<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=374191" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Moat House</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">PART I</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I</div><div style="margin:10px 0">UNDER the shade of convent towers, <br>Where fast and vigil mark the hours, <br>From childhood into youth there grew <br>A maid as fresh as April dew, <br>And sweet as May's ideal flowers, </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Brighter than dawn in wind-swept skies, <br>Like children's dreams most pure, unwise, <br>Yet with a slumbering soul-fire too, <br>That sometimes shone a moment through <br>Her wondrous unawakened eyes. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>The nuns, who loved her coldly, meant <br>The twig should grow as it was bent; <br>That she, like them, should watch youth's bier, <br>Should watch her day-dreams disappear, <br>And go the loveless way they went. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>The convent walls were high and grey; <br>How could Love hope to find a way <br>Into that citadel forlorn, <br>Where his dear name was put to scorn, <br>Or called a sinful thing to say? </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Yet Love did come; what need to tell <br>Of flowers downcast, that sometimes fell <br>Across her feet when dreamily <br>She paced, with unused breviary, <br>Down paths made still with August's spell-- </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Of looks cast through the chapel grate, <br>Of letters helped by Love and Fate, <br>That to cold fingers did not come <br>But lay within a warmer home, <br>Upon her heart inviolate? </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Somehow he loved her--she loved him: <br>Then filled her soul's cup to the brim, <br>And all her daily life grew bright <br>With such a flood of rosy light <br>As turned the altar candles dim. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>But love that lights is love that leads, <br>And lives upon the heart it feeds; <br>Soon grew she pale though not less fair, <br>And sighed his name instead of prayer, <br>And told her heart-throbs, not her beads. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>How could she find the sunlight fair, <br>A sunlight that he did not share? <br>How could a rose smell sweet within <br>The cruel bars that shut her in, <br>And shut him out while she was there? </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>He vowed her fealty firm and fast, <br>Then to the winds her fears she cast; <br>They found a way to cheat the bars, <br>And in free air, beneath free stars, <br>Free, and with him, she stood at last. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>'Now to some priest,' he said, 'that he <br>May give thee--blessing us--to me.' <br>'No priest,' she cried in doubt and fear, <br>'He would divide, not join us, dear. <br>I am mine--I give myself to thee. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>'Since thou and I are mine and thine, <br>What need to swear it at a shrine? <br>Would love last longer if we swore <br>That we would love for evermore? <br>God gives me thee--and thou art mine.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>'God weds us now,' he said, 'yet still <br>Some day shall we all forms fulfil. <br>Eternal truth affords to smile <br>At laws wherewith man marks his guile, <br>Yet law shall join us--when you will. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>'So look your last, my love, on these <br>Forbidding walls and wooing trees. <br>Farewell to grief and gloom,' said he; <br>'Farewell to childhood's joy,' said she; <br>But neither said, 'Farewell to peace.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Song.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">My sweet, my sweet, <br>She is complete <br>From dainty head to darling feet; <br>So warm and white, <br>So brown and bright, <br>So made for love and love's delight. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>God could but spare <br>One flower so fair, <br>There is none like her anywhere; <br>Beneath wide skies <br>The whole earth lies, <br>But not two other such brown eyes. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>The world we're in, <br>If one might win? <br>Not worth that dimple in her chin <br>A heaven to know? <br>I'll let that go <br>But once to see her lids droop low </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Over her eyes, <br>By love made wise: <br>To see her bosom fall and rise <br>Is more than worth <br>The angels' mirth, <br>And all the heaven-joys of earth. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>This is the hour <br>Which gives me power <br>To win and wear earth's whitest flower. <br>Oh, Love, give grace, <br>Through all life's ways <br>Keep pure this heart, her dwelling place. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>II</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The fields were reaped and the pastures bare, <br>And the nights grown windy and chill, <br>When the lovers passed through the beech woods fair, <br>And climbed the brow of the hill. <br>In the hill's spread arm the Moat House lies <br>With elm and willow tree; <br>'And is that your home at last?' she sighs. <br>'Our home at last,' laughs he. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Across the bridge and into the hall <br>Where the waiting housefolk were. <br>'This is my lady,' he said to them all, <br>And she looked so sweet and fair <br>That every maid and serving-boy <br>God-blessed them then and there, <br>And wished them luck, and gave them joy, <br>For a happy, handsome pair. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>And only the old nurse shook her head: <br>'Too young,' she said, 'too young.' <br>She noted that no prayers were read, <br>No marriage bells were rung; <br>No guests were called, no feast was spread, <br>As was meet for a marriage tide; <br>The young lord in the banquet hall broke bread <br>Alone with his little bride. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Yet her old heart warmed to the two, and blessed, <br>They were both so glad and gay, <br>By to-morrow and yesterday unoppressed, <br>Fulfilled of the joy of to-day; <br>Like two young birds in that dull old nest, <br>So careless of coming care, <br>So rapt in the other that each possessed, <br>The two young lovers were. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>He was heir to a stern hard-natured race, <br>That had held the Moat House long, <br>But the gloom of his formal dwelling place <br>Dissolved at her voice and song; <br>So bright, so sweet, to the house she came, <br>So winning of way and word, <br>The household knew her by one pet name, <br>'My Lady Ladybird.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>First love so rarely gets leave to bring, <br>In our world where money is might, <br>Its tender buds to blossoming <br>With the sun of its own delight. <br>We love at rose or at vintage prime, <br>In the glare and heat of the day, <br>Forgetting the dawn and the violet time, <br>And the wild sweet scent of the may. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>These loved like children, like children played, <br>The old house laughed with delight <br>At her song of a voice, at the radiance made <br>By her dress's flashing flight. <br>Up the dark oak stair, through the gallery's gloom, <br>She ran like a fairy fleet, <br>And ever her lover from room to room <br>Fast followed her flying feet. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>They gathered the buds of the late-lived rose <br>In the ordered garden ways, <br>They walked through the sombre yew-walled close <br>And threaded the pine woods maze, <br>They rode through woods where their horses came <br>Knee-deep through the rustling leaves, <br>Through fields forlorn of the poppies' flame <br>And bereft of their golden sheaves. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>In the mellow hush of October noon <br>They rowed in the flat broad boat, <br>Through the lily leaves so thickly strewn <br>On the sunny side of the moat. <br>They were glad of the fire of the beech-crowned hill, <br>And glad of the pale deep sky, <br>And the shifting shade that the willows made <br>On the boat as she glided by. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>They roamed each room of the Moat House through <br>And questioned the wraiths of the past, <br>What legends rare the old dresses knew, <br>And the swords, what had wet them last? <br>What faces had looked through the lozenge panes, <br>What shadows darkened the door, <br>What feet had walked in the jewelled stains <br>That the rich glass cast on the floor? </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>She dressed her beauty in old brocade <br>That breathed of loss and regret, <br>In laces that broken hearts had swayed, <br>In the days when the swords were wet; <br>And the rubies and pearls laughed out and said, <br>'Though the lovers for whom we were set, <br>And the women who loved us, have long been dead, <br>Yet beauty and we live yet.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>When the wild white winter's spectral hand <br>Effaced the green and the red, <br>And crushed the fingers brown of the land <br>Till they grew death-white instead, <br>The two found cheer in their dark oak room, <br>And their dreams of a coming spring, <br>For a brighter sun shone through winter's gloom <br>Than ever a summer could bring. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>They sat where the great fires blazed in the hall, <br>Where the wolf-skins lay outspread, <br>The pictured faces looked down from the wall <br>To hear his praise of the dead. <br>He told her ghostly tales of the past, <br>And legends rare of his house, <br>Till she held her breath at the shade fire-cast, <br>And the scamper-rush of the mouse, </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Till she dared not turn her head to see <br>What shape might stand by her chair-- <br>Till she cried his name, and fled to his knee, <br>And safely nestled there. <br>Then they talked of their journey, the city's crowd, <br>Of the convent's faint joy and pain, <br>Till the ghosts of the past were laid in the shroud <br>Of commonplace things again. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>So the winter died, and the baby spring, <br>With hardly voice for a cry, <br>And hands too weak the signs to bring <br>That all men might know her by, <br>Yet woke, and breathed through the soft wet air <br>The promise of all things dear, <br>And poets and lovers knew she was there, <br>And sang to their hearts, 'She is here.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Song.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Soft is the ground underfoot, <br>Soft are the skies overhead, <br>Green is the ivy round brown hedge root, <br>Green is the moss where we tread. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Purple the woods are, and brown; <br>The blackbird is glossy and sleek, <br>He knows that the worms are no more kept down <br>By frost out of reach of his beak. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Grey are the sheep in the fold, <br>Tired of their turnip and beet, <br>Dreaming of meadow and pasture and wold, <br>And turf the warm rain will make sweet. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Leaves sleep, no bud wakens yet, <br>But we know by the song of the sun, <br>And the happy way that the world smiles, wet, <br>That the spring--oh, be glad!--is begun. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>What stirs the heart of the tree? <br>What stirs the seed the earth bears? <br>What is it stirring in you and in me <br>Longing for summer, like theirs?-- </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Longing you cannot explain, <br>Yearning that baffles me still! <br>Ah! that each spring should bring longings again <br>No summer can ever fulfil! </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>III</div><div style="margin:10px 0">When all the world had echoed the song <br>That the poet and lover sang, <br>When 'Glory to spring,' sweet, soft, and strong, <br>From the ferny woods outrang, <br>In wet green meadow, in hollow green, <br>The primrose stars outshone, <br>And the bluebells balanced their drooping sheen <br>In copses lovely and lone. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>The green earth laughed, full of leaf and flower, <br>The sky laughed too, full of sun; <br>Was this the hour for a parting hour, <br>With the heaven of spring just won? <br>The woods and fields were echoing <br>To a chorus of life and bliss. <br>Oh, hard to sting the face of the spring <br>With the smart of a parting kiss! </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>A kinsman ailing, a summons sent <br>To haste to his dying bed. <br>'Oh, cruel sentence of banishment! <br>For my heart says 'Go'!' he said. <br>'So now good-bye to my home, my dear, <br>To the spring we watched from its birth; <br>There is no spring, oh, my sweet, but here, <br>'Tis winter all over the earth. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>'But I come again, oh, spring of my life, <br>You hold the cord in your hand <br>That will draw me back, oh, my sweetheart wife, <br>To the place where your dear feet stand; <br>But a few short days, and my arms shall be <br>Once more round your little head, <br>And you will be weeping glad tears with me <br>On the grave of our parting, dead! </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>'I leave you my heart for a short short while, <br>It will ache if 'tis wrapped in fears; <br>Keep it safe and warm in the sun of your smile, <br>Not wet with the rain of your tears. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Be glad of the joy that shall soon be won, <br>Be glad to-day, though we part; <br>You shall weep for our parting when parting is done, <br>And drop your tears on my heart.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Song.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Good-bye, my love, my only dear, I know your heart is true <br>And that it lingers here with me while mine fares forth with you. <br>We part? Our hearts are almost one, and are so closely tied <br>'Tis yours that stirs my bosom-lace, mine beats against your side. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>So not at losing you I grieve, since heart and soul stay here, <br>But all the gladness of my life, I cry to lose it, dear; <br>Warmth of the sun, sweet of the rose, night's rest and light of day, <br>I mourn for these, for if you go, you take them all away. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>You are sad too--not at leaving me, whose heart must with you go, <br>But at the heaven you leave behind--ah, yes--you told me so, <br>You said wherever you might go you could not ever find <br>A spring so sweet, love so complete, as these you leave behind. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>No future joy will ever pay this moment's bitter ache, <br>Yet I am glad to be so sad, since it is for your sake. <br>You take so much, I do but wish that you could take the whole, <br>Could take me, since you take my rest, my light, my joy, my soul. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Song.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oh, love, I leave <br>This springtide eve, <br>When woods in sunset shine blood-red; <br>The long road lies <br>Before my eyes, <br>My horse goes on with even tread. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>I dare not turn <br>These eyes that burn <br>Back to the terrace where you lean; <br>If I should see <br>Your tears for me, <br>I must turn back to dry them, O my queen! </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Yet I must go, <br>Fate has it so, <br>Duty spoke once, and I obey; <br>Sadly I rise, <br>Leave paradise, <br>And turn my face the other way. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Nothing is dear <br>On earth but here, <br>There is no joy away from you; <br>What though there be <br>New things to see, <br>New friends, new faces, and adventures new? </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Yet since I may <br>Not with you stay, <br>Hey for the outer world of life! <br>Brace limbs, shake rein, <br>And seek again <br>The hurry, jostle, jar and strife. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Hey for the new! <br>Yet, love, for you-- <br>I have loved you so--the last hand-kiss. <br>How vast a world <br>Lies here unfurled! <br>How small, if sweet, home's inner round of bliss! </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>The road bends right, <br>Leads out of sight, <br>Here I may turn, nor fear to see; <br>So far away, <br>One could not say <br>If you are weeping now for me. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Behind this eve <br>My love I leave, <br>The big bright world spreads out before; <br>Yet will I come, <br>To you and home, <br>Oh, love, and rest beneath your yoke once more. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>IV</div><div style="margin:10px 0">She stood upon the terrace, gazing still <br>Down the long road to watch him out of sight, <br>Dry-eyed at first, until the swelling hill <br>Hid him. Then turned she to the garden bright, <br>Whose ways held memories of lover's laughter, <br>And lover's sadness that had followed after, <br>Both born of passion's too intense delight. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>The garden knew her secrets, and its bowers <br>Threw her her secrets back in mocking wise; <br>''Twas here he buried you in lilac flowers. <br>Here while he slept you covered up his eyes <br>With primroses. They died; and by that token <br>Love, like a flower whose stalk has once been broken, <br>Will live no more for all your tears and sighs.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>The sundial that had marked their happy hours <br>Cried out to her, 'I know that he is gone; <br>So many twos have wreathed me round with flowers, <br>And always one came afterwards alone, <br>And always wept--even as you are weeping. <br>The flowers while they lived were cold, shade keeping, <br>But always through the tears the sun still shone.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>She left the garden; but the house still more <br>Whispered, 'You love him--he has gone away.' <br>Where fell her single footstep sighed the floor, <br>'Another foot than yours fell here to-day.' <br>The very hound she stroked looked round and past her, <br>Then in her face, and whined, 'Where is our master?' <br>The whole house had the same one thing to say. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Empty, without its soul, disconsolate, <br>The great house was: through all the rooms went she, <br>And every room was dark and desolate, <br>Nothing seemed good to do or good to see. <br>At last, upon the wolf-skins, worn with weeping, <br>The old nurse found her, like a tired child, sleeping <br>With face tear-stained, and sobbing brokenly. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Wearily went the days, all sad the same, <br>Yet each brought its own added heaviness. <br>Why was it that no letter from him came <br>To ease the burden of her loneliness? <br>Why did he send no message, word, or greeting, <br>To help her forward to their day of meeting, <br>No written love--no black and white caress? </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>At last there came a letter, sweet but brief, <br>'He was so busy--had no time for more.' <br>No time! She had had time enough for grief, <br>There never had been so much time before; <br>And yet the letter lay within her bosom, <br>Pressed closely to her breathing beauty's blossom, <br>Worn for a balm, because her heart was sore. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>She knew not where he stayed, and so could send, <br>Of all the letters that she wrote, not one; <br>Hour after soft spring hour the child would spend <br>In pouring out her soul, for, once begun, <br>The tale of all her love and grief flowed over <br>Upon the letters that she wrote her lover, <br>And that the fire read when the tale was done. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>And yet she never doubted he would come, <br>If not before, yet when a baby's eyes <br>Should look for him, when his deserted home <br>Should waken to a baby's laughs and cries. <br>'He judges best--perhaps he comes to-morrow, <br>But come he will, and we shall laugh at sorrow <br>When in my arms our little baby lies.