Canto III
I.
With stout iron shoes be my Pegasus shod!For my road is a rough one: flint, stubble, and clod,Blue clay, and black quagmire, brambles no few,And I gallop up-hill, now.
There’s terror that’s trueIn that tale of a youth who, one night at a revel,Amidst music and mirth lured and wiled by some devil,Follow’d ever one mask through the mad masquerade,Till, pursued to some chamber deserted (’tis said),He unmasked, with a kiss, the strange lady, and stoodFace to face with a Thing not of flesh nor of blood.In this Mask of the Passions, call’d Life, there’s no humanEmotion, though mask’d, or in man or in woman,But, when faced and unmask’d, it will leave us at lastStruck by some supernatural aspect aghast.For truth is appalling and eldrich, as seenBy this world’s artificial lamplights and we screenFrom our sight the strange vision that troubles our life.Alas! why is Genius forever at strifeWith the world, which, despite the world’s self, it ennobles?Why is it that Genius perplexes and troublesAnd offends the effete life it comes to renew?’Tis the terror of truth! ’tis that Genius is true!
II.
Lucile de Nevers (if her riddle I read)Was a woman of genius: whose genius, indeed,With her life was at war. Once, but once, in that lifeThe chance had been hers to escape from this strifeIn herself; finding peace in the life of anotherFrom the passionate wants she, in hers, failed to smother.But the chance fell too soon, when the crude restless powerWhich had been to her nature so fatal a dower,Only wearied the man it yet haunted and thrall’d;And that moment, once lost, had been never recall’d.Yet it left her heart sore: and, to shelter her heartFrom approach, she then sought, in that delicate artOf concealment, those thousand adroit strategiesOf feminine wit, which repel while they please,A weapon, at once, and a shield to concealAnd defend all that women can earnestly feel.Thus, striving her instincts to hide and repress,She felt frighten’d at times by her very success:She pined for the hill-tops, the clouds, and the stars:Golden wires may annoy us as much as steel barsIf they keep us behind prison windows: impassion’dHer heart rose and burst the light cage she had fashion’dOut of glittering trifles around it.
UnknownTo herself, all her instincts, without hesitation,Embraced the idea of self-immolation.The strong spirit in her, had her life been but blendedWith some man’s whose heart had her own comprehended,All its wealth at his feet would have lavishly thrown.For him she had struggled and striven alone;For him had aspired; in him had transfusedAll the gladness and grace of her nature; and usedFor him only the spells of its delicate power:Like the ministering fairy that brings from her bowerTo some maze all the treasures, whose use the fond elf,More enrich’d by her love, disregards for herself.But standing apart, as she ever had done,And her genius, which needed a vent, finding noneIn the broad fields of action thrown wide to man’s power,She unconsciously made it her bulwark and tower,And built in it her refuge, whence lightly she hurl’dHer contempt at the fashions and forms of the world.
And the permanent cause why she now miss’d and fail’dThat firm hold upon life she so keenly assail’d,Was, in all those diurnal occasions that placeSay—the world and the woman opposed face to face,Where the woman must yield, she, refusing to stir,Offended the world, which in turn wounded her.
As before, in the old-fashion’d manner, I fitTo this character, also, its moral: to wit,Say—the world is a nettle; disturb it, it stings:Grasp it firmly, it stings not. On one of two things,If you would not be stung, it behoves you to settleAvoid it, or crush it. She crush’d not the nettle;For she could not; nor would she avoid it: she triedWith the weak hand of woman to thrust it aside,And it stung her. A woman is too slight a thingTo trample the world without feeling its sting.
III.
One lodges but simply at Luchon; yet, thanksTo the season that changes forever the banksOf the blossoming mountains, and shifts the light cloudO’er the valley, and hushes or rouses the loudWind that wails in the pines, or creeps murmuring downThe dark evergreen slopes to the slumbering town,And the torrent that falls, faintly heard from afar,And the blue-bells that purple the dapple-gray scaur,One sees with each month of the many-faced yearA thousand sweet changes of beauty appear.The chalet where dwelt the Comtesse de NeversRested half up the base of a mountain of firs,In a garden of roses, reveal’d to the road,Yet withdrawn from its noise: ’twas a peaceful abode.And the walls, and the roofs, with their gables like hoodsWhich the monks wear, were built of sweet resinous woods.The sunlight of noon, as Lord Alfred ascendedThe steep garden paths, every odor had blendedOf the ardent carnations, and faint heliotropes,With the balms floated down from the dark wooded slopes:A light breeze at the window was playing about,And the white curtains floated, now in, and now out.The house was all hush’d when he rang at the door,Which was open’d to him in a moment, or more,By an old nodding negress, whose sable head shinedIn the sun like a cocoa-nut polished in Ind,’Neath the snowy foulard which about it was wound.
