My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale

My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale

In some there lies a sorrow too profound To find a voice or to reveal itself Throughout the strain of daily toil, or thought, Or during converse born of souls allied, As aught men understand. And though mayhap Their cheeks will thin or droop; and wane their eyes Frank lustre; hair may lose its hue, or fall; And health may slacken low in force; and they Are older than the warrant of their years; Yet they to others seem to gild their lives With cheerfulness, and every duty tend, As if their aspects told the truth within. But they are not as others: not for them The bounding pulse, and ardour of desire, p. 16The rapture and the wonder in things new; The hope that palpitating enters where Perfection smiles on universal life; Nor do they with elastic enterprise Forecast delight in compassing results; Nor, having won their ends, fall godlike back And taste the calm completion of content. But in a sober chilled grey atmosphere Work out their lives; more various though they are Than creatures in the unknown ocean depths, Yet each in whom this vital grief has root Is dull to what makes everything of worth. And though, may be, a shallow bodily joy Oft tingles through them at the breathing spring, Or first-heard exultation of the lark; Still that deep weight draws ever steadily Their thoughts and passions back to secret woe. Though, if endowed with light, heroic deeds May be achieved; and if benignly bent They may be treasured blessings through their lives; p. 17Yet power and goodness are to them as dreams, And they heed vaguely, if their waking sight Be met with slanting storm against the pane, Or sunshine glittering on the leaves that play In purest blue of breezy summer morns. Whence springs this well of mournfulness profound, Unfathomable to plummet cast by man? Alas; for who can tell! Whence comes the wind Heaving the ocean into maddened arms That clutch and dash huge vessels on the rocks, And scatter them, as if compacted slight As little eggs boys star against a tree In wanton mischief? Whence, detestable, To man, who suffers from the monster-jaws, The power that in the logging crocodiles Outrageous bulk puts evil fire of life? That spouts from mountain-pyramids a flood Of lava, overwhelming works and men p. 18In burning, fetid ruin?The power that stings A city with a pestilence: or turns The pretty babe, who in his mothers lap Babbles her back the lavished kiss and laugh, Through lusts and vassalage to obdurate sin, Into a knife-armed midnight murderer? Our lives are mysteries, and rarely scanned As we read stories writ by mortal pen. We can perchance but catch a straying weft And trace the hinted texture here or there, Of that stupendous loom weaving our fates. Two parents, late in life, are haply blessed With one bright child, a wonder in his years, For loveliness and genius versatile: Some common ill destroys him; parents, both, Until their death, are left but living tombs That hold the one dead image of their joy. A man, the flower of honour, who has found His well-beloved young daughter fled from home, Fallen from her maidenhood, a nameless thing p. 19Tainting his blood. A youth who throws the strength Of his whole being into love for one Answering him honeyed smiles, and leaves his land For some far country, seeking wealth he hopes Will grace her daintily with choice delights, And on returning sees the honeyed smiles Are sweetening other lips. A husband who Has found that household curse, a faithless wife. A thinker whose far-piercing care perceives His nation goes the road that ends in shame. A gracious woman whose reserve denies The power to utter what consumes her heart. Such instances (and some a loss to know, Which steadfast reticence will shield from those, Debased or garrulous, whose hearts corrupt, But learn the gloomy secrets of their kind To poison-tip their wit, or grope and grin With pharisaic laughter at disgrace) Such instances as these demand no guide p. 20To thrid the dismal issues from their source! But others are there, lying fast concealed, Dark, hopeless, and unutterably sad, Which have not been, and never may be known. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 17574
Author: Woolner, Thomas
Release Date: Jan 22, 2006
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Editor: Morley, Henry, 1822-1894