<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=118349" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Clergyman’s Second Tale</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Edward and Jane a married couple were,<br>And fonder she of him or he of her<br>Was hard to say; their wedlock had begun<br>When in one year they both were twenty-one;<br>And friends, who would not sanction, left them free.<br>He gentle-born, nor his inferior she,<br>And neither rich; to the newly-wedded boy,<br>A great Insurance Office found employ.<br>Strong in their loves and hopes, with joy they took<br>This narrow lot and the world’s altered look;<br>Beyond their home they nothing sought or craved,<br>And even from the narrow income saved;<br>Their busy days for no ennui had place,<br>Neither grew weary of the other’s face.<br>Nine happy years had crowned their married state<br>With children, one a little girl of eight;<br>With nine industrious years his income grew,<br>With his employers rose his favour too;<br>Nine years complete had passed when something ailed,<br>Friends and the doctors said his health had failed,<br>He must recruit, or worse would come to pass;<br>And though to rest was hard for him, alas!<br>Three months of leave he found he could obtain,<br>And go, they said, get well and work again.<br>Just at this juncture of their married life,<br>Her mother, sickening, begged to have his wife.<br>Her house among the hills in Surrey stood,<br>And to be there, said Jane, would do the children good.<br>They let their house, and with the children she<br>Went to her mother, he beyond the sea;<br>Far to the south his orders were to go.<br>A watering-place, whose name we need not know,<br>For climate and for change of scene was best:<br>There he was bid, laborious task, to rest.<br>A dismal thing in foreign lands to roam<br>To one accustomed to an English home,<br>Dismal yet more, in health if feeble grown,<br>To live a boarder, helpless and alone<br>In foreign town, and worse yet worse is made,<br>If ’tis a town of pleasure and parade.<br>Dispiriting the public walks and seats,<br>The alien faces that an alien meets;<br>Drearily every day this old routine repeats.<br>Yet here this alien prospered, change of air<br>Or change of scene did more than tenderest care:<br>Three weeks were scarce completed, to his home,<br>He wrote to say, he thought he now could come,<br>His usual work was sure he could resume,<br>And something said about the place’s gloom,<br>And how he loathed idling his time away.<br>O, but they wrote, his wife and all, to say<br>He must not think of it, ’twas quite too quick;<br>Let was their house, her mother still was sick,<br>Three months were given, and three he ought to take;<br>For his and her’s and for his children’s sake.<br>He wrote again, ’twas weariness to wait,<br>This doing nothing was a thing to hate;<br>He’d cast his nine laborious years away,<br>And was as fresh as on his wedding-day;<br>At last he yielded, feared he must obey.<br>And now, his health repaired, his spirits grown<br>Less feeble, less he cared to live alone.<br>’Twas easier now to face the crowded shore,<br>And table d’hôte less tedious than before;<br>His ancient silence sometimes he would break,<br>And the mute Englishman was heard to speak.<br>His youthful colour soon, his youthful air<br>Came back; amongst the crowd of idlers there,<br>With whom good looks entitle to good name,<br>For his good looks he gained a sort of fame,<br>People would watch him as he went and came.<br>Explain the tragic mystery who can,<br>Something there is, we know not what, in man,<br>With all established happiness at strife,<br>And bent on revolution in his life.<br>Explain the plan of Providence who dare,<br>And tell us wherefore in this world there are<br>Beings who seem for this alone to live,<br>Temptation to another soul to give.<br>A beauteous woman at the table d’hôte,<br>To try this English heart, at least to note<br>This English countenance, conceived the whim.<br>She sat exactly opposite to him.<br>Ere long he noticed with a vague surprise<br>How every day on him she bent her eyes;<br>Soft and inquiring now they looked, and then<br>Wholly withdrawn, unnoticed came again;<br>His shrunk aside: and yet there came a day,<br>Alas! they did not wholly turn away.<br>So beautiful her beauty was, so strange,<br>And to his northern feeling such a change;<br>Her throat and neck Junonian in their grace;<br>The blood just mantled in her southern face:<br>Dark hair, dark eyes; and all the arts she had<br>With which some dreadful power adorns the bad,<br>Bad women in their youth, and young was she,<br>Twenty perhaps, at the utmost twenty-three,<br>And timid seemed, and innocent of ill,;<br>Her feelings went and came without her will.<br>You will not wish minutely to know all<br>His efforts in the prospect of the fall.<br>He oscillated to and fro, he took<br>High courage oft, temptation from him shook,<br>Compelled himself to virtuous thoughts and just,<br>And as it were in ashes and in dust<br>Abhorred his thought. But living thus alone,<br>Of solitary tedium weary grown;<br>From sweet society so long debarred,<br>And fearing in his judgment to be hard<br>On her that he was sometimes off his guard<br>What wonder? She relentless still pursued<br>Unmarked, and tracked him in his solitude.<br>And not in vain, alas!<br>The days went by and found him in the snare.