I.

     Hail, Muse!  But each Muse by this time has, I know,
     Been used up, and Apollo has bent his own bow
     All too long; so I leave unassaulted the portal
     Of Olympus, and only invoke here a mortal.

     Hail, Murray!—not Lindley,—but Murray and Son.
     Hail, omniscient, beneficent, great Two-in-One!
     In Albermarle Street may thy temple long stand!
     Long enlighten'd and led by thine erudite hand,
     May each novice in science nomadic unravel
     Statistical mazes of modernized travel!
     May each inn-keeper knave long thy judgment revere,
     And the postboys of Europe regard thee with fear;
     While they feel, in the silence of baffled extortion,
     That knowledge is power!  Long, long, like that portion
     Of the national soil which the Greek exile took
     In his baggage wherever he went, may thy book
     Cheer each poor British pilgrim, who trusts to thy wit
     Not to pay through his nose just for following it!
     May'st thou long, O instructor! preside o'er his way,
     And teach him alike what to praise and to pay!
     Thee, pursuing this pathway of song, once again
     I invoke, lest, unskill'd, I should wander in vain.
     To my call be propitious, nor, churlish, refuse
     Thy great accents to lend to the lips of my Muse;
     For I sing of the Naiads who dwell 'mid the stems
     Of the green linden-trees by the waters of Ems.
     Yes! thy spirit descends upon mine, O John Murray!
     And I start—with thy book—for the Baths in a hurry.

     II.

     "At Coblentz a bridge of boats crosses the Rhine;
     And from thence the road, winding by Ehrenbreitstein,
     Passes over the frontier of Nassua.
                                         ("N. B.
     No custom-house here since the Zollverein."  See
     Murray, paragraph 30.)
                             "The route, at each turn,
     Here the lover of nature allows to discern,
     In varying prospect, a rich wooded dale:
     The vine and acacia-tree mostly prevail
     In the foliage observable here: and, moreover,
     The soil is carbonic.  The road, under cover
     Of the grape-clad and mountainous upland that hems
     Round this beautiful spot, brings the traveller to—"EMS.
     A Schnellpost from Frankfort arrives every day.
     At the Kurhaus (the old Ducal mansion) you pay
     Eight florins for lodgings.  A Restaurateur
     Is attach'd to the place; but most travellers prefer
     (Including, indeed, many persons of note)
     To dine at the usual-priced table d'hote.
     Through the town runs the Lahn, the steep green banks of which
     Two rows of white picturesque houses enrich;
     And between the high road and the river is laid
     Out a sort of a garden, call'd 'THE Promenade.'
     Female visitors here, who may make up their mind
     To ascend to the top of these mountains, will find
     On the banks of the stream, saddled all the day long,
     Troops of donkeys—sure-footed—proverbially strong;"
     And the traveller at Ems may remark, as he passes,
     Here, as elsewhere, the women run after the asses.

     III.

     'Mid the world's weary denizens bound for these springs
     In the month when the merle on the maple-bough sings,
     Pursued to the place from dissimilar paths
     By a similar sickness, there came to the Baths
     Four sufferers—each stricken deep through the heart,
     Or the head, by the self-same invisible dart
     Of the arrow that flieth unheard in the noon,
     From the sickness that walketh unseen in the moon,
     Through this great lazaretto of life, wherein each
     Infects with his own sores the next within reach.
     First of these were a young English husband and wife,
     Grown weary ere half through the journey of life.
     O Nature, say where, thou gray mother of earth,
     Is the strength of thy youth? that thy womb brings to birth
     Only old men to-day!  On the winds, as of old,
     Thy voice in its accent is joyous and bold;
     Thy forests are green as of yore; and thine oceans
     Yet move in the might of their ancient emotions:
     But man—thy last birth and thy best—is no more
     Life's free lord, that look'd up to the starlight of yore,
     With the faith on the brow, and the fire in the eyes,
     The firm foot on the earth, the high heart in the skies;
     But a gray-headed infant, defrauded of youth,
     Born too late or too early.
                                  The lady, in truth,
     Was young, fair, and gentle; and never was given
     To more heavenly eyes the pure azure of heaven.
     Never yet did the sun touch to ripples of gold
     Tresses brighter than those which her soft hand unroll'd
     From her noble and innocent brow, when she rose,
     An Aurora, at dawn, from her balmy repose,
     And into the mirror the bloom and the blush
     Of her beauty broke, glowing; like light in a gush
     From the sunrise in summer.
                                 Love, roaming, shall meet
     But rarely a nature more sound or more sweet—
     Eyes brighter—brows whiter—a figure more fair—
     Or lovelier lengths of more radiant hair—
     Than thine, Lady Alfred!  And here I aver
     (May those that have seen thee declare if I err)
     That not all the oysters in Britain contain
     A pearl pure as thou art.
                               Let some one explain,—
     Who may know more than I of the intimate life
     Of the pearl with the oyster,—why yet in his wife,
     In despite of her beauty—and most when he felt
     His soul to the sense of her loveliness melt—
     Lord Alfred miss'd something he sought for: indeed,
     The more that he miss'd it the greater the need;
     Till it seem'd to himself he could willingly spare
     All the charms that he found for the one charm not there.

