Part 2

Then Annie with her brows against the wall Answer'd 'I cannot look you in the face; I seem so foolish and so broken down. When you came in my sorrow broke me down; And now I think your kindness breaks me down; But Enoch lives; that is borne in on me: He will repay you: money can be repaid; Not kindness such as yours.'

And Philip ask'd 'Then you will let me, Annie?'

There she turn'd, She rose, and fixt her swimming eyes upon him, And dwelt a moment on his kindly face, Then calling down a blessing on his head Caught at his hand and wrung it passionately, And past into the little garth beyond. So lifted up in spirit he moved away.

Then Philip put the boy and girl to school, And bought them needful books, and everyway, Like one who does his duty by his own, Made himself theirs; and tho' for Annie's sake, Fearing the lazy gossip of the port, He oft denied his heart his dearest wish, And seldom crost her threshold, yet he sent Gifts by the children, garden-herbs and fruit, The late and early roses from his wall, Or conies from the down, and now and then, With some pretext of fineness in the meal To save the offence of charitable, flour From his tall mill that whistled on the waste.

But Philip did not fathom Annie's mind: Scarce could the woman when he came upon her, Out of full heart and boundless gratitude Light on a broken word to thank him with. But Philip was her children's all-in-all; From distant corners of the street they ran To greet his hearty welcome heartily; Lords of his house and of his mill were they; Worried his passive ear with petty wrongs Or pleasures, hung upon him, play'd with him And call'd him Father Philip. Philip gain'd As Enoch lost; for Enoch seem'd to them Uncertain as a vision or a dream, Faint as a figure seen in early dawn Down at the far end of an avenue, Going we know not where: and so ten years, Since Enoch left his hearth and native land, Fled forward, and no news of Enoch came.

It chanced one evening Annie's children long'd To go with others, nutting to the wood, And Annie would go with them; then they begg'd For Father Philip (as they call'd him) too: Him, like the working bee in blossom-dust, Blanch'd with his mill, they found; and saying to him 'Come with us Father Philip' he denied; But when the children pluck'd at him to go, He laugh'd, and yielding readily to their wish, For was not Annie with them? and they went.

But after scaling half the weary down, Just where the prone edge of the wood began To feather toward the hollow, all her force Fail'd her; and sighing 'let me rest' she said. So Philip rested with her well-content; While all the younger ones with jubilant cries Broke from their elders, and tumultuously Down thro' the whitening hazels made a plunge To the bottom, and dispersed, and beat or broke The lithe reluctant boughs to tear away Their tawny clusters, crying to each other And calling, here and there, about the wood.

But Philip sitting at her side forgot Her presence, and remember'd one dark hour Here in this wood, when like a wounded life He crept into the shadow: at last he said Lifting his honest forehead 'Listen, Annie, How merry they are down yonder in the wood.' 'Tired, Annie?' for she did not speak a word. 'Tired?' but her face had fall'n upon her hands; At which, as with a kind anger in him, 'The ship was lost' he said 'the ship was lost! No more of that! why should you kill yourself And make them orphans quite?' And Annie said 'I thought not of it: but--I known not why-- Their voices make me feel so solitary.'

Then Philip coming somewhat closer spoke. 'Annie, there is a thing upon my mind, And it has been upon my mind so long, That tho' I know not when it first came there, I know that it will out at last. O Annie, It is beyond all hope, against all chance, That he who left you ten long years ago Should still be living; well then--let me speak: I grieve to see you poor and wanting help: I cannot help you as I wish to do Unless--they say that women are so quick-- Perhaps you know what I would have you know-- I wish you for my wife. I fain would prove A father to your children: I do think They love me as a father: I am sure That I love them as if they were mine own; And I believe, if you were fast my wife, That after all these sad uncertain years, We might be still as happy as God grants To any of His creatures. Think upon it: For I am well-to-do--no kin, no care, No burthen, save my care for you and yours: And we have known each other all our lives, And I have loved you longer than you know.'

Then answer'd Annie; tenderly she spoke: 'You have been as God's good angel in our house. God bless you for it, God reward you for it, Philip, with something happier than myself. Can one live twice? can you be ever loved As Enoch was? what is it that you ask?' 'I am content' he answer'd 'to be loved A little after Enoch.' 'O' she cried Scared as it were 'dear Philip, wait a while: If Enoch comes--but Enoch will not come-- Yet wait a year, a year is not so long: Surely I shall be wiser in a year: O wait a little!' Philip sadly said 'Annie, as I have waited all my life I well may wait a little.' 'Nay' she cried 'I am bound: you have my promise--in a year: Will you not bide your year as I bide mine?' And Philip answer'd 'I will bide my year.'

Here both were mute, till Philip glancing up Beheld the dead flame of the fallen day Pass from the Danish barrow overhead; Then fearing night and chill for Annie rose, And sent his voice beneath him thro' the wood. Up came the children laden with their spoil; Then all descended to the port, and there At Annie's door he paused and gave his hand, Saying gently 'Annie, when I spoke to you, That was your hour of weakness. I was wrong. I am always bound to you, but you are free.' Then Annie weeping answer'd 'I am bound.'