<br>But soon a letter full of tenderest care<br>Came from his wife, the little daughter too<br>In a large hand the exercise was new<br>To her papa her love and kisses sent.<br>Into his very heart and soul it went.<br>Forth on the high and dusty road he sought<br>Some issue for the vortex of his thought,<br>Returned, packed up his things, and ere the day<br>Descended, was a hundred miles away.<br>There are, I know of course, who lightly treat<br>Such slips; we stumble, we regain our feet;<br>What can we do, they say, but hasten on<br>And disregard it as a thing that’s gone?<br>Many there are who in a case like this<br>Would calm re-seek their sweet domestic bliss;<br>Accept unshamed the wifely tender kiss,<br>And lift their little children on their knees,<br>And take their kisses too; with hearts at ease<br>Will read the household prayers, to church will go,<br>And sacrament, nor care if people know.<br>Such men so minded do exist, God knows,<br>And, God be thanked, this was not one of those.<br>Late in the night, at a provincial town<br>In France, a passing traveller was put down;<br>Haggard he looked, his hair was turning grey,<br>His hair, his clothes, were much in disarray:<br>In a bedchamber here one day he stayed,<br>Wrote letters, posted them, his reckoning paid<br>And went. ’Twas Edward rushing from his fall;<br>Here to his wife he wrote and told her all.<br>Forgiveness yes, perhaps she might forgive<br>For her, and for the children, he must live<br>At any rate; but their old home to share<br>As yet was something that he could not bear.<br>She with her mother still her home should make,<br>A lodging-near the office he should take<br>And once a quarter he would bring his pay,<br>And he would see her on the quarter-day,<br>But her alone; e’en this would dreadful be,<br>The children ’twas not possible to see.<br>Back to the office at this early day<br>To see him come, old-looking thus and grey,<br>His comrades wondered, wondered too to see,<br>How dire a passion for his work had he,<br>How in a garret too he lived alone;<br>So cold a husband, cold a father grown.<br>In a green lane beside her mother’s home,<br>Where in old days they had been used to roam,<br>His wife had met him on the appointed day,<br>Fell on his neck, said all that love could say,<br>And wept; he put the loving arms away.<br>At dusk they met, for so was his desire;<br>She felt his cheeks and forehead all on fire;<br>The kisses which she gave he could not brook;<br>Once in her face he gave a sidelong look,<br>Said, but for them he wished that he were dead,<br>And put the money in her hand and fled.<br>Sometimes in easy and familiar tone,<br>Of sins resembling more or less his own<br>He heard his comrades in the office speak,<br>And felt the colour tingling in his cheek;<br>Lightly they spoke as of a thing of nought;<br>He of their judgment ne’er so much as thought.<br>I know not, in his solitary pains,<br>Whether he seemed to feel as in his veins<br>The moral mischief circulating still,<br>Racked with the torture of the double will;<br>And like some frontier-land where armies wage<br>The mighty wars, engage and yet engage<br>All through the summer in the fierce campaign;<br>March, counter-march, gain, lose, and yet regain;<br>With battle reeks the desolated plain;<br>So felt his nature yielded to the strife<br>Of the contending good and ill of life.<br>But a whole year this penance he endured,<br>Nor even then would think that he was cured.<br>Once in a quarter, in the country lane,<br>He met his wife and paid his quarter’s gain;<br>To bring the children she besought in vain.<br>He has a life small happiness that gives,<br>Who friendless in a London lodging lives,<br>Dines in a dingy chop-house, and returns<br>To a lone room while all within him yearns<br>For sympathy, and his whole nature burns<br>With a fierce thirst for some one, is there none?<br>To expend his human tenderness upon.<br>So blank, and hard, and stony is the way<br>To walk, I wonder not men go astray.<br>Edward, whom still a sense that never slept<br>On the strict path undeviating kept,<br>One winter-evening found himself pursued<br>Amidst the dusky thronging multitude.<br>Quickly he walked, but strangely swift was she,<br>And pertinacious, and would make him see.<br>He saw at last, and recognising slow,<br>Discovered in this hapless thing of woe<br>The occasion of his shame twelve wretched months ago.<br>She gaily laughed, she cried, and sought his hand,<br>And spoke sweet phrases of her native land;<br>Exiled, she said, her lovely home had left,<br>Not to forsake a friend of all but her bereft;<br>Exiled, she cried, for liberty, for love,<br>She was; still limpid eyes she turned above.<br>So beauteous once, and now such misery in,<br>Pity had all but softened him to sin;<br>But while she talked, and wildly laughed, and cried,<br>And plucked the hand which sadly he denied,<br>A stranger came and swept her from his side.<br>He watched them in the gas-lit darkness go,<br>And a voice said within him, Even so,<br>So midst the gloomy mansions where they dwell<br>The lost souls walk the flaming streets of hell!<br>The lamps appeared to fling a baleful glare,<br>A brazen heat was heavy in the air;<br>And it was hell, and he some unblest wanderer there.<br>For a long hour he stayed the streets to roam,<br>Late gathering sense, he gained his garret home;<br>There found a telegraph that bade him come<br>Straight to the country, where his daughter, still<br>His darling child, lay dangerously ill.