     IV.

     For the blessings Life lends us, it strictly demands
     The worth of their full usufruct at our hands.
     And the value of all things exists, not indeed
     In themselves, but man's use of them, feeding man's need.
     Alfred Vargrave, in wedding with beauty and youth,
     Had embraced both Ambition and Wealth.  Yet in truth
     Unfulfill'd the ambition, and sterile the wealth
     (In a life paralyzed by a moral ill-health),
     Had remain'd, while the beauty and youth, unredeem'd
     From a vague disappointment at all things, but seem'd
     Day by day to reproach him in silence for all
     That lost youth in himself they had fail'd to recall.
     No career had he follow'd, no object obtain'd
     In the world by those worldly advantages gain'd
     From nuptials beyond which once seem'd to appear,
     Lit by love, the broad path of a brilliant career.
     All that glitter'd and gleam'd through the moonlight of youth
     With a glory so fair, now that manhood in truth
     Grasp'd and gather'd it, seem'd like that false fairy gold
     Which leaves in the hand only moss, leaves, and mould!

     V.

     Fairy gold! moss and leaves! and the young Fairy Bride?
     Lived there yet fairy-lands in the face at his side?
     Say, O friend, if at evening thou ever hast watch'd
     Some pale and impalpable vapor, detach'd
     From the dim and disconsolate earth, rise and fall
     O'er the light of a sweet serene star, until all
     The chill'd splendor reluctantly waned in the deep
     Of its own native heaven?  Even so seem'd to creep
     O'er that fair and ethereal face, day by day,
     While the radiant vermeil, subsiding away,
     Hid its light in the heart, the faint gradual veil
     Of a sadness unconscious.
                                The lady grew pale
     As silent her lord grew: and both, as they eyed
     Each the other askance, turn'd, and secretly sigh'd.
     Ah, wise friend, what avails all experience can give?
     True, we know what life is—but, alas! do we live?
     The grammar of life we have gotten by heart,
     But life's self we have made a dead language—an art,
     Not a voice.  Could we speak it, but once, as 'twas spoken
     When the silence of passion the first time was broken!
     Cuvier knew the world better than Adam, no doubt;
     But the last man, at best, was but learned about
     What the first, without learning, ENJOYED.  What art thou
     To the man of to-day, O Leviathan, now?
     A science.  What wert thou to him that from ocean
     First beheld thee appear?  A surprise,—an emotion!
     When life leaps in the veins, when it beats in the heart,
     When it thrills as it fills every animate part,
     Where lurks it? how works it?... We scarcely detect it.
     But life goes: the heart dies: haste, O leech, and dissect it!
     This accursed aesthetical, ethical age
     Hath so finger'd life's hornbook, so blurr'd every page,
     That the old glad romance, the gay chivalrous story
     With its fables of faery, its legends of glory,
     Is turn'd to a tedious instruction, not new
     To the children that read it insipidly through.
     We know too much of Love ere we love.  We can trace
     Nothing new, unexpected, or strange in his face
     When we see it at last.  'Tis the same little Cupid,
     With the same dimpled cheek, and the smile almost stupid,
     We have seen in our pictures, and stuck on our shelves,
     And copied a hundred times over, ourselves,
     And wherever we turn, and whatever we do,
     Still, that horrible sense of the deja connu!