IV.
Lord Alfred sprang forward at once, with a bound.He remembered the nurse of Lucile. The old dame,Whose teeth and whose eyes used to beam when he came,With a boy’s eager step, in the blithe days of yore,To pass, unannounced, her young mistress’s door.The old woman had fondled Lucile on her kneeWhen she left, as an infant, far over the sea,In India, the tomb of a mother, unknown,To pine, a pale flow’ret, in great Paris town.She had sooth’d the child’s sobs on her breast, when she readThe letter that told her, her father was dead.An astute, shrewd adventurer, who, like Ulysses,Had studied men, cities, laws, wars, the abyssesOf statecraft, with varying fortunes, was he.He had wander’d the world through, by land and by sea,And knew it in most of its phases. Strong will,Subtle tact, and soft manners, had given him skillTo conciliate Fortune, and courage to braveHer displeasure. Thrice shipwreck’d, and cast by the waveOn his own quick resources, they rarely had fail’dHis command: often baffled, he ever prevail’d,In his combat with fate: to-day flatter’d and fedBy monarchs, to-morrow in search of mere breadThe offspring of times trouble-haunted, he cameOf a family ruin’d, yet noble in name.He lost sight of his fortune, at twenty, in France,And, half statesman, half soldier, and wholly Freelance,Had wander’d in search of it, over the worldInto India.
But scarce had the nomad unfurl’dHis wandering tent at Mysore, in the smileOf a Rajah (whose court he controll’d for a while,And whose council he prompted and govern’d by stealth);Scarce, indeed, had he wedded an Indian of wealth,Who died giving birth to this daughter, beforeHe was borne to the tomb of his wife at Mysore.His fortune, which fell to his orphan, perchanceHad secured her a home with his sister in France,A lone woman, the last of the race left. LucileNeither felt, nor affected, the wish to concealThe half-Eastern blood, which appear’d to bequeath(Reveal’d now and then, though but rarely, beneathThat outward repose that concealed it in her)A something half wild to her strange character.The nurse with the orphan, awhile broken-hearted,At the door of a convent in Paris had parted.But later, once more, with her mistress she tarried,When the girl, by that grim maiden aunt, had been marriedTo a dreary old Count, who had sullenly died,With no claim on her tears—she had wept as a bride.Said Lord Alfred, “Your mistress expects me.”
The croneOped the drawing-room door, and there left him alone.
V.
O’er the soft atmosphere of this temple of graceRested silence and perfume. No sound reach’d the place.In the white curtains waver’d the delicate shadeOf the heaving acacias, through which the breeze play’d.O’er the smooth wooden floor, polished dark as a glass,Fragrant white Indian matting allowed you to pass.In light olive baskets, by window and door,Some hung from the ceiling, some crowding the floor,Rich wild flowers pluck’d by Lucile from the hill,Seem’d the room with their passionate presence to fill:Blue aconite, hid in white roses, reposed;The deep belladonna its vermeil disclosed;And the frail saponaire, and the tender blue-bell,And the purple valerian,—each child of the fellAnd the solitude flourish’d, fed fair from the sourceOf waters the huntsman scarce heeds in his courseWhere the chamois and izard, with delicate hoof,Pause or flit through the pinnacled silence aloof.
VI.
Here you felt, by the sense of its beauty reposed,That you stood in a shrine of sweet thoughts. Half unclosedIn the light slept the flowers; all was pure and at rest;All peaceful; all modest; all seem’d self-possess’d,And aware of the silence. No vestige nor traceOf a young woman’s coquetry troubled the place.He stood by the window. A cloud pass’d the sun.A light breeze uplifted the leaves, one by one.Just then Lucile enter’d the room, undiscern’dBy Lord Alfred, whose face to the window was turned,In a strange revery.The time was, when Lucile,In beholding that man, could not help but revealThe rapture, the fear, which wrench’d out every nerveIn the heart of the girl from the woman’s reserve.And now—she gazed at him, calm, smiling,—perchanceIndifferent.
