The Idylls Of Deare Childe. III. The Quest Of Love. A Parish Idyll

'The love of things created endureth not; the love of Jesus is faithful.'
Thomas À Kempis.

HIS was a tale of twenty years ago:
Never forgotten, told and told again
To his indignant heart, in every pause
Between the changes of a restless life
Self-exiled to the East; a memory
Of man's ill-will and woman's broken faith
Like a perpetual discord, never mute,
But marring all the music in the world,
A ghostly dismal shriek, for ever heard
Amid its kindliest laughter.
                                  Time had been
When the pure waters of his heart, which now
Were bitter as the sea of death, had flowed
Fresh as a river of Eden, overshone
By every gracious light, and breathed upon
By all the winds of hope.
                                An only son
Left motherless so young, he scarcely knew,
As days spend on, whether the gentle face
He summoned up so often was the work
Of memory or fancy — till his years
Had reached a double decade Leonard lived
With stern Sir Hugh, his father, in the house,
Half house, half ruin, on a wooded hill
Behind the Squire's great hall.  Its ancient name
Clung to it, and although the spacious lands,
Its heritage for twice three hundred years,
All save a few poor fields had passed away,
Now for a generation, to the hands
Of that new lord the Squire, the country folk
Still named 'The Castle' with a tender pride,
And gave a readier reverence to Sir Hugh
Despite his broken fortunes than to him
Who built the new great palace in the park;
'Although,' said they, 'he is a kindly man,
And you'll not find in all the country round
A better master; but the good old blood
Flows where it flowed and is not bought with gold;
And we had liefer serve the ancient race
Our fathers loved and served a thousand years.'
  Fain would the Squire have joined good heart and hand
With Leonard's father, had he willed, but he,
Wrathfully brooding on the wrongs of fate —
So did he phrase his own sire's thriftlessness —
Swore never to set foot within the hall
Of this usurper of his heritage,
And met the other's readiest courtesies
With nothing save a gesture or a word
Of coldest salutation.
                          But his son,
Just as the breezy morning of his youth
Was merging into noon, and in his heart
The first soft breathing of a warmer wind
Prefaced the way for love, and heralded
With inarticulate sweet whisperings
Some near mysterious advent, by a chance —
By both kept secret in a mutual fear —
Met the one daughter of the Squire. No need
To say how this befel, and how his hand
Saved her from peril: how they met again,
And yet again a hundred times, till Love
Revealed himself, and solved the mystery,
The sweet vague expectation of the noon,
And in the power of his apocalypse
Swallowed up life and changed the world to him:
All things were made for Love, so truly Love's
That Love was all, the world had nothing else
But Love.
            And so one summer day (alas!
How black is tempest on a summer day),
Subduing all mistrust, with happy tears
Of blissful triumph in his earnest eyes,
He told Sir Hugh his secret.  His were met
With eyes to which the bitter brooding fiend,
That in his heart like levin in the cloud
Had lain so long, sprang with a fire of wrath
Deadlier to hope that e'en the furious words
Which followed like quick thunder.
                                            'Boy,' he cried,
'But dare to see this upstart once again
And I will curse you every wretched hour
Until I die.'
            Through all the bygone years,
Leonard remembered how Sir Hugh, so stern
And sad to others, had been good to him
And gracious, watching him with silent pride
As if he verily loved him.  And so then,
When horror and amazement spared him words,
He prayed his father, by the memory
Of what he deemed had been his love for him,
To give him were it but one word of hope
And pity; or, indeed, if he had sinned,
Of pardon; then, unheeded, passionately
Sinking upon his knees, he cried, 'Oh, sir,
By my dead mother!' But the fierce old man,
Stung to yet fiercer wrath, ere he could end
His prayer, broke in, thrust back his clinging hands,
And spurned him, vowing by the eternal God
Of dead and living that it should not be,
Were it to save his own life or bring back
That mother from the dead!
                                        Then Leonard rose
Without another word, and, with a heart
In which new anguish battled with old love
And tore his father's image from its shrine
And trampled on it, down the park he raged,
And burst upon the astonished Squire, and cried
'Oh, sir, I have no father and no home!
Give me your daughter, and be this my home,
And you my father!'