     VI.

     Perchance 'twas the fault of the life that they led;
     Perchance 'twas the fault of the novels they read;
     Perchance 'twas a fault in themselves; I am bound not
     To say: this I know—that these two creatures found not
     In each other some sign they expected to find
     Of a something unnamed in the heart or the mind;
     And, missing it, each felt a right to complain
     Of a sadness which each found no word to explain.
     Whatever it was, the world noticed not it
     In the light-hearted beauty, the light-hearted wit.
     Still, as once with the actors in Greece, 'tis the case,
     Each must speak to the crowd with a mask on his face.
     Praise follow'd Matilda wherever she went,
     She was flatter'd.  Can flattery purchase content?
     Yes.  While to its voice for a moment she listen'd,
     The young cheek still bloom'd and the soft eyes still glisten'd;
     And her lord, when, like one of those light vivid things
     That glide down the gauzes of summer with wings
     Of rapturous radiance, unconscious she moved
     Through that buzz of inferior creatures, which proved
     Her beauty, their envy, one moment forgot,
     'Mid the many charms there, the one charm that was not:
     And when o'er her beauty enraptured he bow'd,
     (As they turn'd to each other, each flush'd from the crowd,)
     And murmur'd those praises which yet seem'd more dear
     Than the praises of others had grown to her ear,
     She, too, ceased awhile her own fate to regret:
     "Yes!... he loves me," she sigh'd; "this is love, then—and YET!"

     VII.

     Ah, that YET! fatal word! 'tis the moral of all
     Thought and felt, seen or done, in this world since the Fall!
     It stands at the end of each sentence we learn;
     It flits in the vista of all we discern;
     It leads us, forever and ever, away
     To find in to-morrow what flies with to-day.
     'Twas the same little fatal and mystical word
     That now, like a mirage, led my lady and lord
     To the waters of Ems from the waters of Marah;
     Drooping Pilgrims in Fashion's blank, arid Sahara!

     VIII.

     At the same time, pursued by a spell much the same,
     To these waters two other worn pilgrims there came:
     One a man, one a woman: just now, at the latter,
     As the Reader I mean by and by to look at her
     And judge for himself, I will not even glance.

     IX.

     Of the self-crown'd young kings of the Fashion in France
     Whose resplendent regalia so dazzled the sight,
     Whose horse was so perfect, whose boots were so bright,
     Who so hail'd in the salon, so mark'd in the Bois,
     Who so welcomed by all, as Eugene de Luvois?
     Of all the smooth-brow'd premature debauchees
     In that town of all towns, where Debauchery sees
     On the forehead of youth her mark everywhere graven,—
     In Paris I mean,—where the streets are all paven
     By those two fiends whom Milton saw bridging the way
     From Hell to this planet,—who, haughty and gay,
     The free rebel of life, bound or led by no law,
     Walk'd that causeway as bold as Eugene de Luvois?
     Yes! he march'd through the great masquerade, loud of tongue,
     Bold of brow: but the motley he mask'd in, it hung
     So loose, trail'd so wide, and appear'd to impede
     So strangely at times the vex'd effort at speed,
     That a keen eye might guess it was made—not for him,
     But some brawler more stalwart of stature and limb.
     That it irk'd him, in truth, you at times could divine,
     For when low was the music, and spilt was the wine,
     He would clutch at the garment, as though it oppress'd
     And stifled some impulse that choked in his breast.

     X.