VII.
Indifferently turning his glance,Alfred Vargrave encounter’d that gaze unaware.O’er a bodice snow-white stream’d her soft dusky hair:A rose-bud half blown in her hand; in her eyesA half-pensive smile.
A sharp cry of surpriseEscaped from his lips: some unknown agitation.An invincible trouble, a strange palpitation,Confused his ingenious and frivolous wit;Overtook, and entangled, and paralyzed it.That wit so complacent and docile, that everLightly came at the call of the lightest endeavor,Ready coin’d, and availably current as gold,Which, secure of its value, so fluently roll’dIn free circulation from hand on to handFor the usage of all, at a moment’s command;For once it rebell’d, it was mute and unstirr’d,And he looked at Lucile without speaking a word.
VIII.
Perhaps what so troubled him was, that the faceOn whose features he gazed had no more than a traceOf the face his remembrance had imaged for years.Yes! the face he remember’d was faded with tears:Grief had famish’d the figure, and dimmed the dark eyes,And starved the pale lips, too acquainted with sighs,And that tender, and gracious, and fond coquetterieOf a woman who knows her least ribbon to beSomething dear to the lips that so warmly caressEvery sacred detail of her exquisite dress,In the careless toilet of Lucile—then too sadTo care aught to her changeable beauty to add—Lord Alfred had never admired before!Alas! poor Lucile, in those weak days of yore,Had neglected herself, never heeding, or thinking(While the blossom and bloom of her beauty were shrinking)That sorrow can beautify only the heart—Not the face—of a woman; and can but impartIts endearment to one that has suffer’d. In truthGrief hath beauty for grief; but gay youth loves gay youth.
IX.
The woman that now met, unshrinking his gaze,Seem’d to bask in the silent but sumptuous hazeOf that soft second summer, more ripe than the first,Which returns when the bud to the blossom hath burstIn despite of the stormiest April. LucileHad acquired that matchless unconscious appealTo the homage which none but a churl would withhold—That caressing and exquisite grace—never bold,Ever present—which just a few women possess.From a healthful repose, undisturb’d by the stressOf unquiet emotions, her soft cheek had drawnA freshness as pure as the twilight of dawn.Her figure, though slight, had revived everywhereThe luxurious proportions of youth; and her hair—Once shorn as an offering to passionate love—Now floated or rested redundant aboveHer airy pure forehead and throat; gather’d looseUnder which, by one violet knot, the profuseMilk-white folds of a cool modest garment reposed,Rippled faint by the breast they half hid, half disclosed,And her simple attire thus in all things reveal’dThe fine art which so artfully all things conceal’d.
X.
Lord Alfred, who never conceived that LucileCould have look’d so enchanting, felt tempted to kneelAt her feet, and her pardon with passion implore;But the calm smile that met him sufficed to restoreThe pride and the bitterness needed to meetThe occasion with dignity due and discreet.
XI.
“Madam,”—thus he began with a voice reassured,—“You see that your latest command has securedMy immediate obedience—presuming I mayConsider my freedom restored from this day.”—“I had thought,” said Lucile, with a smile gay yet sad,“That your freedom from me not a fetter has had.Indeed!… in my chains have you rested till now?I had not so flattered myself, I avow!”“For Heaven’s sake, Madam,” Lord Alfred replied,“Do not jest! has the moment no sadness?” he sigh’d.“’Tis an ancient tradition,” she answer’d, “a taleOften told—a position too sure to prevailIn the end of all legends of love. If we wrote,When we first love, foreseeing that hour yet remote,Wherein of necessity each would recallFrom the other the poor foolish records of allThose emotions, whose pain, when recorded, seem’d bliss,Should we write as we wrote? But one thinks not of this!At Twenty (who does not at Twenty?) we writeBelieving eternal the frail vows we plight;And we smile with a confident pity, aboveThe vulgar results of all poor human love:For we deem, with that vanity common to youth,Because what we feel in our bosoms, in truth,Is novel to us—that ’tis novel to earth,And will prove the exception, in durance and worth,To the great law to which all on earth must incline.The error was noble, the vanity fine!Shall we blame it because we survive it? ah, no;’Twas the youth of our youth, my lord, is it not so?”
XII.