                          But the kindly man,
When Leonard gathered breath and told him all,
Grew wroth in turn, and sware no child of his
Should wed with one whose father came not there
To sue for her right humbly.
                                    Late that night
Sir Hugh's old servant, sent to seek for him,
Found him beneath a cypress in the dell
Stretched out, and still as death, and thought him dead,
But his great cry of fear awoke the lad,
On whom, worn out with passion, God had sent
Only day's death of sleep.
                                    A month at home
He watched his father's altered countenance,
Who only spoke to ask him, 'Have you yet
Forgot your folly?' and was answered 'No.'
  Then thought Sir Hugh, 'Here will he pine, for here
There is no stir nor change to break the spell:
He shall go hence, to find in busier scenes
Some better food for fancy.'  Thereupon
He sent him wandering over half the world
Two years — but ere the second year was dead
Came Death to him, and on that stern sad heart
Suddenly laid his hand.  And Leonard came,
Summoned in haste a thousand leagues away;
Two passions, diverse fruits of love, at war
Within his breast,— true grief for him whom death
Absolved from that past bitterness, and hope,
Bright Hope, that waved back sorrow at the bier,
And said, 'Give place, the barrier falls, and Love —
Love that was let so long — is come again
At last to have his will and claim his own.'
Alas! how false was hope! He came to find
That there was deeper anguish in the world
Than he had known; a bitterer draught of pain
Set for his lips; a cruel hand to smite
Deeper into his life than that dead man's.
  It is soon said.  Her whom his hand had saved,
Her for whose sake he would have given his soul
Surrendering heaven as he surrendered home,
Her whom his arms had held the while in tears
Her low voice sware beneath the linden tree,
Between his kisses that fair summer eve,
That she was his for ever — her he found
A wife, another's, aye, a willing wife! —
No forced possession but a willing wife,
Who, when, refusing to believe, he came
Before her, lifting up her languid eyes
Smiled slowly on him, 'hoped they might be friends
Despite that youthful folly which no doubt
He almost had forgotten!'
                                    Not one word
He gave her, only from a ghastly face
One look — but one — and yet her smile fell dead,
And she grew white with fear.
                                          Back to the shore
From which so late the wings of love and hope
Had borne him, he returned — despair and hate,
His sole familiar friends — an infidel
Of love and so of heaven.  So sped his life,
Most desolate and forlorn, a living death,
For eighteen years; and then he wandered back
Slowly, like one obedient to a power
He wots not of, back to the home where once
He had believed in love, and, as he deemed,
In heaven.
            Awhile he kept himself apart
Within the ancient castle, now still more
A ruin, like his life; but afterwards
He wandered to and fro among the scenes.
Of those first innocent years.
                                That year was young;
Not many weeks had her Evangelist
Of resurrection, Spring, whose angel feet
Are beautiful in Winter's wilderness,
Been whispering glad tidings of new life
To wood and field and hedgerow,— yet they wore
The robes of their redemption from the doom
And death of winter.  'Singing robes' were they,
Clothing the grandest bard, the poet of God,
Nature, who sang the song of her deep heart,
The song of never-dying life and love,
In every branch and flower.
                                    Was this the spell
That drew him forth one noon a longer way?
Howbeit, that noon his lonely, listless feet
Beyond the wonted limit wandered on,
Until he reached the old grey churchyard wall,
And leaned upon the little gate and mused.
''Tis here,' he said, 'in yonder church she sleeps,
My mother; on her tomb her own last words
Said, so they tell, o'er my unconscious head
In dying benediction, "God is love."
And here I stand, her son, so near her tomb,
To doubt of God as I do doubt of love.
And yet, none doubted of her love, they say,
And me, too young for doubt or for belief,
Better than life she loved.  I have disproved
All else but that.  God! if there be a God,
Reveal Thyself!  O Love, if Thou art Love,
Send me some sign, some messenger! this doubt,
Most hateful as it is the fruit of hate,
Is hell.'
        So passionately in thought he cried
Then on a sudden marvelling at himself,
He mocked his aspiration with a laugh
Of helpless, hopeless, melancholy scorn
At his own soul in prayer.