     What! he,... the light sport of his frivolous ease!
     Was he, too, a prey to a mortal disease?
     My friend, hear a parable: ponder it well:
     For a moral there is in the tale that I tell.
     One evening I sat in the Palais Royal,
     And there, while I laugh'd at Grassot and Arnal,
     My eye fell on the face of a man at my side;
     Every time that he laugh'd I observed that he sigh'd,
     As though vex'd to be pleased.  I remark'd that he sat
     Ill at ease on his seat, and kept twirling his hat
     In his hand, with a look of unquiet abstraction.
     I inquired the cause of his dissatisfaction.
     "Sir," he said, "if what vexes me here you would know,
     Learn that, passing this way some few half-hours ago,
     I walk'd into the Francais, to look at Rachel.
     (Sir, that woman in Phedre is a miracle!)—Well,
     I ask'd for a box: they were occupied all:
     For a seat in the balcony: all taken! a stall:
     Taken too: the whole house was as full as could be,—
     Not a hole for a rat!  I had just time to see
     The lady I love tete-a-tete with a friend
     In a box out of reach at the opposite end:
     Then the crowd push'd me out.  What was left me to do?
     I tried for the tragedy... que voulez-vous?
     Every place for the tragedy book'd!... mon ami.
     The farce was close by:... at the farce me voici.
     The piece is a new one: and Grassot plays well:
     There is drollery, too, in that fellow Ravel:
     And Hyacinth's nose is superb:... yet I meant
     My evening elsewhere, and not thus to have spent.
     Fate orders these things by her will, not by ours!
     Sir, mankind is the sport of invisible powers."

     I once met the Duc de Luvois for a moment;
     And I mark'd, when his features I fix'd in my comment,
     O'er those features the same vague disquietude stray
     I had seen on the face of my friend at the play;
     And I thought that he too, very probably, spent
     His evenings not wholly as first he had meant.

     XI.

     O source of the holiest joys we inherit,
     O Sorrow, thou solemn, invisible spirit!
     Ill fares it with man when, through life's desert sand,
     Grown impatient too soon for the long-promised land,
     He turns from the worship of thee, as thou art,
     An expressless and imageless truth in the heart,
     And takes of the jewels of Egypt, the pelf
     And the gold of the Godless, to make to himself
     A gaudy, idolatrous image of thee,
     And then bows to the sound of the cymbal the knee.
     The sorrows we make to ourselves are false gods:
     Like the prophets of Baal, our bosoms with rods
     We may smite, we may gash at our hearts till they bleed,
     But these idols are blind, deaf, and dumb to our need.
     The land is athirst, and cries out!... 'tis in vain;
     The great blessing of Heaven descends not in rain.

     XII.

     It was night; and the lamps were beginning to gleam
     Through the long linden-trees, folded each in his dream,
     From that building which looks like a temple... and is
     The Temple of—Health?  Nay, but enter! I wis
     That never the rosy-hued deity knew
     One votary out of that sallow-cheek'd crew
     Of Courlanders, Wallacs, Greeks, affable Russians,
     Explosive Parisians, potato-faced Prussians;
     Jews—Hamburghers chiefly;—pure patriots,—Suabians;—
     "Cappadocians and Elamites, Cretes and Arabians,
     And the dwellers in Pontus"... My muse will not weary
     More lines with the list of them... cur fremuere?
     What is it they murmur, and mutter, and hum?
     Into what Pandemonium is Pentecost come?
     Oh, what is the name of the god at whose fane
     Every nation is mix'd in so motley a train?
     What weird Kabala lies on those tables outspread?
     To what oracle turns with attention each head?
     What holds these pale worshippers each so devout,
     And what are those hierophants busied about?

     XIII.

     Here passes, repasses, and flits to and fro,
     And rolls without ceasing the great Yes and No:
     Round this altar alternate the weird Passions dance,
     And the God worshipp'd here is the old God of Chance.
     Through the wide-open doors of the distant saloon
     Flute, hautboy, and fiddle are squeaking in tune;
     And an indistinct music forever is roll'd,
     That mixes and chimes with the chink of the gold,
     From a vision, that flits in a luminous haze,
     Of figures forever eluding the gaze;
     It fleets through the doorway, it gleams on the glass,
     And the weird words pursue it—Rouge, Impair, et Passe!
     Like a sound borne in sleep through such dreams as encumber
     With haggard emotions the wild wicked slumber
     Of some witch when she seeks, through a nightmare, to grab at
     The hot hoof of the fiend, on her way to the Sabbat.

     XIV.

     The Duc de Luvois and Lord Alfred had met
     Some few evenings ago (for the season as yet
     Was but young) in this selfsame Pavilion of Chance.
     The idler from England, the idler from France,
     Shook hands, each, of course, with much cordial pleasure:
     An acquaintance at Ems is to most men a treasure,
     And they both were too well-bred in aught to betray
     One discourteous remembrance of things pass'd away.
     'Twas a sight that was pleasant, indeed, to be seen,
     These friends exchange greetings;—the men who had been
     Foes so nearly in days that were past.
                                             This, no doubt,
     Is why, on the night I am speaking about,
     My Lord Alfred sat down by himself at roulette,
     Without one suspicion his bosom to fret,
     Although he had left, with his pleasant French friend,
     Matilda, half vex'd, at the room's farthest end.