Lord Alfred was mute. He remember’d her yetA child—the weak sport of each moment’s regret,Blindly yielding herself to the errors of life,The deceptions of youth, and borne down by the strifeAnd the tumult of passion; the tremulous toyOf each transient emotion of grief or of joy.But to watch her pronounce the death-warrant of allThe illusions of life—lift, unflinching, the pallFrom the bier of the dead Past—that woman so fair,And so young, yet her own self-survivor; who thereTraced her life’s epitaph with a finger so cold!’Twas a picture that pain’d his self-love to behold.He himself knew—none better—the things to be saidUpon subjects like this. Yet he bow’d down his head:And as thus, with a trouble he could not command,He paused, crumpling the letters he held in his hand,“You know me enough,” she continued, “or whatI would say is, you yet recollect (do you not,Lord Alfred?) enough of my nature, to knowThat these pledges of what was perhaps long agoA foolish affection, I do not recallFrom those motives of prudence which actuate allOr most women when their love ceases. Indeed,If you have such a doubt, to dispel it I needBut remind you that ten years these letters have restedUnreclaim’d in your hands.” A reproach seem’d suggestedBy these words. To meet it, Lord Alfred look’d up(His gaze had been fix’d on a blue Sevres cupWith a look of profound connoisseurship—a smileOf singular interest and care, all this while.)He look’d up, and look’d long in the face of Lucile,To mark if that face by a sign would revealAt the thought of Miss Darcy the least jealous pain.He look’d keenly and long, yet he look’d there in vain.“You are generous, Madam,” he murmur’d at last,And into his voice a light irony pass’d.He had look’d for reproaches, and fully arrangedHis forces. But straightway the enemy changedThe position.
XIII.
“Come!” gayly Lucile interposed,With a smile whose divinely deep sweetness disclosedSome depth in her nature he never had known,While she tenderly laid her light hand on his own,“Do not think I abuse the occasion. We gainJustice, judgment, with years, or else years are in vain.From me not a single reproach can you hear.I have sinn’d to myself—to the world—nay, I fearTo you chiefly. The woman who loves should, indeed,Be the friend of the man that she loves. She should heedNot her selfish and often mistaken desires,But his interest whose fate her own interest inspires;And rather than seek to allure, for her sake,His life down the turbulent, fanciful wakeOf impossible destinies, use all her artThat his place in the world find its place in her heart.I, alas!—I perceived not this truth till too late;I tormented your youth, I have darken’d your fate.Forgive me the ill I have done for the sakeOf its long expiation!”
XIV.
Lord Alfred, awake,Seem’d to wander from dream on to dream. In that seatWhere he sat as a criminal, ready to meetHis accuser, he found himself turn’d by some change,As surprising and all unexpected as strange,To the judge from whose mercy indulgence was sought.All the world’s foolish pride in that moment was naught;He felt all his plausible theories posed;And, thrill’d by the beauty of nature disclosedIn the pathos of all he had witness’d, his headHe bow’d, and faint words self-reproachfully said,As he lifted her hand to his lips. ’Twas a handWhite, delicate, dimpled, warm, languid, and bland.The hand of a woman is often, in youth,Somewhat rough, somewhat red, somewhat graceless, in truth;Does its beauty refine, as its pulses grow calm,Or as Sorrow has cross’d the life-line in the palm?
XV.
The more that he look’d, that he listen’d, the moreHe discover’d perfections unnoticed before.Less salient than once, less poetic, perchance,This woman who thus had survived the romanceThat had made him its hero, and breathed him its sighs,Seem’d more charming a thousand times o’er to his eyes.Together they talk’d of the years since when lastThey parted, contrasting the present, the past.Yet no memory marr’d their light converse. LucileQuestion’d much, with the interest a sister might feel,Of Lord Alfred’s new life,—of Miss Darcy—her face,Her temper, accomplishments—pausing to traceThe advantage derived from a hymen so fit.Of herself, she recounted with humor and witHer journeys, her daily employments, the landsShe had seen, and the books she had read, and the handsShe had shaken.In all that she said there appear’dAn amiable irony. Laughing, she rear’dThe temple of reason, with ever a touchOf light scorn at her work, reveal’d only so muchAs their gleams, in the thyrsus that Bacchanals bear,Through the blooms of a garland the point of a spear.But above, and beneath, and beyond all of this,To that soul, whose experience had paralyzed bliss,A benignant indulgence, to all things resign’d,A justice, a sweetness, a meekness of mind,Gave a luminous beauty, as tender and faintAnd serene as the halo encircling a saint.