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>And in the August days a soft hush fell <br>Upon the house--the old nurse kept her place <br>Beside the little wife--and all was well; <br>After rapt anguish came a breathing space, <br>And she, mid tears and smiles, white-faced, glad-eyed, <br>Felt her wee baby move against her side, <br>Kissed its small hands, worshipped its tiny face. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Song.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oh, baby, baby, baby dear, <br>We lie alone together here; <br>The snowy gown and cap and sheet <br>With lavender are fresh and sweet; <br>Through half-closed blinds the roses peer <br>To see and love you, baby dear. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>We are so tired, we like to lie <br>Just doing nothing, you and I, <br>Within the darkened quiet room. <br>The sun sends dusk rays through the gloom, <br>Which is no gloom since you are here, <br>My little life, my baby dear. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Soft sleepy mouth so vaguely pressed <br>Against your new-made mother's breast, <br>Soft little hands in mine I fold, <br>Soft little feet I kiss and hold, <br>Round soft smooth head and tiny ear, <br>All mine, my own, my baby dear. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>And he we love is far away! <br>But he will come some happy day. <br>You need but me, and I can rest <br>At peace with you beside me pressed. <br>There are no questions, longings vain, <br>No murmuring, nor doubt, nor pain, <br>Only content and we are here, <br>My baby dear. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">PART II</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I</div><div style="margin:10px 0">While winged Love his pinions folded in the Moat House by the hill, <br>In the city there was anger, doubt, distrust, and thoughts of ill; <br>For his kinsmen, hearing rumours of the life the lovers led, <br>Wept, and wrung their hands, and sorrowed--'Better that the lad were dead <br>Than to live thus--he, the son of proudest man and noblest earl-- <br>Thus in open sin with her, a nameless, shameless, foreign girl.' <br>(Ever when they thus lamented, 'twas the open sin they named, <br>Till one wondered whether sinning, if less frank, had been less blamed.) <br>''Tis our duty to reclaim him--mate him to a noble bride <br>Who shall fitly grace his station, and walk stately by his side-- <br>Gently loose him from the fetters of this siren fair and frail <br>(In such cases time and absence nearly always will prevail). <br>He shall meet the Duke's fair daughter--perfect, saintly Lady May-- <br>Beauty is the surest beacon to a young man gone astray! <br>Not at all precipitately, but with judgment sure and fine, <br>We will rescue and redeem him from his shameful husks and swine. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>So--his uncle's long been ailing (gout and dropsy for his sins)-- <br>Let that serve for pretext; hither bring the youth--his cure begins.' <br>So they summoned him and welcomed, and their utmost efforts bent <br>To snatch back a brand from burning and a soul from punishment-- <br>Sought to charm him with their feastings, each more sumptuous than the last, <br>From his yearning recollections of his very sinful past-- <br>Strove to wipe his wicked doings from his memory's blotted <br>By the chaster, purer interests of the ball-room and the stage. <br>And for Lady May--they hinted to the girl, child-innocent, <br>That her hand to save the sinner by her Saviour had been sent, <br>That her voice might bring his voice her Master's triumph choir to swell, <br>And might save a man from sorrow and a human soul from hell. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>So she used her maiden graces, maiden glances, maiden smiles, <br>To protect the erring pilgrim from the devil's subtle wiles-- <br>Saw him daily, sent him letters, pious verses by the score, <br>Every angel's trap she baited with her sweet religious lore-- <br>Ventured all she knew, not knowing that her beauty and her youth <br>Were far better to bait traps with than her odds and ends of truth. <br>First he listened, vain and flattered that a girl as fair as she <br>Should be so distinctly anxious for his lost humanity, <br>Yet determined no attentions, even from the Lady May, <br>Should delay his home-returning one unnecessary day. <br>But as she--heart-wrung with pity for his erring soul--grew kind, <br>Fainter, fainter grew the image of his sweetheart left behind; <br>Till one day May spoke of sorrow--prayed him to reform--repent, <br>Urged the festival in heaven over every penitent; <br>Bold in ignorance, spoke vaguely and low-toned of sin and shame, </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>And at last her voice, half breathless, faltered, broke upon his name, <br>And two tears fell from her lashes on the roses at her breast, <br>Far more potent in their silence than her preaching at its best. <br>And his weak soul thrilled and trembled at her beauty, and he cried, <br>'Not for me those priceless tears: I am your slave--you shall decide.' <br>'Save your soul,' she sighed. 