     XV.

     Lord Alfred his combat with Fortune began
     With a few modest thalers—away they all ran—
     The reserve follow'd fast in the rear.  As his purse
     Grew lighter his spirits grew sensibly worse.
     One needs not a Bacon to find a cause for it:
     'Tis an old law in physics—Natura abhorret
     Vacuum—and my lord, as he watch'd his last crown
     Tumble into the bank, turn'd away with a frown
     Which the brows of Napoleon himself might have deck'd
     On that day of all days when an empire was wreck'd
     On thy plain, Waterloo, and he witness'd the last
     Of his favorite Guard cut to pieces, aghast!
     Just then Alfred felt, he could scarcely tell why,
     Within him the sudden strange sense that some eye
     Had long been intently regarding him there,—
     That some gaze was upon him too searching to bear.
     He rose and look'd up.  Was it fact?  Was it fable?
     Was it dream?  Was it waking?  Across the green table,
     That face, with its features so fatally known—
     Those eyes, whose deep gaze answer'd strangely his own
     What was it?  Some ghost from its grave come again?
     Some cheat of a feverish, fanciful brain?
     Or was it herself with those deep eyes of hers,
     And that face unforgotten?—Lucile de Nevers!

     XVI.

     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.
                                     She had follow'd by chance,
     Or by instinct, the sudden half-menacing glance
     Which the Duke, when he witness'd their meeting, had turn'd
     On Lucile and Lord Alfred; and, scared, she discern'd
     On his feature the shade of a gloom so profound
     That she shudder'd instinctively.  Deaf to the sound
     Of her voice, to some startled inquiry of hers
     He replied not, but murmur'd, "Lucile de Nevers
     Once again then? so be it!"  In the mind of that man,
     At that moment, there shaped itself vaguely the plan
     Of a purpose malignant and dark, such alone
     (To his own secret heart but imperfectly shown)
     As could spring from the cloudy, fierce chaos of thought
     By which all his nature to tumult was wrought.

     XIX.

     "So!" he thought, "they meet thus: and reweave the old charm!
     And she hangs on his voice, and she leans on his arm,
     And she heeds me not, seeks me not, recks not of me!
     Oh, what if I show'd her that I, too, can be
     Loved by one—her own rival—more fair and more young?"
     The serpent rose in him; a serpent which, stung,
     Sought to sting.
                      Each unconscious, indeed, of the eye
     Fix'd upon them, Lucile and my lord saunter'd by,
     In converse which seem'd to be earnest.  A smile
     Now and then seem'd to show where their thoughts touch'd.  Meanwhile
     The muse of this story, convinced that they need her,
     To the Duke and Matilda returns, gentle Reader.

     XX.

     The Duke with that sort of aggressive false praise
     Which is meant a resentful remonstrance to raise
     From a listener (as sometimes a judge, just before
     He pulls down the black cap, very gently goes o'er
     The case for the prisoner, and deals tenderly
     With the man he is minded to hang by and by),
     Had referr'd to Lucile, and then stopp'd to detect
     In the face of Matilda the growing effect
     Of the words he had dropp'd.  There's no weapon that slays
     Its victim so surely (if well aim'd) as praise.
     Thus, a pause on their converse had fallen: and now
     Each was silent, preoccupied; thoughtful.
                                                You know
     There are moments when silence, prolong'd and unbroken,
     More expressive may be than all words ever spoken.
     It is when the heart has an instinct of what
     In the heart of another is passing.  And that
     In the heart of Matilda, what was it?  Whence came
     To her cheek on a sudden that tremulous flame?
     What weighed down her head?
                                  All your eye could discover
     Was the fact that Matilda was troubled.  Moreover
     That trouble the Duke's presence seem'd to renew.
     She, however, broke silence, the first of the two.
     The Duke was too prudent to shatter the spell
     Of a silence which suited his purpose so well.
     She was plucking the leaves from a pale blush rose blossom
     Which had fall'n from the nosegay she wore in her bosom.
     "This poor flower," she said, "seems it not out of place
     In this hot, lamplit air, with its fresh, fragile grace?"
     She bent her head low as she spoke.  With a smile
     The Duke watch'd her caressing the leaves all the while,
     And continued on his side the silence.  He knew
     This would force his companion their talk to renew
     At the point that he wish'd; and Matilda divined
     The significant pause with new trouble of mind.
     She lifted one moment her head; but her look
     Encounter'd the ardent regard of the Duke,
     And dropp'd back on her flowret abash'd.  Then, still seeking
     The assurance she fancied she show'd him by speaking,
     She conceived herself safe in adopting again
     The theme she should most have avoided just then.