XVI.
Unobserved by Lord Alfred the time fleeted by.To each novel sensation spontaneouslyHe abandon’d himself with that ardor so strangeWhich belongs to a mind grown accustom’d to change.He sought, with well-practised and delicate art,To surprise from Lucile the true state of her heart;But his efforts were vain, and the woman, as ever,More adroit than the man, baffled every endeavor.When he deem’d he had touch’d on some chord in her being,At the touch it dissolved, and was gone. Ever fleeingAs ever he near it advanced, when he thoughtTo have seized, and proceeded to analyze aughtOf the moral existence, the absolute soul,Light as vapor the phantom escaped his control.
XVII.
From the hall, on a sudden, a sharp ring was heard.In the passage without a quick footstep there stirr’d;At the door knock’d the negress, and thrust in her head,“The Duke de Luvois had just enter’d,” she said,“And insisted”—“The Duke!” cried Lucile (as she spoke,The Duke’s step, approaching, a light echo woke).“Say I do not receive till the evening. Explain,”As she glanced at Lord Alfred, she added again,“I have business of private importance.”There cameO’er Lord Alfred at once, at the sound of that name,An invincible sense of vexation. He turn’dTo Lucile, and he fancied he faintly discern’dOn her face an indefinite look of confusion.On his mind instantaneously flash’d the conclusionThat his presence had caused it.He said, with a sneerWhich he could not repress, “Let not ME interfereWith the claims on your time, lady! when you are freeFrom more pleasant engagements, allow me to seeAnd to wait on you later.”The words were not saidEre he wish’d to recall them. He bitterly readThe mistake he had made in Lucile’s flashing eye.Inclining her head as in haughty reply,More reproachful perchance than all utter’d rebuke,She said merely, resuming her seat, “Tell the DukeHe may enter.”And vex’d with his own words and hers,Alfred Vargrave bow’d low to Lucile de Nevers,Pass’d the casement and enter’d the garden. BeforeHis shadow was fled the Duke stood at the door.
XVIII.
When left to his thoughts in the garden alone,Alfred Vargrave stood, strange to himself. With dull toneOf importance, through cities of rose and carnation,Went the bee on his business from station to station.The minute mirth of summer was shrill all around;Its incessant small voices like stings seem’d to soundOn his sore angry sense. He stood grieving the hotSolid sun with his shadow, nor stirr’d from the spot.The last look of Lucile still bewilder’d, perplex’d,And reproach’d him. The Duke’s visit goaded and vex’d.He had not yet given the letters. AgainHe must visit Lucile. He resolved to remainWhere he was till the Duke went. In short, he would stay,Were it only to know when the Duke went away.But just as he form’d this resolve, he perceivedApproaching towards him, between the thick-leavedAnd luxuriant laurels, Lucile and the Duke.Thus surprised, his first thought was to seek for some nookWhence he might, unobserved, from the garden retreat.They had not yet seen him. The sound of their feetAnd their voices had warn’d him in time. They were walkingTowards him. The Duke (a true Frenchman) was talkingWith the action of Talma. He saw at a glanceThat they barr’d the sole path to the gateway. No chanceOf escape save in instant concealment! Deep-dipp’dIn thick foliage, an arbor stood near. In he slipp’d,Saved from sight, as in front of that ambush they pass’d,Still conversing. Beneath a laburnum at lastThey paused, and sat down on a bench in the shade,So close that he could not but hear what they said.
XIX.
LUCILE.
Duke, I scarcely conceive…
LUVOIS.