'Was ever man so tempted, tried, before? <br>It is yours!' and at the word his soul was lost for evermore. <br>Never woman pure and saintly did the devil's work so well! <br>Never soul ensnared for heaven took a surer road to hell! <br>Lady May had gained her convert, loved him, and was satisfied, <br>And before the last leaves yellowed she would kneel down as his bride. <br>She was happy, and he struggled to believe that perfidy <br>Was repentance--reformation was not one with cruelty, </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Yet through all congratulations, friends' smiles, lovers' flatteries, <br>Lived a gnawing recollection of the lost love harmonies. <br>In the day he crushed it fiercely, kept it covered out of sight, <br>But it held him by the heart-strings and came boldly out at night: <br>In the solemn truthful night his soul shrank shuddering from its lies, <br>And his base self knew its baseness, and looked full in its false eyes. <br>In the August nights, when all the sky was deep and toneless blue, <br>And the gold star-points seemed letting the remembered sunlight through, <br>When the world was hushed and peaceful in the moonlight's searching white, <br>He would toss and cast his arms out through the silence and the night <br>To those eyes that through the night and through the silence came again, <br>Haunting him with the persistence and the passion of their pain. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>'Oh, my little love--my sweetheart--oh, our past--our sweet love-day-- <br>Oh, if I were only true--or you were only Lady May!' <br>But the sunshine scared the vision, and he rose once more love-warm <br>To the Lady May's perfections and his own proposed reform. <br>Coward that he was! he could not write and break that loving heart: <br>To the worn-out gouty kinsman was assigned that pleasing part. <br>'Say it kindly,' said her lover, 'always friends--I can't forget-- <br>We must meet no more--but give her tenderest thought and all regret; <br>Bid her go back to the convent--she and I can't meet as friends-- <br>Offer her a good allowance--any terms to make amends <br>For what nought could make amends for--for my baseness and my sin. <br>Oh, I know which side the scale this deed of mine will figure in! <br>Curse reform!--she may forget me--'tis on me the burdens fall, </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>For I love her only, solely--not the Lady May at all!' <br>'Patience,' said the uncle, 'patience, this is but the natural pain <br>When a young man turns from sinning to the paths of grace again. <br>Your wild oats are sown--you're plighted to the noble Lady May <br>(Whose estates adjoin your manor in a providential way). <br>Do your duty, sir, for surely pangs like these are such as win <br>Pardon and the heavenly blessing on the sinner weaned from sin.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Song.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Day is fair, and so is she <br>Whom so soon I wed; <br>But the night, when memory <br>Guards my sleepless bed, <br>And with cold hands brings once more <br>Thorns from rose-sweet days of yore-- <br>Night I curse and dread. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Day is sweet, as sweet as her <br>Girlish tenderness; <br>But the night, when near me stir <br>Rustlings of a dress, <br>Echoes of a loving tone <br>Now renounced, forsworn, foregone, <br>Night is bitterness. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Day can stir my blood like wine <br>Or her beauty's fire, <br>But at night I burn and pine, <br>Torture, turn and tire, <br>With a longing that is pain, <br>Just to kiss and clasp again <br>Love's one lost desire. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Day is glad and pure and bright, <br>Pure, glad, bright as she; <br>But the sad and guilty night <br>Outlives day--for me. <br>Oh, for days when day and night <br>Equal balance of delight <br>Were alike to me! </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>In the day I see my feet <br>Walk in steadfast wise, <br>Following my lady sweet <br>To her Paradise, <br>Like some stray-recovered lamb; <br>But I see the beast I am <br>When the night stars rise. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Yet in wedding day there lies <br>Magic--so they say; <br>Ghosts will have no chance to rise <br>Near my Lady May. <br>Vain the hope! In good or ill <br>Those lost eyes will haunt me still <br>Till my dying day. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>II</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Quickly died the August roses, and the kin of Lady May <br>Dowered her richly, blessed her freely, and announced her wedding day; <br>And his yearnings and remorses fainter grew as days went on <br>'Neath the magic of the beauty of the woman he had won; <br>And less often and less strongly was his fancy caught and crossed <br>By remembrance of the dearness of the woman he had lost. <br>Long sweet mornings in the boudoir where the flowers stood about, <br>Whisperings in the balcony when stars and London lamps came out, </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Concerts, flower shows, garden parties, balls and dinners, rides and drives, <br>All the time-killing distractions of these fashionable lives; <br>Dreary, joyless