                                  And then again,
His bitter musings, in their wonted tide,
One after one rolled in upon his mind,
Like salt waves plunging on a frozen shore,
With not one raindrop of a softer sorrow
To mingle with the brine, nor yet a sigh
Of that low wind whose breathing is as sweet
With tender memories and with trustful hopes
As it is sad with loss: no wind like this,
Only the wrathful east, that never thaws
The frozen depth of tears.
                                  And all the while,
Leaning upon the gate and motionless,
He did not mark a little maiden's form
Behind him, still, and waiting patiently —
With wistful eyes as sunny sweet as morn,
And coloured like the violets in her hand,—
A little maiden hardly seven years old,
But with a face so pure and fair, you thought
That her own angel which in heaven beheld
The Father's face could scarcely be more fair.
  At last he heard her plaintive 'Oh sir, please—'
And turning listlessly as one in sleep
Upon whose ears an unfamiliar voice
Falls, and he does not heed, yet opens wide
His slumber-laden eyes, and gazes round
On him who speaks, but does not say one word
Nor truly seem to see: so now he turned
An unregarding look upon the child,
Whose wide-eyed wonder would have grown to fear
At this great barrier which still kept the way
Despite her pleading, and gazed down on her
So strangely — save that fear of any man
In all her bright young life had never come
To fling on her one shadow of mistrust.
And so she did not doubt or shrink, although
She very greatly wondered.  Then, again,
She said, beseeching, 'Please, sir, may I pass?'
Whereat he rose, and, like a man whose dream
Suddenly melts away, he saw the child
How fair she was — and thinking in his heart
'Is this my messenger?' put out his arm
And stayed her as she passed him, saying, 'Child,
Tell me whence came you with your flowers?' And she,
Lifting her sunny eyes, replied, 'From home.'
Then added, when she saw he waited still,
'Where father lives, the shepherd; every one
Knows father.'
                    'And the violents, little maid?'
'For him,' she said, and pointed past the church
To where the rectory lay amid the trees.
  'Why do you take them?' said he.
                                                  'Sir, because
He loves me and he loves the flowers.'
                                                    He asked,
'And you, you love him?'
                                  'I; Oh yes,' she cried,
'Of course I love him — father loves him too,
And mother.'
                'Why?' he said; and she, 'Oh sir,
Because he loves us, and he talks to us
Of things we love.'
                      'What things, my maid?'  'Oh sir,
Numbers of happy things.'
                                  'But tell me them,
These happy things.'
                        'They are so many, sir;
For some of them he tells to us at home,
And some at school, and some —'
                                              And here her voice
Grew lower, not less happy, though more grave —
'And some, sir, there,' — turning her look away,
Where, old indeed but beautiful in age,—
In earthly place, yet pointing heavenward,—
Lay in the clear noonlight the village Fane.
A lowly shrine, yet no mean type of Her,
The great Church-Mother, blessing the whole world,
While looking for that Other and her Lord.
  'And what,' he asked her, 'does he tell you there
You love to hear?' 
                        'He tells us most of all,
For that is best of all — we love it best —
Of Jesus.'
              Here she bowed her little head,
And the great Name went whispered through her lips
Spoken as if she stood on holy ground,
And in a sacred Presence: yet as if
Holy was happy, Sacred sweet to her.
  He stood a moment silent; then he said,
'Child, tell me why that is the best of all
Those happy things you hear? what has He done
That you should think it best?'
                                      'Oh sir, you know
He loved us, and He died upon the Cross,
Because He loved us so.'
                                  'What made you sure
This tale is true?'
                      'Oh sir, it must be true.
The Bible says it; and how else could we
Love Him so dearly?'
                          'And can I, too, learn
Such Love as this?' he said.
                                  Up in his face
She looked with timid eyes he could not meet,
And said, 'He loved you and He died for you.
Oh, don't you love Him!
                                                  'Teach me, little child,
To love Him.'
                  While he spoke his eyes were dim,
So dim he could not see her as she stood
And took his hand to draw him and replied,
'Oh sir, I am so little: only come
Over the churchyard there and speak to him,
And he will teach you.'
                              But he started back,
Like one who breaks a spell; and as ashamed
Of weakness which had caught him unawares,
He dropped her hand, and muttering scornfully,
'No priests for me,' he turned as if to go,
Saying, 'I will not.'
