They laughed, for he was dead: but I...

They laughed, for he was dead: but I Sate with a hard and tearless eye, And with a heart which would deny The secret joy it could not quell, Low muttering o'er his loathed name; Till from that self-contention came Remorse where sin was none; a hell Which in pure spirits should not dwell.

I'll tell thee truth. He was a man Hard, selfish, loving only gold, Yet full of guile; his pale eyes ran With tears, which each some falsehood told, And oft his smooth and bridled tongue Would give the lie to his flushing cheek; He was a coward to the strong: He was a tyrant to the weak, On whom his vengeance he would wreak: For scorn, whose arrows search the heart, From many a stranger's eye would dart, And on his memory cling, and follow His soul to its home so cold and hollow. He was a tyrant to the weak, And we were such, alas the day! Oft, when my little ones at play, Were in youth's natural lightness gay, Or if they listened to some tale Of travellers, or of fairy land,— When the light from the wood-fire's dying brand Flashed on their faces,— if they heard Or thought they heard upon the stair His footstep, the suspended word Died on my lips: we all grew pale: The babe at my bosom was hushed with fear If it thought it heard its father near; And my two wild boys would near my knee Cling, cowed and cowering fearfully.

I'll tell thee truth: I loved another. His name in my ear was ever ringing, His form to my brain was ever clinging: Yet if some stranger breathed that name, My lips turned white, and my heart beat fast: My nights were once haunted by dreams of flame, My days were dim in the shadow cast By the memory of the same! Day and night, day and night, He was my breath and life and light, For three short years, which soon were passed. On the fourth, my gentle mother Led me to the shrine, to be His sworn bride eternally. And now we stood on the altar stair, When my father came from a distant land, And with a loud and fearful cry Rushed between us suddenly. I saw the stream of his thin gray hair, I saw his lean and lifted hand, And heard his words,— and live! Oh God! Wherefore do I live?—‘ Hold, hold!’ He cried,‘ I tell thee‘ tis her brother! Thy mother, boy, beneath the sod Of yon churchyard rests in her shroud so cold: I am now weak, and pale, and old: We were once dear to one another, I and that corpse! Thou art our child!’ Then with a laugh both long and wild The youth upon the pavement fell: They found him dead! All looked on me, The spasms of my despair to see: But I was calm. I went away: I was clammy-cold like clay! I did not weep: I did not speak: But day by day, week after week, I walked about like a corpse alive! Alas! sweet friend, you must believe This heart is stone: it did not break. My father lived a little while, But all might see that he was dying, He smiled with such a woeful smile! When he was in the churchyard lying Among the worms, we grew quite poor, So that no one would give us bread: My mother looked at me, and said Faint words of cheer, which only meant That she could die and be content; So I went forth from the same church door To another husband's bed. And this was he who died at last, When weeks and months and years had passed, Through which I firmly did fulfil My duties, a devoted wife, With the stern step of vanquished will, Walking beneath the night of life, Whose hours extinguished, like slow rain Falling for ever, pain by pain, The very hope of death's dear rest; Which, since the heart within my breast Of natural life was dispossessed, Its strange sustainer there had been.

When flowers were dead, and grass was green Upon my mother's grave,— that mother Whom to outlive, and cheer, and make My wan eyes glitter for her sake, Was my vowed task, the single care Which once gave life to my despair,— When she was a thing that did not stir And the crawling worms were cradling her To a sleep more deep and so more sweet Than a baby's rocked on its nurse's knee, I lived: a living pulse then beat Beneath my heart that awakened me. What was this pulse so warm and free? Alas! I knew it could not be My own dull blood:‘ twas like a thought Of liquid love, that spread and wrought Under my bosom and in my brain, And crept with the blood through every vein; And hour by hour, day after day, The wonder could not charm away, But laid in sleep, my wakeful pain, Until I knew it was a child, And then I wept. For long, long years These frozen eyes had shed no tears: But now —‘ twas the season fair and mild When April has wept itself to May: I sate through the sweet sunny day By my window bowered round with leaves, And down my cheeks the quick tears fell Like twinkling rain-drops from the eaves, When warm spring showers are passing o'er. O Helen, none can ever tell The joy it was to weep once more!

I wept to think how hard it were To kill my babe, and take from it The sense of light, and the warm air, And my own fond and tender care, And love and smiles; ere I knew yet That these for it might, as for me, Be the masks of a grinning mockery. And haply, I would dream,‘ twere sweet To feed it from my faded breast, Or mark my own heart's restless beat Rock it to its untroubled rest, And watch the growing soul beneath Dawn in faint smiles; and hear its breath, Half interrupted by calm sighs, And search the depth of its fair eyes For long departed memories! And so I lived till that sweet load Was lightened. Darkly forward flowed The stream of years, and on it bore Two shapes of gladness to my sight; Two other babes, delightful more In my lost soul's abandoned night, Than their own country ships may be Sailing towards wrecked mariners, Who cling to the rock of a wintry sea. For each, as it came, brought soothing tears; And a loosening warmth, as each one lay Sucking the sullen milk away About my frozen heart, did play, And weaned it, oh how painfully — As they themselves were weaned each one From that sweet food,— even from the thirst Of death, and nothingness, and rest, Strange inmate of a living breast! Which all that I had undergone Of grief and shame, since she, who first The gates of that dark refuge closed, Came to my sight, and almost burst The seal of that Lethean spring; But these fair shadows interposed: For all delights are shadows now! And from my brain to my dull brow The heavy tears gather and flow: I cannot speak: Oh, let me weep!

