"If her writing is simple, and honest and only the lover-like stuff it looks, And if you yourself are a loyalist, nor down in the rebels' books, Come quick,' said I, 'and in person prove you are each of you clear of crime, Or martial law must take its course: this day next week's the time!' "Next week is now: does he come? Not he! Clean gone, our clerk, in a trice! 65 He has left his sweetheart here in the lurch: no need of a warning twice! His own neck free, but his partner's fast in the noose still, here she stands To pay for her fault. 'Tis an ugly job: but soldiers obey commands. "And hearken wherefore I make a speech! Should any acquaintance share The folly that led to the fault that is now to be punished, let fools beware! Look black, if you please, but keep hands white: and above all else, keep wives 70 Or sweethearts or what they may be from ink! Not a word now, on your lives!" Black? but the Pit's own pitch was white to the Captain's face-the brute With the bloated cheeks and the bulgy nose and the bloodshot eyes to suit! 75 He was muddled with wine, they say: more like, he was out of his wits with fear; He had but a handful of men, that's true,—a riot might cost him dear. And all that time stood Rosamund Page, with pinioned arms and face Bandaged about, on the turf marked out for the party's firing-place. I hope she was wholly with God: I hope 'twas His angel stretched a hand To steady her so, like the shape of stone you see in our church-aisle stand. 80 Those heaped on the hill were blind as dumb,— for, of all eyes, only mine Looked over the heads of the foremost rank. That was myself, who had stolen up last, had sidled behind the group: 90 I am highest of all on the hill-top, there stand fixed while the others stoop! From head to foot in a serpent's twine am I tightened: I touch ground? No more than a gibbet's rigid corpse which the fetters rust around! Can I speak, can I breathe, can I burst-aught else but see, see, only see? And see I do-for there comes in sight-a man, it sure must be! Who staggeringly, stumblingly, rises, falls, rises, at random flings his weight 95 On and on, anyhow onward-a man that's mad he arrives too late! Else why does he wave a something white highflourished above his head? Why does not he call, cry, curse the fool!why throw up his arms instead? O take this fist in your own face, fool! Why does not yourself shout "Stay! Here's a man comes rushing, might and main, with something he's mad to say?" 100 And a minute, only a moment, to have hellfire boil up in your brain, And ere you can judge things right, choose heaven,-time's over, repentance vain! Dead! dead as she, by the self-same shot: one bullet has ended both, 110 Her in the body and him in the soul. They laugh at our plighted troth. "Till death us do part?" Till death us do join past parting that sounds like: Betrothal indeed! O Vincent Parkes, what need has my fist to strike? I helped you: thus were you dead and wed: one bound and your soul reached hers! There is clenched in your hand the thing, signed, sealed, the paper which plain avers She is innocent, innocent, plain as print, with the King's Arms broad engraved: No one can hear, but if any one high on the hill can see, she's saved! 115 And at length when he wrung their pardon out, no end to the stupid forms The license and leave: I make no doubt-what wonder if passion warms The pulse in a man if you play with his heart?— he was something hasty in speech; Anyhow, none would quicken the work; he had to beseech, beseech! And the thing once signed, sealed, safe in his grasp,-what followed but fresh delays? For the floods were out, he was forced to take such a roundabout of ways! 126 And 'twas "Halt there!" at every turn of the road, since he had to cross the thick Of the red-coats: what did they care for him and his "Quick, for God's sake, quick!" Horse? but he had one: had it how long? till the first knave smirked "You brag Yourself a friend of the King's? then lend to a King's friend here your nag!" Money to buy another? Why, piece by piece they plundered him still, 130 With their "Wait you must-no help: if aught can help you, a guinea will!" Jeer at the fool and jibe at the coward! 'Twas ever the coward's curse: That fear breeds fancies in such: such take their shadow for substance still, -A fiend at their back. I liked poor Parkes,loved Vincent, if you will! And her why, I said "Good morrow" to her, "Good even," and nothing more: The neighborly way! She was just to me as fifty had been before. 150 So, coward it is and coward shall be! There's a friend, now! Thanks! A drink Of water I wanted: and now I can walk, get home by myself, I think. O LYRIC LOVE (From The Ring and the Book, BK. I, 1868) O lyric Love, half angel and half bird And all a wonder and a wild desire,Boldest of hearts that ever braved the sun, Took sanctuary within the holier blue, And sang a kindred soul out to his face,Yet human at the red-ripe of the heartWhen the first summons from the darkling earth Reached thee amid thy chambers, blanched their blue, And bared them of the glory-to drop down, change? 10 Hail then, and harken from the realms of help! 30 If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange That comes to each in turn, nor count it strange When I look up, to drop on a new range Of walls and floors, another home than this? Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me which is 35 Filled by dead eyes too tender to know change? That's hardest. If to conquer love, has tried, To conquer grief, tries more, as all things prove; 40 For grief indeed is love and grief beside. And fold within the wet wings of thy dove. Lovely all times, she lies, lovely to-night! Only, methinks, some loss of habit's power Befalls me wandering through this upland dim. Once passed I blindfold here, at any hour; Now seldom come I, since I came with him. That single elm-tree bright Against the west-I miss it! is it gone? 25 We prized it dearly; while it stood, we said, 1 A. H. Clough (1819-1861), a man of brilliant gifts and attractive personality, holds an honorable, if subordinate place among the Victorian poets. (See p. 663). He attended Rugby where he was a favorite pupil of Dr. Arnold; he went to Oxford in 1837, and became a fellow of Oriel College in 1842. Matthew Arnold entered Oxford in 1841 and was made a fellow of Oriel College in 1845. Immediately after Clough's death Arnold referred to him as "one of the few people who ever made a deep impression upon me," and hinted at his intention of expressing in some form his feeling for his dead friend. (V. Arnold's Letters I. 177). Two villages near Oxford. The poem gains in sincerity and definiteness by its numerous references to neighboring localities, intimately associated with the days which Clough and Arnold spent together at the University. |