Book Third

How, o'er the silent fields, the white heat gloats
And shimmers like a silver swarm! Anon,
A distant rumbling shudders through the air,
Shed from those domes of thunder in the west,
Which swell and rise, and, brightening, as they swell,
Show the black walls beneath, from out whose ports
The flash shall lighten and the rain be poured!
The warning given, the various stragglers hear,
And note it well, and hasten to their homes.
Olivia, now, hath crossed her native porch
Where, earlier arrived, the family sit.
There, unappalled by unmolesting friends,
The russet wren glides in among the vines,
And adds another straw unto its nest,
Then, on the neighbouring trellis, pours its song.
The poor man's cottage is its favorite haunt;
And he is poor, indeed, who to his roof
Can welcome not the yearly visitor,
To cheer his door with music! There, too, comes,
But less to be desired, the boring bee
Blowing his warning horn, and in the wood
Mining his secret galleries secure.
A carpenter is he who for himself
Builds, and destroys for others; while the dust
Of his incessant saw upon the floor
Demands the busy broom. Some on the face
Wear the white badge of innocence, and these
Fall frequent captives to the boy who frights
The smaller children with the stingless shape.
The wayward swallows flicker through the air,
Or, safely sheltered 'neath the mossy eaves,
Sit chattering scandal at their clay built doors;
While others, with a taste for soot and smoke,
Dart down the chimney, with a muffled noise,
Echoing the distant thunder. For these sounds
Olivia hath no ear, nor any eye
For aught save that dear page o'er which she pores,
Reading it with her heart as with her sight
Secure from all intrusion, there she sits
Beside her chamber window. O'er the sill
The creeping vine looks in, and on her brow,
Flushed with delight, the passing air is shed
Fresh with the perfume of the coming rain;
And ere she is aware the darkness falls,
Deeper than twilight, and the first big drops
Rattle like pebbles on the sultry shingles,
And splash the window-ledge. Then bursts the shower,
And roars along the roof. The while, outside,
The housetop smokes with the rebounding spray;
The troughs with fulness choke and overrun;
And noisy water, streaming from the eaves,
Deepens the furrows in the earth beneath.
Or, if the shower abates a breathing spell,
The crooked flash blinds the calm instant, when
The sudden thunder stamps upon the storm,
And fiercer, fuller, louder than before,
The drowning deluge pours, and frights the house
To silence and to wonder. Still she reads,
And thus the tenor of the letter runs: —
"The lands which I most wished to tread,
The scenes which I most wished to see,
The shrines of the immortal dead
Have known me, and I now am free.

There is no claim the tyrant makes
So strong as that of young Desire,
No cloud the syren Music wakes
So sweet as Fancy's pilgrim lyre.

I've traced the chain which led me on,
And saw it fall, like links of sand,
And followed till the charm was gone
From Fancy's harp-awaking hand.

If for myself I lived alone,
If there was no fond heart to greet
With love the fulness of my own,
I here could deem my life complete.

Desire achieved is pleasure lost —
Hope dies when cold possession comes —
And Memory poorly pays the cost
With her exact and formal sums."

Thus far she reads, and with a tremor stops.
A tear is on the page — one mournful tear —
As it would blot the last sad verse away.
Who tells me Love is blind? Oh, say not so!
He is an Argus in the soul which sits
And watches with a hundred tireless eyes —
A diligent recorder of each act
And word is he. The steward of his house
Sleeps not in indolence beside the wine,
Or squanders among strangers, unrebuked,
The master's wealth! And still Olivia reads: —
"If I have said, a hope achieved
Is something lost, oh! do not frown;
Nor let your gentle mind be grieved
That love when won is pleasure flown.

For, in my inmost heart, I hold
Our love was never here begun;
But, old as our two souls are old,
It dates more cycles than the sun.

That somewhere, in God's outer space,
Our spirits had together birth,
With kindred ties, no time or place
Can utterly destroy on earth.

Then since our love was never won,
And cannot wilt in sun or frost,
Still let me sing, as I have done —
'Desire achieved is pleasure lost!'"

Her heart, rebuked, is touched to tenderness,
And through the starry light of swimming tears,
Too happy to be shed, she reads again: —
"Thy brightness so encircles me
I cannot reach its bounds,
What though my footsteps daily trace
The paths of foreign grounds?

I walk in an unbroken dream
Of thy remembered light,
A moving dome it glows by day,
A sheltering arch by night!
My waking hours in peace are spent —
I sleep as in a guarded tent!"

Oh, love, thrice happy love, that thus can make
A day of darkness, and, at noontime, shed
A light which gilds the sunshine! Nought she hears,
Nor sees the swelling freshet in the vale,
The streaming, roaring torrent, bearing down
Dead limbs and fallen trees, and in its wrath
Leaving the meadows fenceless, and, anon,
Robbing the woodman of his winter cords.
Still, as the rain assaults the roof, she reads: —
"I See Italia, with her spires and domes,
Her pinnacled cathedrals and her towers,
Her castles, and gray ruins, and the homes
Of splendid infamy in princely bowers!
Here Sin and Shame together herd, like gnomes
Mining in secret, and here Hunger cowers,
And squalid Want before the palace waits,
And stays the stranger passing at the gates!

Where Art, of all the good which hath been, lives
Holding decaying state, half imbecile,
Like Tyranny, and now no more receives
The aid of genius, but with fading smile
Lives on the past; or, if a new hand gives —
As Alston and Thorwaldson gave erewhile —
An impulse to her old triumphal car,
It is not native here, but comes from far!

Where once the North, in swift destruction skilled,
Trampled the arts to ruin, now, behold,
Across the Alps it comes again to build;
And the New World, with reverence for the Old,
Sends her few sons, with native ardour filled,
Lending new life where all is dead and cold.
The Tuscan capitol and haughty Rome
Grow prouder while they hold our sculptor's home.

But all these glorious galaxies of art —
This antique world — this garden of the past —
Not long can bid the dream of home depart.
The marble Venus hath a charm to last
With those alone who wear a wandering heart.
Beside the Apollo, watching where is cast
His long gone arrow, off I stand and see
Its far flight ever guiding back to thee.

Oh! for one hour along the quiet lane,
Which leads between the school and thy dear home,
To breathe those tender April vows again!
Or by the stream, or through the woods to roam,
As we were wont when summer held her reign,
Conversing love, though from our lips might come
No sound of words! Oh, sighing hearts, give o'er,
Ye yet shall sing together as of yore!"

The page is finished, and a sudden glow,
Sent from an iris towering in the east,
Sheds o'er her face its lustre, till she sees
And blesses the bright bow, as happy sign
And confirmation of her lover's words!