     XXI.

     "Duke," she said,... and she felt, as she spoke, her cheek burn'd,
     "You know, then, this... lady?"
                                        "Too well!" he return'd.

     MATILDA.

     True; you drew with emotion her portrait just now.

     LUVOIS.

     With emotion?

     MATILDA.

                    Yes, yes! you described her, I know,
     As possess'd of a charm all unrivall'd.

     LUVOIS.

                                             Alas!
     You mistook me completely!  You, madam, surpass
     This lady as moonlight does lamplight; as youth
     Surpasses its best imitations; as truth
     The fairest of falsehood surpasses; as nature
     Surpasses art's masterpiece; ay, as the creature
     Fresh and pure in its native adornment surpasses
     All the charms got by heart at the world's looking-glasses!
     "Yet you said,"—she continued with some trepidation,
     "That you quite comprehended"... a slight hesitation
     Shook the sentence,... "a passion so strong as"...

     LUVOIS.

                                                    "True, true!
     But not in a man that had once look'd at you.
     Nor can I conceive, or excuse, or"...
                                         Hush, hush!"
     She broke in, all more fair for one innocent blush.
     "Between man and woman these things differ so!
     It may be that the world pardons... (how should I know?)
     In you what it visits on us; or 'tis true,
     It may be that we women are better than you."

     LUVOIS.

     Who denies it?  Yet, madam, once more you mistake.
     The world, in its judgment, some difference may make
     'Twixt the man and the woman, so far as respects
     Its social enchantments; but not as affects
     The one sentiment which it were easy to prove,
     Is the sole law we look to the moment we love.

     MATILDA.

     That may be.  Yet I think I should be less severe.
     Although so inexperienced in such things, I fear
     I have learn'd that the heart cannot always repress
     Or account for the feelings which sway it.
                                                "Yes! yes!
     That is too true, indeed!"... the Duke sigh'd.
                                                       And again
     For one moment in silence continued the twain.

     XXII.

     At length the Duke slowly, as though he had needed
     All this time to repress his emotions, proceeded:
     "And yet!... what avails, then, to woman the gift
     Of a beauty like yours, if it cannot uplift
     Her heart from the reach of one doubt, one despair,
     One pang of wrong'd love, to which women less fair
     Are exposed, when they love?"
                                    With a quick change of tone,
     As though by resentment impell'd he went on:—
     "The name that you bear, it is whisper'd, you took
     From love, not convention.  Well, lady,... that look
     So excited, so keen, on the face you must know
     Throughout all its expressions—that rapturous glow,
     Those eloquent features—significant eyes—
     Which that pale woman sees, yet betrays no surprise,"
     (He pointed his hand, as he spoke, to the door,
     Fixing with it Lucile and Lord Alfred)... "before,
     Have you ever once seen what just now you may view
     In that face so familiar?... no, lady, 'tis new.
     Young, lovely, and loving, no doubt, as you are,
     Are you loved?"...

     XXIII.

