Part 5

'"With all his conscience and one eye askew"-- Love, let me quote these lines, that you may learn A man is likewise counsel for himself, Too often, in that silent court of yours-- "With all his conscience and one eye askew, So false, he partly took himself for true; Whose pious talk, when most his heart was dry, Made wet the crafty crowsfoot round his eye; Who, never naming God except for gain, So never took that useful name in vain; Made Him his catspaw and the Cross his tool, And Christ the bait to trap his dupe and fool; Nor deeds of gift, but gifts of grace he forged, And snakelike slimed his victim ere he gorged; And oft at Bible meetings, o'er the rest Arising, did his holy oily best, Dropping the too rough H in Hell and Heaven, To spread the Word by which himself had thriven." How like you this old satire?'

'Nay,' she said 'I loathe it: he had never kindly heart, Nor ever cared to better his own kind, Who first wrote satire, with no pity in it. But will you hear MY dream, for I had one That altogether went to music? Still It awed me.'

Then she told it, having dream'd Of that same coast.

--But round the North, a light, A belt, it seem'd, of luminous vapor, lay, And ever in it a low musical note Swell'd up and died; and, as it swell'd, a ridge Of breaker issued from the belt, and still Grew with the growing note, and when the note Had reach'd a thunderous fullness, on those cliffs Broke, mixt with awful light (the same as that Living within the belt) whereby she saw That all those lines of cliffs were cliffs no more, But huge cathedral fronts of every age, Grave, florid, stern, as far as eye could see. One after one: and then the great ridge drew, Lessening to the lessening music, back, And past into the belt and swell'd again Slowly to music: ever when it broke The statues, king or saint, or founder fell; Then from the gaps and chasms of ruin left Came men and women in dark clusters round, Some crying, "Set them up! they shall not fall!" And others "Let them lie, for they have fall'n." And still they strove and wrangled: and she grieved In her strange dream, she knew not why, to find Their wildest wailings never out of tune With that sweet note; and ever as their shrieks Ran highest up the gamut, that great wave Returning, while none mark'd it, on the crowd Broke, mixt with awful light, and show'd their eyes Glaring, and passionate looks, and swept away The men of flesh and blood, and men of stone, To the waste deeps together.

'Then I fixt My wistful eyes on two fair images, Both crown'd with stars and high among the stars,-- The Virgin Mother standing with her child High up on one of those dark minster-fronts-- Till she began to totter, and the child Clung to the mother, and sent out a cry Which mixt with little Margaret's, and I woke, And my dream awed me:--well--but what are dreams? Yours came but from the breaking of a glass, And mine but from the crying of a child.'

'Child? No!' said he, 'but this tide's roar, and his, Our Boanerges with his threats of doom, And loud-lung'd Antibabylonianisms (Altho' I grant but little music there) Went both to make your dream: but if there were A music harmonizing our wild cries, Sphere-music such as that you dream'd about, Why, that would make our passions far too like The discords dear to the musician. No-- One shriek of hate would jar all the hymns of heaven: True Devils with no ear, they howl in tune With nothing but the Devil!'

'"True" indeed! One of our town, but later by an hour Here than ourselves, spoke with me on the shore; While you were running down the sands, and made The dimpled flounce of the sea-furbelow flap, Good man, to please the child. She brought strange news. Why were you silent when I spoke to-night? I had set my heart on your forgiving him Before you knew. We MUST forgive the dead.'

'Dead! who is dead?'

'The man your eye pursued. A little after you had parted with him, He suddenly dropt dead of heart-disease.'

'Dead? he? of heart-disease? what heart had he To die of? dead!'

'Ah, dearest, if there be A devil in man, there is an angel too, And if he did that wrong you charge him with, His angel broke his heart. But your rough voice (You spoke so loud) has roused the child again. Sleep, little birdie, sleep! will she not sleep Without her "little birdie?" well then, sleep, And I will sing you "birdie."'

Saying this, The woman half turn'd round from him she loved, Left him one hand, and reaching thro' the night Her other, found (for it was close beside) And half embraced the basket cradle-head With one soft arm, which, like the pliant bough That moving moves the nest and nestling, sway'd The cradle, while she sang this baby song.

What does the little birdie say In her nest at peep of day? Let me fly, says little birdie, Mother, let me fly away. Birdie, rest a little longer, Till the little wings are stronger. So she rests a little longer, Then she flies away.

What does little baby say, In her bed at peep of day? Baby says, like little birdie, Let me rise and fly away. Baby, sleep a little longer, Till the little limbs are stronger. If she sleeps a little longer, Baby too shall fly away.

'She sleeps: let us too, let all evil, sleep. He also sleeps--another sleep than ours. He can do no more wrong: forgive him, dear, And I shall sleep the sounder!'

Then the man, 'His deeds yet live, the worst is yet to come. Yet let your sleep for this one night be sound: I do forgive him!'

'Thanks, my love,' she said, 'Your own will be the sweeter,' and they slept.

THE GRANDMOTHER.

THE GRANDMOTHER. -------<>-------

I. And Willy, my eldest-born, is gone, you say, little Anne? Ruddy and white, and strong on his legs, he looks like a man. And Willy's wife has written: she never was over-wise, Never the wife for Willy: he would n't take my advice.

II. For, Annie, you see, her father was not the man to save, Had n't a head to manage, and drank himself into his grave. Pretty enough, very pretty! but I was against it for one. Eh!--but he would n't hear me--and Willy, you say, is gone.

III. Willy, my beauty, my eldest-born, the flower of the flock; Never a man could fling him: for Willy stood like a rock. 'Here's a leg for a babe of a week!' says doctor; and he would be bound, There was not his like that year in twenty parishes round.

IV. Strong of his hands, and strong on his legs, but still of his tongue! I ought to have gone before him: I wonder he went so young. I cannot cry for him, Annie: I have not long to stay; Perhaps I shall see him the sooner, for he lived far away.

V. Why do you look at me, Annie? you think I am hard and cold; But all my children have gone before me, I am so old: I cannot weep for Willy, nor can I weep for the rest; Only at your age, Annie, I could have wept with the best.

VI. For I remember a quarrel I had with your father, my dear, All for a slanderous story, that cost me many a tear. I mean your grandfather, Annie: it cost me a world of woe, Seventy years ago, my darling, seventy years ago.

VII. For Jenny, my cousin, had come to the place, and I knew right well That Jenny had tript in her time: I knew, but I would not tell. And she to be coming and slandering me, the base little liar! But the tongue is a fire as you know, my dear, the tongue is a fire.

VIII. And the parson made it his text that week, and he said likewise, That a lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies, That a lie which is all a lie may be met and fought with outright, But a lie which is part a truth is a harder matter to fight.

IX. And Willy had not been down to the farm for a week and a day; And all things look'd half-dead, tho' it was the middle of May. Jenny, to slander me, who knew what Jenny had been! But soiling another, Annie, will never make oneself clean.