                        But she said again,
Most wistfully, 'Oh come, sir, please to come!'
And so he turned, and met the pleading eyes.
Ah, blessed Spirit of love! the pitiful God —
Who would not lose his soul, so sad and blind,
So longing and forlorn — was in her face,
And moved a will which had been stubborn still,
Though all the banded strength of all the world
Had wrestled with it.  For that golden age,
Whose grace far off the Son of Amoz saw
And sang, flings even now from time to time,
Aye, day by day, some sign upon the world
That it is surely coming: and the wolf,
The leopard, and the lion in the wilds,
Forego their nature, quit their kind,— and lo!
A little child doth lead them.  Even so
She won him from the waste wherein so long
His heart had wandered in its hate and scorn:
Won him with simple words and tender trust,
And littleness of guile,— so weak, so strong:
So strong in weakness; he so weak in strength;
She knew so little, he so much, of life;
Truly she knew so little; but she knew
Of Love, and Love is all; and with the cords
Of Love she drew him.
                              'Come, sir! please to come!'
He stooped, and took her in his arms, and said,
'This is my messenger, and I will go.'
Then said no more, but as a man who knows
His purpose may not hold, pressed quickly on.
And she, Deare Childe, well pleased that he should go,
And pleased to find herself perched up so high
Upon his shoulder, prattled as they went,
Nor knew she was an angel sent from God,—
An angel sent to win a soul from death,
And baffle the proud fiend that rules the world,—
Prattled about the violets, and said,
She had been up that day at early dawn,
And gone with 'Morning Robert' to the dell
That hides itself behind the little lake,
And there had found the flowers;
                                            'And, sir,' she said,—
'If once you come within the dell, you know
The flowers are there, although you never look
To find them, for they fill the air with scent;
They grow so thick and smell so sweet.'
                                                      But now,
Ere he had said another word, they stood
Before the garden gate; and from the porch,
Beneath whose honeysuckle eaves I sat,
I saw them.  From my book I rose, and came
To meet them, wondering where my little maid
Had found this strange companion on her way
To bring her wonted offering of the flowers:
Herself the rarest and least earthly flower
Of that dear garden of the Church of God,—
The desert world's oasis — where my Lord
To work for Him awhile, to train and tend,
Hath set me.
                Seeing me he lifted down
His burden: but he would not let her go,
But kept her by the hand, as one who holds
By some last hope, not surely, yet full well
Knowing it is the last.  Then, as I came,
Said, 'Wherefore I am come, sir, scarce I know;
Perchance for nothing; yet, if there be Love,
For more than I have found in all the world:
Yet whether this or that, for nought or all,
I surely had not troubled you, except
This little child had led me.'
                                    While he spake
I saw his face was noble; somewhat hard,
Yet not as if it had been always hard:
A high, broad forehead over hazel eyes
Clear, keen, and cold; the mouth was beautiful,
Save for a touch of scorn or hopelessness
As sad as death: yet, as with his last words,
He glanced a moment at the child, there came
Over the eyes and mouth a sudden gleam
That seemed to show his mother in the man,
Which faded as he drew his glance away
And fronted mine, and left him, as at first,
Half scornfully, half diffidently, cold,
And listlessly expectant.
                                  But the child,
Ere I could answer, ran to me and said —
Whispering as I bent to take the flowers,—
'He wants to hear of Him Who loved us so
And died for us.'
                      I kissed her, with a prayer,
Deep in my startled soul, for such a power
As hers of love to speak on such a theme.
And then she turned to him and raised her face —
Sweet, purely child-like, peaceful, confident,
And yet so meekly wistful — up to him,
And waited till he kissed her — then she went.
  I said, 'She is so little and so young,
And only just so learned that she can read;
And I have faced the world for fifty years,
And studied in the books and hearts of men,
And fought the battle of life with foes without
And dreader foes within: yet, well I know
She is more learn'd than I; and her white soul
Reflects the truth and light and love of God
For better teaching to your need; and I —
I falter now that you should come from her
To me.  Can I not see that even now
Your eyes are colder and your face more hard
Since she is here no longer?  I avow
That were it not my pledge to Him Who gave
This office holds me, and my trust is large
That He will speak by one whom He hath sent
And will not fail me, I would say, Go back;
Sit at her feet, and from her baby lips
Shall the great Lord of wisdom and of love
Perfect His praise.