Ah! forgive!… I desiredSo deeply to see you to-day. You retiredSo early last night from the ball… this whole weekI have seen you pale, silent, preoccupied… speak,Speak, Lucile, and forgive me!… I know that I amA rash fool—but I love you! I love you, Madame.More than language can say! Do not deem, O Lucile,That the love I no longer have strength to concealIs a passing caprice! It is strange to my nature,It has made me, unknown to myself, a new creature.I implore you to sanction and save the new lifeWhich I lay at your feet with this prayer—Be my wifeStoop, and raise me!Lord Alfred could scarcely restrainThe sudden, acute pang of anger and painWith which he had heard this. As though to some windThe leaves of the hush’d, windless laurels behindThe two thus in converse were suddenly stirr’d.The sound half betrayed him. They started. He heardThe low voice of Lucile; but so faint was its toneThat her answer escaped him.Luvois hurried on,As though in remonstrance with what had been spoken.“Nay, I know it, Lucile! but your heart was not brokenBy the trial in which all its fibres were proved.Love, perchance, you mistrust, yet you need to be loved.You mistake your own feelings. I fear you mistakeWhat so ill I interpret, those feelings which makeWords like these vague and feeble. Whatever your heartMay have suffer’d of yore, this can only impartA pity profound to the love which I feel.Hush! hush! I know all. Tell me nothing, Lucile.”“You know all, Duke?” she said; “well then, know that, in truth,I have learn’d from the rude lesson taught to my youthFrom my own heart to shelter my life; to mistrustThe heart of another. We are what we must,And not what we would be. I know that one hourAssures not another. The will and the powerAre diverse.”“O madam!” he answer’d, “you fenceWith a feeling you know to be true and intense.’Tis not MY life, Lucile, that I plead for alone:If your nature I know, ’tis no less for your own.That nature will prey on itself; it was madeTo influence others. Consider,” he said,“That genius craves power—what scope for it here?Gifts less noble to ME give command of that sphereIn which genius IS power. Such gifts you despise?But you do not disdain what such gifts realize!I offer you, Lady, a name not unknown—A fortune which worthless, without you, is grown—All my life at your feet I lay down—at your feetA heart which for you, and you only, can beat.”
LUCILE.
That heart, Duke, that life—I respect both. The nameAnd position you offer, and all that you claimIn behalf of their nobler employment, I feelTo deserve what, in turn, I now ask you—
LUVOIS.
Lucile!
LUCILE.
I ask you to leave me—
LUVOIS.
You do not reject?
LUCILE.
I ask you to leave me the time to reflect.
LUVOIS.
You ask me?
LUCILE.
—The time to reflect.
LUVOIS.
Say—One word!May I hope?The reply of Lucile was not heardBy Lord Alfred; for just then she rose, and moved on.The Duke bow’d his lips o’er her hand, and was gone.
XX.
Not a sound save the birds in the bushes. And whenAlfred Vargrave reel’d forth to the sunlight again,He just saw the white robe of the woman recedeAs she entered the house.Scarcely conscious indeedOf his steps, he too follow’d, and enter’d.
XXI.
He enter’dUnnoticed; Lucile never stirr’d: so concentredAnd wholly absorb’d in her thoughts she appear’d.Her back to the window was turn’d. As he near’dThe sofa, her face from the glass was reflected.Her dark eyes were fix’d on the ground. Pale, dejected,And lost in profound meditation she seem’d.Softly, silently, over her droop’d shoulders stream’dThe afternoon sunlight. The cry of alarmAnd surprise which escaped her, as now on her armAlfred Vargrave let fall a hand icily coldAnd clammy as death, all too cruelly toldHow far he had been from her thoughts.
XXII.
All his cheekWas disturb’d with the effort it cost him to speak.“It was not my fault. I have heard all,” he said.“Now the letters—and farewell, Lucile! When you wedMay—”The sentence broke short, like a weapon that snapsWhen the weight of a man is upon it.“Perhaps,”Said Lucile (her sole answer reveal’d in the flushOf quick color which up to her brow seem’d to rushIn reply to those few broken words), “this farewellIs our last, Alfred Vargrave, in life. Who can tell?Let us part without bitterness. Here are your letters.Be assured I retain you no more in my fetters!”—She laughed, as she said this, a little sad laugh,And stretched out her hand with the letters. And halfWroth to feel his wrath rise, and unable to trustHis own powers of restraint, in his bosom he thrustThe packet she gave, with a short angry sigh,Bow’d his head, and departed without a reply.
XXIII.
And Lucile was alone. And the men of the worldWere gone back to the world. And the world’s self was furl’dFar away from the heart of the woman. Her handDroop’d, and from it, unloosed from their frail silken band,Fell those early love-letters, strewn, scatter’d, and shedAt her feet—life’s lost blossoms! Dejected, her headOn her bosom was bow’d. Her gaze vaguely stray’d o’erThose strewn records of passionate moments no more.From each page to her sight leapt some words that beliedThe composure with which she that day had deniedEvery claim on her heart to those poor perish’d years.They avenged themselves now, and she burst into tears.