<br>The doctor would he bring? Away he went<br>And found the doctor; to the office sent<br>A letter, asking leave, and went again,<br>And with a wild confusion in his brain,<br>Joining the doctor caught the latest train.<br>The train swift whirled them from the city light<br>Into the shadows of the natural night.<br>’Twas silent starry midnight on the down,<br>Silent and chill, when they, straight come from town,<br>Leaving the station, walked a mile to gain<br>The lonely house amid the hills where Jane,<br>Her mother, and her children should be found.<br>Waked by their entrance, but of sleep unsound,<br>The child not yet her altered father knew;<br>Yet talked of her papa in her delirium too.<br>Danger there was, yet hope there was; and he,<br>To attend the crisis, and the changes see,<br>And take the steps, at hand should surely be.<br>Said Jane the following day, ‘Edward, you know,<br>Over and over I have told you so,<br>As in a better world I seek to live,<br>As I desire forgiveness, I forgive.<br>Forgiveness does not feel the word to say,<br>As I believe in One who takes away<br>Our sin and gives us righteousness instead,<br>You to this sin, I do believe, are dead.<br>’Twas I, you know, who let you leave your home<br>And bade you stay when you so wished to come;<br>My fault was that: I’ve told you so before,<br>And vainly told; but now ’tis something more.<br>Say, is it right, without a single friend,<br>Without advice, to leave me to attend<br>Children and mother both? Indeed, I’ve thought<br>Through want of you the child her fever caught.<br>Chances of mischief come with every hour.<br>It is not in a single woman’s power<br>Alone, and ever haunted more or less<br>With anxious thoughts of you and your distress,<br>’Tis not indeed, I’m sure of it, in me,<br>All things with perfect judgment to foresee.<br>This weight has grown too heavy to endure;<br>And you, I tell you now, and I am sure,<br>Neglect your duty both to God and man<br>Persisting thus in your unnatural plan.<br>This feeling you must conquer, for you can.<br>And after all, you know we are but dust,<br>What are we, in ourselves that we should trust?’<br>He scarcely answered her; but he obtained<br>A longer leave, and quietly remained.<br>Slowly the child recovered, long was ill,<br>Long delicate, and he must watch her still<br>To give up seeing her he could not near,<br>To leave her less attended, did not dare.<br>The child recovered slowly, slowly too<br>Recovered he, and more familiar drew<br>Home’s happy breath; and apprehension o’er,<br>Their former life he yielded to restore,<br>And to his mournful garret went no more.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Midnight was dim and hazy overhead.<br>When the tale ended and we turned to bed.<br>On the companion-way, descending slow,<br>The artillery captain, as we went below,<br>Said to the lawyer, life could not be meant<br>To be so altogether innocent.<br>What did the atonement show? he, for the rest,<br>Could not, he thought, have written and confessed.<br>Weakness it was, and adding crime to crime<br>To leave his family that length of time,<br>The lawyer said; the American was sure<br>Each nature knows instinctively its cure.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Midnight was in the cabin still and dead,<br>Our fellow-passengers were all in bed,<br>We followed them, and nothing further spoke.<br>Out of the sweetest of my sleep I woke<br>At two, and felt we stopped; amid a dream<br>Of England knew the letting-off of steam<br>And rose. ’Twas fog, and were we off Cape Race?<br>The captain would be certain of his place.<br>Wild in white vapour flew away the force,<br>And self-arrested was the eager course<br>That had not ceased before. But shortly now<br>Cape Race was made to starboard on the bow.<br>The paddles plied. I slept. The following night<br>In the mid seas we saw a quay and light,<br>And peered through mist into an unseen town,<br>And on scarce-seeming land set one companion down,<br>And went. With morning and a shining sun,<br>Under the bright New Brunswick coast we run,<br>And visible discern to every eye<br>Rocks, pines, and little ports, and passing by<br>The boats and coasting craft. When sunk the night,<br>Early now sunk, the northern streamers bright<br>Floated and flashed, the cliffs and clouds behind,<br>With phosphorus the billows all were lined.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">That evening, while the arctic streamers bright<br>Rolled from the clouds in waves of airy light,<br>The lawyer said, ‘I laid by for to night<br>A story that I would not tell before;<br>For the last time, a confidential four,<br>We meet. Receive in your elected ears<br>A tale of human suffering and tears.’</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Arthur+Hugh+Clough">Arthur Hugh Clough</a> from <i>Mari Magno or Tales on Board</i><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=118349" data-title="The Clergyman’s Second Tale de Arthur Hugh Clough" data-description="Edward and Jane a married couple were,/And fonder she of him or he of her/Was hard to say; their wedlock had begun/When in one year they both were twenty-one;/And friends, who would not sanction, left them free./He gentle-born, nor his inferior sh..."></div> </div> </div>

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