passionately talked, but never yetHave lifted up a finger for my kind?"*****No more I love you, now I only loveThat which I thought you were; I have my dreamUnrealised, and therefore still my dream.He has the real, he has all he sought;And found it nothing.
Another version, only conceived, with no attempt made to put it into words, was to represent Irene as not only forsaken but betrayed; and the author's purpose was to show how a woman may rise above the wronger and the wrong to heights whence she can look down at once on the fact, her own weakness, the social punishment and disgrace, and the unworthy one himself, with the just view, the calm compassion, only not contempt, of a true and deep-felt superiority. She will not dwell for ever on the past in weak and exaggerated penitence and humility; she will go forward with all the power and wisdom her past experience has given her, to a purer air and nobler objects. This would have been a difficult lesson to work out, and possibly beyond the writer's powers; she contented herself with meditating deeply on the problem as brought in real life before her.
- ↑ It is evident that Irene is here narrating her recent dream, though in this picture of the old couple she describes the figures she had really known in her childhood in that day's visit, or, as other passages would imply, that residence of some duration in the old hall called the Fairies' Folly. The woodman and his wife were actual acquaintances of the authoress in her childhood.
- ↑ In another version follow the lines—And there he saw throned on a rustic chair,With lilac-fretted robes, a sorceress-queen,For so she seemed, who stretched her regal handToward the twos and threes of twittering thingsWho perched and fluttered off, and perched again,Or for a moment crowned her pale bright hair,And at her feet his little truant lay.