The Lily of the Valley, I–XXIV

There was a wood, it does not change, Not while the thrush pipes through its glades, And she who did its thickets range Has willed her sunbeam to its shades. There still the lily weaves a net With bluebell, primrose, violet.

The wood is what it was of old, A timber-farm where wildflowers grow. There woodman’s axe is never cold, That lays the oaks and beeches low. But though the hand of man deface, The lily ever grows in grace.

Of loving natures, proudly shy, The stock-doves sojourn in the tree, With breasts of feathered cloud and sky, And notes of soft though tuneless glee: Hid in the leaves they take a spring, And crush the stillness with their wing.

The wood is deep-boughed, and its glade Has ruts of waggon to and fro; Yet where the print of wheel is made The bracken ventures still to grow; And where the foot of man may goad, The ants are toiling with their load.

The wood, even old in olden days, No longer alters with the year. The gnarléd boughs, to Nature’s ways Inured, their honours mildly bear. And she who there has fixed her beam Is still remembered as a dream.

There many a legend of the wood Has hovered from the olden time, When, with their sooths and sayings good, Men told not of its youth or prime. The hollow trunks were hollow then, And honoured like the bones of men.

There like nine brethren, Nature’s own, Nine trees within a circle stand, And to a temple’s shape have grown, Each trunk a column tall and grand. And, there, a raven-oak uprears Its dome that whitens with the years.

’Mid these, while on the earth at play, She, the true beam of living spring, The playmate of the lily’s ray, Learnt of the piping thrush to sing. The lily’s leaves were then her nest, Its buds half-nestled in her breast.

To her whose beam was lily-bright ’Neath brakes that hide the sky above, A primrose seemed a holy sight: Loveless itself, it taught her love. It was her welcome to the bowers, And lured her fingers to its flowers.

Not yet to her was Nature’s age In gnarled and hollow shapes revealed: The buds and leaflets stamped her page, And all that Death could say concealed. To gnarled and hollow Nature cold, She had not caught the sense of old.

When folk who gossiped thereabout Asked the child’s name,—the child so pale,— With looks that gave a sweetness out, She answered, ‘Lily of the Vale.’ Not then her eyes had dew-drops shed In early tribute to the dead.

Alas! her parents came to die; She was not then too young to weep. Through all the wood was heard her cry; Till with her sobs she fell asleep, And o’er her slumber shot those beams That with a shiver visit dreams.

The lilies in their nest had died, Violets were closed, their petals crushed, The bracken-stalks were parched and dried, The flowers she loved no longer blushed. Towards sorrow did her soul ascend; Her dawn of joys was at an end.

The oak spread o’er her troubled sleep, She sees a gnarled and hollow form Whose riven branches seem to creep,— Loosed from their long-enchanted storm, And like a phantom in the air It sets on her its naked stare.

That oak she oft had seen before, And in its empty cell had played, But felt not it was bald and hoar With the green ivy o’er it laid. Now have those thoughtless moments flown And with the oak she is alone.

Then she beheld o’ersnowed with age, Her grandsire trembling in the wind, Smiling on her, his heritage, The child his son had left behind. Old was she now, for she could see Her grandsire agéd like the tree.

As flowers her eager heart once fired With love for things that came and passed, These visions in her soul inspired An awe of sadder things that last: The sire by age and trouble bent, The tree by storm and lightning rent.

Sleep left her, but her startled gaze Met not the sire beside the oak There standing in its leafless maze As in her dream, when she awoke. Where was the sire? She could not see The face that smiled beside the tree.

And then she towards the cottage ran, There was the sire in his retreat, There was he still,—the agéd man,— Calm-sitting on his mossy seat, And of her dream, as true, she spoke While resting ’neath the raven-oak.

He told her how the raven reared Her young ones on the leafy crest, And now the oak by lightning seared Could give no shelter for a nest. With this her simple thoughts he led To how the bird the prophet fed.

Then did she feel that he was poor; That on a scanty crust he fared. She longed to see within his door The frugal meal she oft had shared, And prayed the raven in her need To do for them the loving deed.

Through every grove she poured her lay, This drooping Lily of the Vale; As through the brakes she took her way She told the thrush her touching tale, And bade it in her service press The bird that waits on man’s distress.

So, like a creature on the wing, She spoke her griefs to all she met. The thrush had taught her how to sing Soft notes to all things living set; Conies that peeped from out the grass, They had no fear and let her pass.

She thought the thrush with mellow song Would answer to her simple strain, She thought the other birds would throng To bring the raven back again, But not to her the raven sped Who brought from heaven the prophet’s bread.