FullReads

Thenceforward oft from out a despot dream
Panting he woke, and oft as early as dawn
Aroused the black republic on his elms,
Sweeping the frothfly from the fescue, brush’d
Thro’ the dim meadow toward his treasure-trove,
Seized it, took home, and to my lady, who made
A downward crescent of her minion mouth,
Listless in all despondence, read; and tore,
As if the living passion symbol’d there
Were living nerves to feel the rent; and burnt,
Now chafing at his own great self defied,
Now striking on huge stumbling-blocks of scorn
In babyisms, and dear diminutives
Scatter’d all over the vocabulary
Of such a love as like a chidden babe,
After much wailing, hush’d itself at last
Hopeless of answer: then tho’ Averill wrote
And bad him with good heart sustain himself–
All would be well–the lover heeded not,
But passionately restless came and went,
And rustling once at night about the place,
There by a keeper shot at, slightly hurt,
Raging return’d: nor was it well for her
Kept to the garden now, and grove of pines,
Watch’d even there; and one was set to watch
The watcher, and Sir Aylmer watch’d them all,
Yet bitterer from his readings: once indeed,
Warm’d with his wines, or taking pride in her,
She look’d so sweet, he kiss’d her tenderly
Not knowing what possess’d him: that one kiss
Was Leolin’s one strong rival upon earth;
Seconded, for my lady follow’d suit,
Seem’d hope’s returning rose: and then ensued
A Martin’s summer of his faded love,
Or ordeal by kindness; after this
He seldom crost his child without a sneer;
The mother flow’d in shallower acrimonies:
Never one kindly smile, one kindly word:
So that the gentle creature shut from all
Her charitable use, and face to face
With twenty months of silence, slowly lost
Nor greatly cared to lose, her hold on life.
Last, some low fever ranging round to spy
The weakness of a people or a house,
Like flies that haunt a wound, or deer, or men,
Or almost all that is, hurting the hurt–
Save Christ as we believe him–found the girl
And flung her down upon a couch of fire,
Where careless of the household faces near,
And crying upon the name of Leolin,
She, and with her the race of Aylmer, past.

Star to star vibrates light: may soul to soul
Strike thro’ a finer element of her own?
So,–from afar,–touch as at once? or why
That night, that moment, when she named his name,
Did the keen shriek `yes love, yes Edith, yes,’
Shrill, till the comrade of his chambers woke,
And came upon him half-arisen from sleep,
With a weird bright eye, sweating and trembling,
His hair as it were crackling into flames,
His body half flung forward in pursuit,
And his long arms stretch’d as to grasp a flyer:
Nor knew he wherefore he had made the cry;
And being much befool’d and idioted
By the rough amity of the other, sank
As into sleep again. The second day,
My lady’s Indian kinsman rushing in,
A breaker of the bitter news from home,
Found a dead man, a letter edged with death
Beside him, and the dagger which himself
Gave Edith, reddn’d with no bandit’s blood:
`From Edith’ was engraven on the blade.

Then Averill went and gazed upon his death.
And when he came again, his flock believed–
Beholding how the years which are not Time’s
Had blasted him–that many thousand days
Were clipt by horror from his term of life.
Yet the sad mother, for the second death
Scarce touch’d her thro’ that nearness of the first,
And being used to find her pastor texts,
Sent to the harrow’d brother, praying him
To speak before the people of her child,
And fixt the Sabbath. Darkly that day rose:
Autumn’s mock sunshine of the faded woods
Was all the life of it; for hard on these,
A breathless burthen of low-folded heavens
Stifled and chill’d at once: but every roof
Sent out a listener: many too had known
Edith among the hamlets round, and since
The parents’ harshness and the hapless loves
And double death were widely murmur’d, left
Their own gray tower, or plain-faced tabernacle,
To hear him; all in mourning these, and those
With blots of it about them, ribbon, glove
Or kerchief; while the church,–one night, except
For greenish glimmerings thro’ the lancets,–made
Still paler the pale head of him, who tower’d
Above them, with his hopes in either grave.