as a desert, pleasure's everlasting way, <br>But enchantment can make lovely even deserts, so they say, <br>Sandy waste, or waste of London season, where no green leaf grows, <br>Shone on but by love or passion, each will blossom like the rose! <br>Came no answer to the letter that announced his marriage day; <br>But his people wrote that Lady Ladybird had gone away. <br>So he sent to bid get ready to receive his noble wife. <br>Two such loving women granted to one man, and in one life! <br>Though he shuddered to remember with what ghosts the Moat House swarmed-- <br>Ghosts of lovely days and dreamings ere the time when he reformed-- <br>Yet he said, 'She cannot surely greatly care, or I had heard </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Some impulsive, passionate pleading, had some sorrowing written word; <br>She has journeyed to her convent--will be glad as ere I came, <br>Through her beauty's dear enchantment, to a life of shameless shame; <br>And the memories of her dearness passion's flaming sword shall slay, <br>When the Moat House sees the bridal of myself and Lady May!' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">III</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Bright the mellow autumn sunshine glows upon the wedding day; <br>Lawns are swept from leaves, and doorways are wreathed round with garlands gay, <br>Flowery arches span the carriage drive from grass again to grass, <br>Flowers are ready for the flinging when the wedded pair shall pass; <br>Bells are ringing, clanging, clamouring from the belfry 'mid the trees, <br>And the sound rings out o'er woodlands, parks and gardens, lawns and leas; </div><div style="margin:10px 0">All the village gay with banners waits the signal, 'Here they come!' <br>To strew flowers, wave hats, drop curtseys, and hurra its 'Welcome home!' <br>At the gates the very griffins on the posts are wreathed with green. <br>In their ordered lines wait servants for the pair to pass between; <br>But among them there is missing more than one familiar face, <br>And new faces, blank expectant, fill up each vacated place, <br>And the other servants whisper, 'Nurse would wail to see this day, <br>It was well she left the service when 'my Lady' ran away.' <br>Louder, clearer ring the joy-bells through the shaken, shattered air, <br>Till the echoes of them waken in the hillside far and fair; <br>Level shine the golden sunbeams in the golden afternoon. <br>In the east the wan ghost rises of the silver harvest moon. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Hark! wheels was it? No, but fancy. Listen! No--yes--can you hear? <br>Yes, it is the coming carriage rolling nearer and more near! <br>Till the horse-hoofs strike the roadway, unmistakable and clear! <br>They are coming! shout your welcome to my lord and lady fair: <br>May God shower his choicest blessings on the happy wedded pair! <br>Here they are! the open carriage and surrounding dusty cloud, <br>Whence he smiles his proud acceptance of the homage of the crowd; <br>And my lady's sweet face! Bless her! there's a one will help the poor, <br>Eyes like those could never turn a beggar helpless from her door! <br>Welcome, welcome! scatter flowers: see, they smile--bow left and right, <br>Reach the lodge gates--God of heaven! what was that, the flash of white? <br>Shehas sprung out from the ambush of the smiling, cheering crowd: </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>'Fling your flowers--here's my welcome!' sharp the cry rings out and loud. <br>Sudden sight of wild white face, and haggard eyes, and outstretched hands-- <br>Just one heart-beat's space before the bridal pair that figure stands, <br>Then the horses, past controlling, forward bound, their hoofs down thrust-- <br>And the carriage wheels jolt over something bloody in the dust. <br>'Stop her! Stop her! Stop the horses!' cry the people all too late, <br>For my lord and Lady May have had their welcome at their gate. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>'Twas the old nurse who sprang to her, raised the brown-haired, dust-soiled head, <br>Looked a moment, closed the eyelids--then turned to my lord and said, <br>Kneeling still upon the roadway, with her arm flung round the dead, <br>While the carriage waited near her, blood and dust upon its wheels <br>(Ask my lord within to tell you how a happy bridegroom feels): <br>'Now, my lord, you are contented; you have chosen for your bride <br>This same fine and dainty lady who is sitting by your side. <br>Did ye tell her ere this bridal of the girl who bore your shame, <br>Bore your love-vows--bore your baby--everything except your name? <br>When they strewed the flowers to greet you, and the banners were unfurled, <br>She has flung before your feet the sweetest flower in all the world! <br>Woe's the day I ever nursed you--loved your lisping baby word, <br>For you grew to name of manhood, and to title of my lord; <br>Woe's the day you ever saw her, brought her home to wreck her life, <br>Throwing by your human plaything, to seek out another wife. <br>God will judge, and I would rather be the lost child lying there, </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>With your babe's milk in her bosom, your horse-hoof marks on her hair, <br>Than be you when God shall thunder, when your days on earth are filled, <br>'Where is she I gave, who loved you, whom you ruined, left and killed?' <br>Murderer, liar, coward, traitor, look upon your work and say <br>That your heart is glad within you on your happy wedding day! <br>And for you, my noble lady, take my blessing on your head, <br>Though it is not like the blessing maidens look for when they wed. <br>Never bride had such a welcome, such a flower laid on her way, <br>As was given you when your carriage crushed her out of life to-day. <br>Take my blessing--see her body, see what you and he have done-- <br>And I wish you joy, my lady, of the bridegroom you have won.