I.

THE GARDEN.

Above the city hung the moon,
⁠Right o'er a plot of ground
Where flowers and orchard-trees were fenced
⁠With lofty walls around:
'Twas Gilbert's garden—there, to-night
⁠Awhile he walked alone;
And, tired with sedentary toil,
⁠Mused where the moonlight shone.

This garden, in a city-heart,
⁠Lay still as houseless wild,
Though many-windowed mansion fronts
⁠Were round it closely piled;
But thick their walls, and those within
⁠Lived lives by noise unstirred;
Likе wafting of an angel's wing,
⁠Time's flight by them was hеard.

Some soft piano-notes alone
⁠Were sweet as faintly given,
Where ladies, doubtless, cheered the hearth
⁠With song, that winter-even.
The city's many-mingled sounds
⁠Rose like the hum of ocean;
They rather lulled the heart than roused
⁠Its pulse to faster motion.
Gilbert has paced the single walk
⁠An hour, yet is not weary;
And, though it be a winter night,
⁠He feels nor cold nor dreary.
The prime of life is in his veins,
⁠And sends his blood fast flowing,
And Fancy's fervour warms the thoughts
⁠Now in his bosom glowing.

Those thoughts recur to early love,
⁠Or what he love would name,
Though haply Gilbert's secret deeds
⁠Might other title claim.
Such theme not oft his mind absorbs,
⁠He to the world clings fast,
And too much for the present lives,
⁠To linger o'er the past.

But now the evening's deep repose
⁠Has glided to his soul;
That moonlight falls on Memory,
⁠And shows her fading scroll.
One name appears in every line
⁠The gentle rays shine o'er,
And still he smiles and still repeats
⁠That one name—Elinor.
There is no sorrow in his smile,
⁠No kindness in his tone;
The triumph of a selfish heart
⁠Speaks coldly there alone;
He says: "She loved me more than life;
⁠And truly it was sweet
To see so fair a woman kneel,
⁠In bondage, at my feet.

There was a sort of quiet bliss
⁠To be so deeply loved,
To gaze on trembling eagerness
⁠And sit myself unmoved.
And when it pleased my pride to grant,
⁠At last some rare caress,
To feel the fever of that hand
⁠My fingers deigned to press.

'Twas sweet to see her strive to hide
⁠What every glance revealed;
Endowed, the while, with despot-might
⁠Her destiny to wield.
I knew myself no perfect man,
⁠Nor, as she deemed, divine;
I knew that I was glorious—but
⁠By her reflected shine;
Her youth, her native energy,
⁠Her powers new-born and fresh,
'Twas these with Godhead sanctified
⁠My sensual frame of flesh.
Yet, like a god did I descend
⁠At last, to meet her love;
And, like a god, I then withdrew
⁠To my own heaven above.

And never more could she invoke
⁠My presence to her sphere;
No prayer, no plaint, no cry of hers
⁠Could win my awful ear.
I knew her blinded constancy
⁠Would ne'er my deeds betray,
And, calm in conscience, whole in heart,
⁠I went my tranquil way.

Yet, sometimes, I still feel a wish,
⁠The fond and flattering pain
Of passion's anguish to create,
⁠In her young breast again.
Bright was the lustre of her eyes,
⁠When they caught fire from mine;
If I had power—this very hour,
⁠Again I'd light their shine.

But where she is, or how she lives,
⁠I have no clue to know;
I've heard she long my absence pined,
⁠And left her home in woe.
But busied, then, in gathering gold,
⁠As I am busied now,
I could not turn from such pursuit,
⁠To weep a broken vow.

Nor could I give to fatal risk
⁠The fame I ever prized;
Even now, I fear, that precious fame
⁠Is too much compromised."
An inward trouble dims his eye,
⁠Some riddle he would solve;
Some method to unloose a knot,
⁠His anxious thoughts revolve.

He, pensive, leans against a tree,
⁠A leafy evergreen,
The boughs, the moonlight, intercept,
⁠And hide him like a screen;
He starts—the tree shakes with his tremor,
⁠Yet nothing near him pass'd,
He hurries up the garden alley,
⁠In strangely sudden haste.

With shaking hand, he lifts the latchet,
⁠Steps o'er the threshold stone;
The heavy door slips from his fingers,
⁠It shuts, and he is gone.
What touched, transfixed, appalled, his soul?
⁠A nervous thought, no more;
'Twill sink like stone in placid pool,
⁠And calm close smoothly o'er.


II.

THE PARLOUR.

Warm is the parlour atmosphere,
⁠Serene the lamp's soft light;
The vivid embers, red and clear,
⁠Proclaim a frosty night.
Books, varied, on the table lie,
⁠Three children o'er them bend,
And all, with curious, eager eye,
⁠The turning leaf attend.

