Ah, well that pale woman a phantom might seem, Who appear'd to herself but the dream of a dream!
'Neath those features so calm, that fair forehead so hush'd, That pale cheek forever by passion unflush'd, There yawn'd an insatiate void, and there heaved A tumult of restless regrets unrelieved.
The brief noon of beauty was passing away, And the chill of the twilight fell, silent and gray, O'er that deep, self-perceived isolation of soul.
And now, as all around her the dim evening stole, With its weird desolations, she inwardly grieved For the want of that tender assurance received From the warmth of a whisper, the glance of an eye, Which should say, or should look, "Fear thou naught,--I am by!"
And thus, through that lonely and self-fix'd existence, Crept a vague sense of silence, and horror, and distance:
A strange sort of faint-footed fear,--like a mouse That comes out, when 'tis dark, in some old ducal house Long deserted, where no one the creature can scare, And the forms on the arras are all that move there.
In Rome,--in the Forum,--there open'd one night A gulf. All the augurs turn'd pale at the sight.
In this omen the anger of Heaven they read.
Men consulted the gods: then the oracle said:--
"Ever open this gulf shall endure, till at last That which Rome hath most precious within it be cast."
The Romans threw in it their corn and their stuff, But the gulf yawn'd as wide. Rome seem'd likely enough To be ruin'd ere this rent in her heart she could choke.
Then Curtius, revering the oracle, spoke:
"O Quirites! to this Heaven's question is come:
What to Rome is most precious? The manhood of Rome."
He plunged, and the gulf closed.
The tale is not new;
But the moral applies many ways, and is true.
How, for hearts rent in twain, shall the curse be destroy'd?
'Tis a warm human one that must fill up the void.
Through many a heart runs the rent in the fable;
But who to discover a Curtius is able?
XVII.
Back she came from her long hiding-place, at the source Of the sunrise; where, fair in their fabulous course, Run the rivers of Eden: an exile again, To the cities of Europe--the scenes, and the men, And the life, and the ways, she had left: still oppress'd With the same hungry heart, and unpeaceable breast.
The same, to the same things! The world she had quitted With a sigh, with a sigh she re-enter'd. Soon flitted Through the salons and clubs, to the great satisfaction Of Paris, the news of a novel attraction.
The enchanting Lucile, the gay Countess, once more, To her old friend, the World, had reopen'd her door;
The World came, and shook hands, and was pleased and amused With what the World then went away and abused.
From the woman's fair fame it in naught could detract:
'Twas the woman's free genius it vex'd and attack'd With a sneer at her freedom of action and speech.
But its light careless cavils, in truth, could not reach The lone heart they aim'd at. Her tears fell beyond The world's limit, to feel that the world could respond To that heart's deepest, innermost yearning, in naught, 'Twas no longer this earth's idle inmates she sought:
The wit of the woman sufficed to engage In the woman's gay court the first men of the age.
Some had genius; and all, wealth of mind to confer On the world: but that wealth was not lavish'd for her.
For the genius of man, though so human indeed, When call'd out to man's help by some great human need, The right to a man's chance acquaintance refuses To use what it hoards for mankind's nobler uses.
Genius touches the world at but one point alone Of that spacious circumference, never quite known To the world; all the infinite number of lines That radiate thither a mere point combines, But one only,--some central affection apart From the reach of the world, in which Genius is Heart, And love, life's fine centre, includes heart and mind, And therefore it was that Lucile sigh'd to find Men of genius appear, one and all in her ken, When they stoop'd themselves to it, as mere clever men;
Artists, statesmen, and they in whose works are unfurl'd Worlds new-fashioned for man, as mere men of the world.
And so, as alone now she stood, in the sight Of the sunset of youth, with her face from the light, And watch'd her own shadow grow long at her feet, As though stretch'd out, the shade of some OTHER to meet, The woman felt homeless and childless: in scorn She seem'd mock'd by the voices of children unborn;
And when from these sombre reflections away She turn'd, with a sigh, to that gay world, more gay For her presence within it, she knew herself friendless;
That her path led from peace, and that path appear'd endless!
That even her beauty had been but a snare, And her wit sharpen'd only the edge of despair.
XVIII.
With a face all transfigured and flush'd by surprise, Alfred turn'd to Lucile. With those deep searching eyes She look'd into his own. Not a word that she said, Not a look, not a blush, one emotion betray'd.
She seem'd to smile through him, at something beyond:
When she answer'd his questions, she seem'd to respond To some voice in herself. With no trouble descried, To each troubled inquiry she calmly replied.
Not so he. At the sight of that face back again To his mind came the ghost of a long-stifled pain, A remember'd resentment, half check'd by a wild And relentful regret like a motherless child Softly seeking admittance, with plaintive appeal, To the heart which resisted its entrance.
Lucile And himself thus, however, with freedom allow'd To old friends, talking still side by side, left the crowd By the crowd unobserved. Not unnoticed, however, By the Duke and Matilda. Matilda had never Seen her husband's new friend.