She spoke; and in one moment as it were, While yet she went about her household ways, Ev'n as she dwelt upon his latest words, That he had loved her longer than she knew, That autumn into autumn flash'd again, And there he stood once more before her face, Claiming her promise. 'Is it a year?' she ask'd. 'Yes, if the nuts' he said 'be ripe again: Come out and see.' But she--she put him off-- So much to look to--such a change--a month-- Give her a month--she knew that she was bound-- A month--no more. Then Philip with his eyes Full of that lifelong hunger, and his voice Shaking a little like a drunkard's hand, 'Take your own time, Annie, take your own time.' And Annie could have wept for pity of him; And yet she held him on delayingly With many a scarce-believable excuse, Trying his truth and his long-sufferance, Till half-another year had slipt away.

By this the lazy gossips of the port, Abhorrent of a calculation crost, Began to chafe as at a personal wrong. Some thought that Philip did but trifle with her; Some that she but held off to draw him on; And others laugh'd at her and Philip too, As simple folks that knew not their own minds; And one, in whom all evil fancies clung Like serpent eggs together, laughingly Would hint a worse in either. Her own son Was silent, tho' he often look'd his wish; But evermore the daughter prest upon her To wed the man so dear to all of them And lift the household out of poverty; And Philip's rosy face contracting grew Careworn and wan; and all these things fell on her Sharp as reproach.

At last one night it chanced That Annie could not sleep, but earnestly Pray'd for a sign 'my Enoch is he gone?' Then compass'd round by the blind wall of night Brook'd not the expectant terror of her heart, Started from bed, and struck herself a light, Then desperately seized the holy Book, Suddenly set it wide to find a sign, Suddenly put her finger on the text, 'Under a palmtree.' That was nothing to her: No meaning there: she closed the book and slept: When lo! her Enoch sitting on a height, Under a palmtree, over him the Sun: 'He is gone' she thought 'he is happy, he is singing Hosanna in the highest: yonder shines The Sun of Righteousness, and these be palms Whereof the happy people strowing cried "Hosanna in the highest!"' Here she woke, Resolved, sent for him and said wildly to him 'There is no reason why we should not wed.' 'Then for God's sake,' he answer'd, 'both our sakes, So you will wed me, let it be at once.'

So these were wed and merrily rang the bells, Merrily rang the bells and they were wed. But never merrily beat Annie's heart. A footstep seem'd to fall beside her path, She knew not whence; a whisper in her ear, She knew not what; nor loved she to be left Alone at home, nor ventured out alone. What ail'd her then, that ere she enter'd, often Her hand dwelt lingeringly on the latch, Fearing to enter: Philip thought he knew: Such doubts and fears were common to her state, Being with child: but when her child was born, Then her new child was as herself renew'd, Then the new mother came about her heart, Then her good Philip was her all-in-all, And that mysterious instinct wholly died.

And where was Enoch? prosperously sail'd The ship 'Good Fortune,' tho' at setting forth The Biscay, roughly ridging eastward, shook And almost overwhelm'd her, yet unvext She slipt across the summer of the world, Then after a long tumble about the Cape And frequent interchange of foul and fair, She passing thro' the summer world again, The breath of heaven came continually And sent her sweetly by the golden isles, Till silent in her oriental haven.

There Enoch traded for himself, and bought Quaint monsters for the market of those times, A gilded dragon, also, for the babes.

Less lucky her home-voyage: at first indeed Thro' many a fair sea-circle, day by day, Scarce-rocking, her full-busted figure-head Stared o'er the ripple feathering from her bows: Then follow'd calms, and then winds variable, Then baffling, a long course of them; and last Storm, such as drove her under moonless heavens Till hard upon the cry of 'breakers' came The crash of ruin, and the loss of all But Enoch and two others. Half the night, Buoy'd upon floating tackle and broken spars, These drifted, stranding on an isle at morn Rich, but loneliest in a lonely sea.

No want was there of human sustenance, Soft fruitage, mighty nuts, and nourishing roots; Nor save for pity was it hard to take The helpless life so wild that it was tame. There in a seaward-gazing mountain-gorge They built, and thatch'd with leaves of palm, a hut, Half hut, half native cavern. So the three, Set in this Eden of all plenteousness, Dwelt with eternal summer, ill-content.

For one, the youngest, hardly more than boy, Hurt in that night of sudden ruin and wreck, Lay lingering out a three-years' death-in-life. They could not leave him. After he was gone, The two remaining found a fallen stem; And Enoch's comrade, careless of himself, Fire-hollowing this in Indian fashion, fell Sun-stricken, and that other lived alone. In those two deaths he read God's warning 'wait.'