Picture and tale alternately
⁠Their simple hearts delight,
And interest deep, and tempered glee,
⁠Illume their aspects bright;
The parents, from their fireside place,
⁠Behold that pleasant scene,
And joy is on the mother's face,
⁠Pride, in the father's mien.

As Gilbert sees his blooming wife,
⁠Beholds his children fair,
No thought has he of transient strife,
⁠Or past, though piercing fear.
The voice of happy infancy
⁠Lisps sweetly in his ear,
His wife, with pleased and peaceful eye.
⁠Sits, kindly smiling, near.

The fire glows on her silken dress,
⁠And shows its ample grace,
And warmly tints each hazel tress,
⁠Curled soft around her face.
The beauty that in youth he wooed,
⁠Is beauty still, unfaded,
The brow of ever placid mood
⁠No churlish grief has shaded.

Prosperity, in Gilbert's home,
⁠Abides, the guest of years;
There Want or Discord never come,
⁠And seldom Toil or Tears.
The carpets bear the peaceful print
⁠Of comfort's velvet tread,
And golden gleams from plenty sent,
⁠In every nook are shed.

The very silken spaniel seems
⁠Of quiet ease to tell,
As near its mistress' feet it dreams,
⁠Sunk in a cushion's swell;
And smiles seem native to the eyes
⁠Of those sweet children, three;
They have but looked on tranquil skies,
⁠And know not misery.

Alas! that misery should come
⁠In such an hour as this;
Why could she not so calm a home
⁠A little longer miss?
But she is now within the door,
⁠Her steps advancing glide;
Her sullen shade has crossed the floor,
⁠She stands at Gilbert's side.

She lays her hand upon his heart,
⁠It bounds with agony;
His fireside chair shakes with the start
⁠That shook the garden tree.
His wife towards the children looks,
⁠She does not mark his mien;
The children, bending o'er their books,
⁠His terror have not seen.

In his own home, by his own hearth,
⁠He sits in solitude,
And circled round with light and mirth,
⁠Cold horror chills his blood.
His mind would hold with desperate clutch
⁠The scene that round him lies;
No—changed, as by some wizard's touch,
⁠The present prospect flies.

A tumult vague—a viewless strife
⁠His futile struggles crush;
'Twixt him and his, an unknown life
⁠And unknown feelings rush.
He sees—but scarce can language paint
⁠The tissue Fancy weaves;
For words oft give but echo faint
⁠Of thoughts the mind conceives.

Noise, tumult strange, and darkness dim,
⁠Efface both light and quiet;
No shape is in those shadows grim,
⁠No voice in that wild riot.
Sustained and strong, a wondrous blast
⁠Above and round him blows;
A greenish gloom, dense overcast,
⁠Each moment denser grows.

He nothing knows—nor clearly sees,
⁠Resistance checks his breath,
The high, impetuous, ceaseless breeze
⁠Blows on him, cold as death.
And still the undulating gloom
⁠Mocks sight with formless motion;
Was such sensation Jonah's doom,
⁠Gulphed in the depths of ocean?

Streaking the air, the nameless vision,
⁠Fast-driven, deep-sounding, flows;
Oh! whence its source, and what its mission?
⁠How will its terrors close?
Long-sweeping, rushing, vast and void,
⁠The Universe it swallows;
And still the dark, devouring tide,
⁠A Typhoon tempest follows.

More slow it rolls; its furious race
⁠Sinks to a solemn gliding;
The stunning roar, the wind's wild chase,
⁠To stillness are subsiding.
And, slowly borne along, a form
⁠The shapeless chaos varies;
Poised in the eddy to the storm,
⁠Before the eye it tarries.

A woman drowned—sunk in the deep,
⁠On a long wave reclining;
The circling waters' crystal sweep,
⁠Like glass, her shape enshrining;
Her pale dead face, to Gilbert turned,
⁠Seems as in sleep reposing;
A feeble light, now first discerned,
⁠The features well disclosing.

No effort from the haunted air
⁠The ghastly scene could banish;
That hovering wave, arrested there,
⁠Rolled—throbbed—but did not vanish.
If Gilbert upward turned his gaze,
⁠He saw the ocean-shadow;
If he looked down, the endless seas
⁠Lay green as summer meadow.

And straight before, the pale corpse lay,
⁠Upborne by air or billow,
So near, he could have touched the spray
⁠That churned around its pillow.
The hollow anguish of the face
⁠Had moved a fiend to sorrow;
Not Death's fixed calm could rase the trace
⁠Of suffering's deep-worn furrow.

All moved; a strong returning blast,
⁠The mass of waters raising,
Bore wave and passive carcase past,
⁠While Gilbert yet was gazing.
Deep in her isle-conceiving womb,
⁠It seemed the Ocean thundered,
And soon, by realms of rushing gloom,
⁠Were seer and phantom sundered.

