She bends; now, all unmoved, she stands,
As if her right she only won,
Her due, the rapture from our hands
That, well she knows, would greet but one,
But one-but one.
Away-away-her quivering feet
The raptured eye can scarcely trace, Where all the forms of beauty meet, And every motion's rarest grace. She bounds; she whirls; with floating arms She poises; each by each outdone; Now proudly pants in all her charms Amid the plaudits hail'd on one, On one-but one.
Rain down your wreaths—your rarest flowers!
Heap'd to her feet, let blossoms fall!
Her queenly gaze is raised to ours,
Her lighted eyes are thanking all;
What brought that flush to breast and brow,
That flush that ne'er the dance had done?
That start? She saw each face but now;
Now, now, she sees— -she sees but one,
But one-but one.
What does he here? why has he sped
O'er sea-o'er Alps, to front the gaze
Of her, to him but as the dead,
So loved-so lost in early days?
Can she, this bared thing of the stage,
From God and her youth's worship won,
This wept-for sin-can she engage
One thought of his-one thought, but one,
Even one-but one?
Are her old father's thoughts less stern?
Perchance his aged eyes grow dim
In watch for her; his heart may yearn
At last for her who yearns for him;
O baseless hope! he has not sent.
His daughter? Daughter he has none; He knows not her, from God who went; He has no child-no child-not one, Not one-not one.
His home's old Bible holds her name,
Yet, nightly, when 'tis open'd there,
For her who brought his grey hairs shame,
For her, so loved! he has no prayer.
Prop of his age! how could she turn
From God, the world's vain ways to run! O bait of hell! its fame to earn
With his old curse, but heap'd on one,
On one-but one!
His curse! his curse! O would his heart Could feel, what unto Heaven is known, No touch of vice need spot the art
His stern faith holds as sin alone! Ah, could he know, who brought that start, What paths of peril she has run, Unstain'd in thought-in act-in heart, Would still his sternness spurn the one, The loved-the one?
'Tis he, her lover of the days
Ere yet she scorn'd her girlish home, Ere yet she nursed a thought of praise, Ere yet she knew a wish to roam; And here, enchantress of the hour,
Her memory's thought has backward run To the clear burn-the thorn in flower, The gloaming meetings, shared with one, With one-but one.
Fame whisper'd, and she weakly thought
She well could thrust her pride above
Her stifled heart, nor e'er be taught
No pride, for long, can conquer love;
Through joy-through triumph, soon that heart
Its deeper tones would ever run,
Till from all other love she'd start,
Through all her temptings, true to one,
To one-but one.
O doubt it not! there have been hours
When raptures pall'd, and praise was pain,
When, crown'd with pleasure's rosiest flowers,
She yearn'd for that still vale again,
Half loathed the city's feverish life,
Half wish'd the hopes of years undone,
To flee the fame-the thirst-the strife,
For some poor home, with him, the one,
The loved-the one.
Ah! still that home she yet may win,
Woo-win it through the world's applause;
To-night, will he not drink it in,
And, ere he dare to spurn her, pause?
She starts; away in air she springs,
Her every former grace outdone,
Till, round one storm of plaudits rings,
She heeds it not; she heeds but one,
But one-but one.
He rose; he's gone; even while, with him,
To leave that life of life she yearn'd;
He only saw before him swim
A scorn, his latest hope that spurn'd,
A fallen shape, that, in his sight,
Dared vaunt the heights its shame had won;
Of whom, to win to God and light,
Remain'd no hope-no hope--not one,
Not one-not one.
He's gone; all vainly may she look,
Through years, shall look for him in vain,
Whose love she once for fame forsook,
And now would give that fame to gain ;
That fame, that scarce a pulse can stir,
To gaze on her, though thousands run,
Those gazing thousands—what to her
Are they? Still-still she looks for one,
For one-but one.
He's gone; amid her native hills
He dwells, no more to name her name,
A thought of whom with sternness fills
His heart, grown bitter with her shame ;
He little thinks that worshipp'd star,
While crowds around her chariot run,
In thought, how oft! is wandering far
To that loved home-to him—the one,
The loved-the one.
A NEW GRISELDA.
you that there's no food for poetry In all the life around us-that our age Is too prosaic and mechanical
To find a subject for the poet's pen
Tush! as well might the blind old beggar say,
Who walks in night through this majestic world,
That all the wonders that he cannot see
Have no existence; trust me, friend, in you,
Not in the manners-spirit of our age,
Or what else you have named, the reason lies.
The want is yours; a Shakespeare yet would find
In many a drawing-room and busy street,
Nay, in the squalid alleys of our towns,
And in our very jails and workhouses,
Full many a pale Ophelia with her doom
Struggling in vain, in wordless agony.
Ah, if you had a Chaucer's eye to see!
How many a meek Griselda round us bears,
With uncomplaining misery of heart,
The load her nature was not fashioned for!
Why, if I were a poet, I could tell
A tale of every-day unvarnish'd life,
That should upon the common heart of all
Knock, and bring tears for answer.
In our place,
A quiet village in the heart of Kent,
There lived two families well known to all;
For, through the country, not the oldest man
Could tell the time when first to settle there
The earliest of the Blakes or Hills had come.
There had they, in their two white cottages,
Father and son, dwelt on beyond the reach
Of even our oldest memories; the boy
Growing into labour as the aged man
Grew out of it and laid him down to rest.
A widower long, Nathaniel Blake was now
Not old, but yet some half score years beyond
The point where life slopes downwards, at the time
My tale begins. How plain I see him now
As if he were before me, tall and stern,
With a firm step and an unbending gait,
Though toiling years had touch'd his hair to gray;
His eye-'twas like a hawk's, as sharp and bright,
An eye that few amongst us cared to meet,
Even in its friendly greetings, so it seem'd
To look the man it gazed on through and through.
'Twas said by those who knew him in his youth
That none then show'd an eye or laugh'd a laugh
More brimming over with a light heart's mirth
Than he; his tongue dropp'd jokes and moving jests
On all he met with; so he moved, a sun,
To all our neighbourhood; with him gladness came,
And often quoted sayings-harmless mirth,
A very wealth of laughs remain'd behind.
These were his boyish days; but manhood came,
And with it, all the usual cares of life,
And many most men know not; he was tried,
They say, most sorely; surety for a friend
His trusting kindliness could not refuse,
He lost the little wealth his father left,
And sank at once almost to beggary;
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