The mountain wooded to the peak, the lawns And winding glades high up like ways to Heaven, The slender coco's drooping crown of plumes, The lightning flash of insect and of bird, The lustre of the long convolvuluses That coil'd around the stately stems, and ran Ev'n to the limit of the land, the glows And glories of the broad belt of the world, All these he saw; but what he fain had seen He could not see, the kindly human face, Nor ever hear a kindly voice, but heard The myriad shriek of wheeling ocean-fowl, The league-long roller thundering on the reef, The moving whisper of huge trees that branch'd And blossom'd in the zenith, or the sweep Of some precipitous rivulet to the wave, As down the shore he ranged, or all day long Sat often in the seaward-gazing gorge, A shipwreck'd sailor, waiting for a sail: No sail from day to day, but every day The sunrise broken into scarlet shafts Among the palms and ferns and precipices; The blaze upon the waters to the east; The blaze upon his island overhead; The blaze upon the waters to the west; Then the great stars that globed themselves in Heaven, The hollower-bellowing ocean, and again The scarlet shafts of sunrise--but no sail.

There often as he watch'd or seem'd to watch, So still, the golden lizard on him paused, A phantom made of many phantoms moved Before him haunting him, or he himself Moved haunting people, things and places, known Far in a darker isle beyond the line; The babes, their babble, Annie, the small house, The climbing street, the mill, the leafy lanes, The peacock-yewtree and the lonely Hall, The horse he drove, the boat he sold, the chill November dawns and dewy-glooming downs, The gentle shower, the smell of dying leaves, And the low moan of leaden-color'd seas.

Once likewise, in the ringing of his ears, Tho' faintly, merrily--far and far away-- He heard the pealing of his parish bells; Then, tho' he knew not wherefore, started up Shuddering, and when the beauteous hateful isle Return'd upon him, had not his poor heart Spoken with That, which being everywhere Lets none, who speaks with Him, seem all alone, Surely the man had died of solitude.

Thus over Enoch's early-silvering head The sunny and rainy seasons came and went Year after year. His hopes to see his own, And pace the sacred old familiar fields, Not yet had perish'd, when his lonely doom Came suddenly to an end. Another ship (She wanted water) blown by baffling winds, Like the Good Fortune, from her destined course, Stay'd by this isle, not knowing where she lay: For since the mate had seen at early dawn Across a break on the mist-wreathen isle The silent water slipping from the hills, They sent a crew that landing burst away In search of stream or fount, and fill'd the shores With clamor. Downward from his mountain gorge Stept the long-hair'd long-bearded solitary, Brown, looking hardly human, strangely clad, Muttering and mumbling, idiotlike it seem'd, With inarticulate rage, and making signs They knew not what: and yet he led the way To where the rivulets of sweet water ran; And ever as he mingled with the crew, And heard them talking, his long-bounden tongue Was loosen'd, till he made them understand; Whom, when their casks were fill'd they took aboard: And there the tale he utter'd brokenly, Scarce credited at first but more and more, Amazed and melted all who listen'd to it: And clothes they gave him and free passage home; But oft he work'd among the rest and shook His isolation from him. None of these Came from his county, or could answer him, If question'd, aught of what he cared to know. And dull the voyage was with long delays, The vessel scarce sea-worthy; but evermore His fancy fled before the lazy wind Returning, till beneath a clouded moon He like a lover down thro' all his blood Drew in the dewy meadowy morning-breath Of England, blown across her ghostly wall: And that same morning officers and men Levied a kindly tax upon themselves, Pitying the lonely man, and gave him it: Then moving up the coast they landed him, Ev'n in that harbor whence he sail'd before.

There Enoch spoke no word to anyone, But homeward--home--what home? had he a home? His home, he walk'd. Bright was that afternoon, Sunny but chill; till drawn thro' either chasm, Where either haven open'd on the deeps, Roll'd a sea-haze and whelm'd the world in gray; Cut off the length of highway on before, And left but narrow breadth to left and right Of wither'd holt or tilth or pasturage. On the nigh-naked tree the Robin piped Disconsolate, and thro' the dripping haze The dead weight of the dead leaf bore it down. Thicker the drizzle grew, deeper the gloom; Last, as it seem'd, a great mist-blotted light Flared on him, and he came upon the place.

Then down the long street having slowly stolen, His heart foreshadowing all calamity, His eyes upon the stones, he reach'd the home Where Annie lived and loved him, and his babes In those far-off seven happy years were born; But finding neither light nor murmur there (A bill of sale gleam'd thro' the drizzle) crept Still downward thinking 'dead or dead to me!'

Down to the pool and narrow wharf he went, Seeking a tavern which of old he knew, A front of timber-crost antiquity, So propt, worm-eaten, ruinously old, He thought it must have gone; but he was gone Who kept it; and his widow, Miriam Lane, With daily-dwindling profits held the house; A haunt of brawling seamen once, but now Stiller, with yet a bed for wandering men. There Enoch rested silently many days.

But Miriam Lane was good and garrulous, Nor let him be, but often breaking in, Told him, with other annals of the port, Not knowing--Enoch was so brown, so bow'd, So broken--all the story of his house. His baby's death, her growing poverty, How Philip put her little ones to school, And kept them in it, his long wooing her, Her slow consent, and marriage, and the birth Of Philip's child: and o'er his countenance No shadow past, nor motion: anyone, Regarding, well had deem'd he felt the tale Less than the teller: only when she closed 'Enoch, poor man, was cast away and lost' He, shaking his gray head pathetically, Repeated muttering 'cast away and lost;' Again in deeper inward whispers 'lost!'