Then swept some timbers from a wreck,
⁠On following surges riding;
Then sea-weed, in the turbid rack
⁠Uptorn, went slowly gliding.
The horrid shade, by slow degrees,
⁠A beam of light defeated,
And then the roar of raving seas,
⁠Fast, far, and faint, retreated.

And all was gone—gone like a mist,
⁠Corse, billows, tempest, wreck;
Three children close to Gilbert prest
⁠And clung around his neck.
Good night! good night! the prattlers said
⁠And kissed their father's cheek;
'Twas now the hour their quiet bed
⁠And placid rest to seek.

The mother with her offspring goes
⁠To hear their evening prayer;
She nought of Gilbert's vision knows,
⁠And nought of his despair.
Yet, pitying God, abridge the time
⁠Of anguish, now his fate!
Though, haply, great has been his crime,
⁠Thy mercy, too, is great.

Gilbert, at length, uplifts his head,
⁠Bent for some moments low,
And there is neither grief nor dread
⁠Upon his subtle brow.
For well can he his feelings task,
⁠And well his looks command;
His features well his heart can mask,
⁠With smiles and smoothness bland.

Gilbert has reasoned with his mind—
⁠He says 'twas all a dream;
He strives his inward sight to blind
⁠Against truth's inward beam.
He pitied not that shadowy thing,
⁠When it was flesh and blood;
Nor now can pity's balmy spring
⁠Refresh his arid mood.

"And if that dream has spoken truth,"
⁠Thus musingly he says;
"If Elinor be dead, in sooth,
⁠Such chance the shock repays:
A net was woven round my feet,
⁠I scarce could further go,
Ere Shame had forced a fast retreat,
⁠Dishonour brought me low."

"Conceal her, then, deep, silent Sea,
⁠Give her a secret grave!
She sleeps in peace, and I am free,
⁠No longer Terror's slave:
And homage still, from all the world,
⁠Shall greet my spotless name,
Since surges break and waves are curled
⁠Above its threatened shame."


III.

THE WELCOME HOME.

Above the city hangs the moon,
⁠Some clouds are boding rain,
Gilbert, erewhile on journey gone,
⁠To-night comes home again.
Ten years have passed above his head,
⁠Each year has brought him gain;
His prosperous life has smoothly sped,
⁠Without or tear or stain.

'Tis somewhat late—the city clocks
⁠Twelve deep vibrations toll,
As Gilbert at the portal knocks,
⁠Which is his journey's goal.
The street is still and desolate,
⁠The moon hid by a cloud;
Gilbert, impatient, will not wait,—
⁠His second knock peals loud.

The clocks are hushed; there's not a light
⁠In any window nigh,
And not a single planet bright
⁠Looks from the clouded sky;
The air is raw, the rain descends,
⁠A bitter north-wind blows;
His cloak the traveller scarce defends—
⁠Will not the door unclose?

He knocks the third time, and the last;
⁠His summons now they hear,
Within, a footstep, hurrying fast,
⁠Is heard approaching near.
The bolt is drawn, the clanking chain
⁠Falls to the floor of stone;
And Gilbert to his heart will strain
⁠His wife and children soon.

The hand that lifts the latchet, holds
⁠A candle to his sight,
And Gilbert, on the step, beholds
⁠A woman, clad in white.
Lo! water from her dripping dress
⁠Runs on the streaming floor;
From every dark and clinging tress,
⁠The drops incessant pour.

There's none but her to welcome him;
⁠She holds the candle high,
And, motionless in form and limb,
⁠Stands cold and silent nigh;
There's sand and sea-weed on her robe,
⁠Her hollow eyes are blind;
No pulse in such a frame can throb,
⁠No life is there defined.

Gilbert turned ashy-white, but still
⁠His lips vouchsafed no cry;
He spurred his strength and master-will
⁠To pass the figure by,—
But, moving slow, it faced him straight,
⁠It would not flinch nor quail:
Then first did Gilbert's strength abate,
⁠His stony firmness quail.

He sank upon his knees and prayed;
⁠The shape stood rigid there;
He called aloud for human aid,
⁠No human aid was near.
An accent strange did thus repeat
⁠Heaven's stern but just decree:
"The measure thou to her didst mete,
⁠To thee shall measured be!"

Gilbert sprang from his bended knees,
⁠By the pale spectre pushed,
And, wild as one whom demons seize,
⁠Up the hall-staircase rushed;
Entered his chamber—near the bed
⁠Sheathed steel and fire-arms hung—
Impelled by maniac purpose dread,
⁠He chose those stores among.

Across his throat, a keen-edged knife
⁠With vigorous hand he drew;
The wound was wide—his outraged life
⁠Rushed rash and redly through.
And thus died, by a shameful death,
⁠A wise and worldly man,
Who never drew but selfish breath
⁠Since first his life began.