The tears which fell from her wan eyes Glimmered among the moonlight dew: Her deep hard sobs and heavy sighs Their echoes in the darkness threw. When she grew calm, she thus did keep The tenor of her tale: He died: I know not how: he was not old, If age be numbered by its years: But he was bowed and bent with fears, Pale with the quenchless thirst of gold, Which, like fierce fever, left him weak; And his strait lip and bloated cheek Were warped in spasms by hollow sneers; And selfish cares with barren plough, Not age, had lined his narrow brow, And foul and cruel thoughts, which feed Upon the withering life within, Like vipers on some poisonous weed. Whether his ill were death or sin None knew, until he died indeed, And then men owned they were the same.

Seven days within my chamber lay That corse, and my babes made holiday: At last, I told them what is death: The eldest, with a kind of shame, Came to my knees with silent breath, And sate awe-stricken at my feet; And soon the others left their play, And sate there too. It is unmeet To shed on the brief flower of youth The withering knowledge of the grave; From me remorse then wrung that truth. I could not bear the joy which gave Too just a response to mine own. In vain. I dared not feign a groan, And in their artless looks I saw, Between the mists of fear and awe, That my own thought was theirs, and they Expressed it not in words, but said, Each in its heart, how every day Will pass in happy work and play, Now he is dead and gone away.

After the funeral all our kin Assembled, and the will was read. My friend, I tell thee, even the dead Have strength, their putrid shrouds within, To blast and torture. Those who live Still fear the living, but a corse Is merciless, and power doth give To such pale tyrants half the spoil He rends from those who groan and toil, Because they blush not with remorse Among their crawling worms. Behold, I have no child! my tale grows old With grief, and staggers: let it reach The limits of my feeble speech, And languidly at length recline On the brink of its own grave and mine.

Thou knowest what a thing is Poverty Among the fallen on evil days: ‘ Tis Crime, and Fear, and Infamy, And houseless Want in frozen ways Wandering ungarmented, and Pain, And, worse than all, that inward stain Foul Self-contempt, which drowns in sneers Youth's starlight smile, and makes its tears First like hot gall, then dry for ever! And well thou knowest a mother never Could doom her children to this ill, And well he knew the same. The will Imported, that if e'er again I sought my children to behold, Or in my birthplace did remain Beyond three days, whose hours were told, They should inherit nought: and he, To whom next came their patrimony, A sallow lawyer, cruel and cold, Aye watched me, as the will was read, With eyes askance, which sought to see The secrets of my agony; And with close lips and anxious brow Stood canvassing still to and fro The chance of my resolve, and all The dead man's caution just did call; For in that killing lie‘ twas said — ‘ She is adulterous, and doth hold In secret that the Christian creed Is false, and therefore is much need That I should have a care to save My children from eternal fire.’ Friend, he was sheltered by the grave, And therefore dared to be a liar! In truth, the Indian on the pyre Of her dead husband, half consumed, As well might there be false, as I To those abhorred embraces doomed, Far worse than fire's brief agony As to the Christian creed, if true Or false, I never questioned it: I took it as the vulgar do: Nor my vexed soul had leisure yet To doubt the things men say, or deem That they are other than they seem.

All present who those crimes did hear, In feigned or actual scorn and fear, Men, women, children, slunk away, Whispering with self-contented pride, Which half suspects its own base lie. I spoke to none, nor did abide, But silently I went my way, Nor noticed I where joyously Sate my two younger babes at play, In the court-yard through which I passed; But went with footsteps firm and fast Till I came to the brink of the ocean green, And there, a woman with gray hairs, Who had my mother's servant been, Kneeling, with many tears and prayers, Made me accept a purse of gold, Half of the earnings she had kept To refuge her when weak and old.

With woe, which never sleeps or slept, I wander now.‘ Tis a vain thought — But on yon alp, whose snowy head ‘ Mid the azure air is islanded, ( We see it o'er the flood of cloud, Which sunrise from its eastern caves Drives, wrinkling into golden waves, Hung with its precipices proud, From that gray stone where first we met ) There now — who knows the dead feel nought?— Should be my grave; for he who yet Is my soul's soul, once said:‘'Twere sweet ‘ Mid stars and lightnings to abide, And winds and lulling snows, that beat With their soft flakes the mountain wide, Where weary meteor lamps repose, And languid storms their pinions close: And all things strong and bright and pure, And ever during, aye endure: Who knows, if one were buried there, But these things might our spirits make, Amid the all-surrounding air, Their own eternity partake?’ Then‘ twas a wild and playful saying At which I laughed, or seemed to laugh: They were his words: now heed my praying, And let them be my epitaph. Thy memory for a term may be My monument. Wilt remember me? I know thou wilt, and canst forgive Whilst in this erring world to live My soul disdained not, that I thought Its lying forms were worthy aught And much less thee.