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Like a beaten cur, that trembles at the whistling of the lash, <br>He stands listening, hands a-tremble, face as pale as white wood ash; <br>But the Lady May springs down, her soul shines glorious in her eyes, <br>Moving through the angry silence comes to where the other lies, <br>Gazes long upon her silent, but at last she turns her gaze <br>On the nurse, and lips a-tremble, hands outstretched, she slowly says, <br>'She is dead--but, but her baby--' all her woman's heart is wild <br>With an infinite compassion for the little helpless child. <br>Then she turns to snatch the baby from the arms of one near by, <br>Holds it fast and looks towards him with a voiceless bitter cry, <br>As imploring him to loose her from some nightmare's deadly bands. <br>Dogged looks he down and past her, and she sees and understands, <br>Then she speaks--'I keep your baby--that's my right in sight of men, <br>But by God I vow I'll never see your dastard face again.' <br>So she turned with no word further towards the purple-clouded west, <br>And passed thither with his baby clasped against her maiden breast. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Little Ladybird was buried in the old ancestral tomb. <br>From that grave there streams a shadow that wraps up his life in gloom, <br>And he drags the withered life on, longs for death that will not come, <br>The interminable night hours riven by that 'Welcome home!' <br>And he dares not leave this earthly hell of sharp remorse behind, <br>Lest through death not rest but hotter fire of anguish he should find. <br>Coward to the last, he will not risk so little for so much, <br>So he burns, convicted traitor, in the hell self-made of such: <br>And at night he wakes and shivers with unvanquishable dread <br>At the ghosts that press each other for a place beside his bed, <br>And he shudders to remember all the dearness that is dead. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Song.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I had a soul, <br>Not strong, but following good if good but led. <br>I might have kept it clean and pure and whole, <br>And given it up at last, grown strong with days <br>Of steadfast striving in truth's stern sweet ways; <br>Instead, I soiled and smutched and smothered it <br>With poison-flowers it valued not one whit-- <br>Now it is dead. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>I had a heart <br>Most true, most sweet, that on my loving fed. <br>I might have kept her all my life, a part <br>Of all my life--I let her starve and pine, <br>Ruined her life and desolated mine. <br>Sin brushed my lips--I yielded at a touch, <br>Tempted so little, and I sinned so much, <br>And she is dead. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>There was a life <br>That in my sin I took and chained and wed, <br>And made--perpetual remorse!--my wife. <br>In my sin's harvest she must reap her share, <br>That makes its sheaves less light for me to bear. <br>Oh, life I might have left to bloom and grow! <br>I struck its root of happiness one blow, <br>And it is dead. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Once joy I had, <br>Now I have only agony instead, <br>That maddens, yet will never send me mad. <br>The best that comes is numbed half-sick despair, <br>Remembering how sweet the dear dead were. <br>My whole life might have been one clear joy song! <br>Now--oh, my heart, how still life is, how long, <br>For joy is dead. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Yet there is this: <br>I chose the thorns not grapes, the stones not bread; <br>I had my chance, they say, to gain or miss. <br>And yet I feel it was predestinate <br>From the first hour, from the first dawn of fate, <br>That I, thus placed, when that hour should arise, <br>Must act thus, and could not act otherwise. <br>This is the worst of all that can be said; <br>For hope is dead.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Edith+Nesbit">Edith Nesbit</a><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=374191" data-title="The Moat House de Edith Nesbit" data-description="PART I I UNDER the shade of convent towers, Where fast and vigil mark the hours, From childhood into youth there grew A maid as fresh as April dew, And sweet as May's ideal flowers, Brighter than dawn in wind-swept skies, Like children's ..."></div> </div> </div>

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