                        Yet doubt not of my faith:
For, oh, my friend, I do believe in Love,
And Him Who is the whole Love to me:
And I whose life, despite this peaceful eve,
Has been no summer day, but wild and dark,—
After the blithest morn and brightest noon,—
Am not less sure of such grace for you;
That you, who found no love in all the world,
May find in Him what shall suffice for all
Past lost and future need; aye, more, and give
A beauty, such as only comes from Heaven,
To all things earthly; not a mere content
And patience, but a beauty and a joy,
Making you glad to live.'
                                Deep was the night
Before we parted; and he went his way
Under a still dark sky that watched for morn,
And through the woods wherein the new spring life
Seemed yearning in the silence as in prayer.
  He left me with few words, yet these, the best,
That he would come again.
                                    Again he came,
And often; and at first, almost like one
Unmoved, he listened, for he gave no sign;
Yet had I hope, because he seemed to hear
And sought to stay.  Then, after many days,
There came a change, as if the spirit of ill
Suddenly rose within him in great wrath,
Knowing his time was short.  He set his soul
Fiercely in battle array, and hurled his darts,
Tipped with fine scorn, at every point, and watched
With eager, desperate eyes, as if the hour
Now were supreme for some full end.  Anon
The fiend departed, leaving him half dead.
Not doubt now held him, but despair; and Love
Seemed but too real, too high a heavenly flower
For him to reach and gather, and to wear
On such a heart alien so long.  I said,
'The love of Christ is depth as well as height;
It leaneth down so low to raise so high.
None lie so low, save those who will not heed,
But in the darkness they may find His hand,
And hear the calm, profound, pathetic Voice,
"Come unto Me.  Deep was Gethsemane,
And Calvary dark,— I did not love thee?  Come."'
  But he would lay his head upon his hand,
With only this: 'Too late! it is too late.'

  So the days sped.  Spring passed, and in her place
Stood the imperial summer thrice as fair;
Yet was there, ere she came, one awful hour,
Brief but tremulous; such a storm it seemed,
As if the wintry spirits that yet lurked
In nature gathered in their parting hour
To tear the world.
                        That night he stood and watched
At the wide window of his ancient house
The writhing woods and rushing broken heaven.
  Then, as the darkness and the conflict grew
Deeper and wilder, on his soul there fell
A light and calm.
                      At first he did not dare
To trust it; but it grew — the light more clear,
The calm more deep: no sudden ecstacy
Or rapture was it, but a still repose,
The strength of quietness and confidence
Stronger than passion.
                            Louder roared the storm,
And thicker fell the darkness.  Then he knelt,
And with full eyes, that saw not the near storm,
But far away the perfect peace, he prayed,
'So late, so late, yet bless me!  I believe,
Lord Jesus, I believe in Love and Thee!'

And so — while thus in legion from the woods
The winds, like evil angels mad with loss,
Rushed with ten thousand shrieks and beat themselves,
As in a vain despair, against the walls —
Past that black night, up to the awful Throne,
Through all the pealing praise of myriad worlds,
Sped that low prayer; and round about the throne
And through all infinite spaces of the heavens,
The holy angels heard it and looked down;
And lo! the rapture of their endless song
Caught a new note — joy for another soul
Won to the blest obedience of Love,
The kingdom and the glory of the Lamb.
    .      .      .      .      .      .
But ah, my little maid, my little maid!
I end, who tell this tale, with other tears
Than those of joy — the joy before my God
Of those who bring the golden harvest home —
With other tears for thee.  That night came down
A messenger to warn us that the King
Had need of her whom He had given awhile,
And ere a week He called her.
                                        Do I sin
In sorrow for her gain? Pardon me this,
Lord, if I sin.  I know it is her gain.
Her single hour of labour light was done,
And now — like one at even after school
Beside a Father's feet — she sits at Home,
Deare Childe, beholding Him, Whom, seeing not,
She loved so well, believing.  'Tis her gain.
But ah, my desolate garden!  there are flowers,
Yet many, that I love; but none like thee,
Not one, my little maid, my little maid.