                      He look'd at her—paused—felt if thus far
     The ground held yet.  The ardor with which he had spoken,
     This close, rapid question, thus suddenly broken,
     Inspired in Matilda a vague sense of fear,
     As though some indefinite danger were near.
     With composure, however, at once she replied:—
     "'Tis three years since the day when I first was a bride,
     And my husband I never had cause to suspect;
     Nor ever have stoop'd, sir, such cause to detect.
     Yet if in his looks or his acts I should see—
     See, or fancy—some moment's oblivion of me,
     I trust that I too should forget it,—for you
     Must have seen that my heart is my husband's."
                                                     The hue
     On her cheek, with the effort wherewith to the Duke
     She had uttered this vague and half-frightened rebuke,
     Was white as the rose in her hand.  The last word
     Seem'd to die on her lip, and could scarcely be heard.
     There was silence again.
                               A great step had been made
     By the Duke in the words he that evening had said.
     There, half drown'd by the music, Matilda, that night,
     Had listen'd—long listen'd—no doubt, in despite
     Of herself, to a voice she should never have heard,
     And her heart by that voice had been troubled and stirr'd.
     And so having suffer'd in silence his eye
     To fathom her own, he resumed, with a sigh:

     XXIV.

     "Will you suffer me, lady, your thoughts to invade
     By disclosing my own?  The position," he said,
     "In which we so strangely seem placed may excuse
     The frankness and force of the words which I use.
     You say that your heart is your husband's: You say
     That you love him.  You think so, of course, lady... nay,
     Such a love, I admit, were a merit, no doubt.
     But, trust me, no true love there can be without
     Its dread penalty—jealousy.
                                  "Well, do not start!
     Until now,—either thanks to a singular art
     Of supreme self-control, you have held them all down
     Unreveal'd in your heart,—or you never have known
     Even one of those fierce irresistible pangs
     Which deep passion engenders; that anguish which hangs
     On the heart like a nightmare, by jealousy bred.
     But if, lady, the love you describe, in the bed
     Of a blissful security thus hath reposed
     Undisturb'd, with mild eyelids on happiness closed,
     Were it not to expose to a peril unjust,
     And most cruel, that happy repose you so trust,
     To meet, to receive, and, indeed, it may be,
     For how long I know not, continue to see
     A woman whose place rivals yours in the life
     And the heart which not only your title of wife,
     But also (forgive me!) your beauty alone,
     Should have made wholly yours?—You, who gave all your own!
     Reflect!—'tis the peace of existence you stake
     On the turn of a die.  And for whose—for his sake?
     While you witness this woman, the false point of view
     From which she must now be regarded by you
     Will exaggerate to you, whatever they be,
     The charms I admit she possesses.  To me
     They are trivial indeed; yet to your eyes, I fear
     And foresee, they will true and intrinsic appear.
     Self-unconscious, and sweetly unable to guess
     How more lovely by far is the grace you possess,
     You will wrong your own beauty.  The graces of art,
     You will take for the natural charm of the heart;
     Studied manners, the brilliant and bold repartee,
     Will too soon in that fatal comparison be
     To your fancy more fair than the sweet timid sense
     Which, in shrinking, betrays its own best eloquence.
     O then, lady, then, you will feel in your heart
     The poisonous pain of a fierce jealous dart!
     While you see her, yourself you no longer will see,—
     You will hear her, and hear not yourself,—you will be
     Unhappy; unhappy, because you will deem
     Your own power less great than her power will seem.
     And I shall not be by your side, day by day,
     In despite of your noble displeasure, to say
     'You are fairer than she, as the star is more fair
     Than the diamond, the brightest that beauty can wear'"

     XXV.

     This appeal, both by looks and by language, increased
     The trouble Matilda felt grow in her breast.
     Still she spoke with what calmness she could—
                                                   "Sir, the while
     I thank you," she said, with a faint scornful smile,
     "For your fervor in painting my fancied distress:
     Allow me the right some surprise to express
     At the zeal you betray in disclosing to me
     The possible depth of my own misery."
     "That zeal would not startle you, madam," he said,
     "Could you read in my heart, as myself I have read,
     The peculiar interest which causes that zeal—"

     Matilda her terror no more could conceal.
     "Duke," she answer'd in accents short, cold and severe,
     As she rose from her seat, "I continue to hear;
     But permit me to say, I no more understand."
     "Forgive!" with a nervous appeal of the hand,
     And a well-feign'd confusion of voice and of look,
     "Forgive, oh, forgive me!" at once cried the Duke
     "I forgot that you know me so slightly.  Your leave
     I entreat (from your anger those words to retrieve)
     For one moment to speak of myself,—for I think
     That you wrong me—"
                           His voice, as in pain, seem'd to sink
     And tears in his eyes, as he lifted them, glisten'd.