I.
Up!--forth again, Pegasus!--"Many's the slip,"
Hath the proverb well said, "'twixt the cup and the lip!"
How blest should we be, have I often conceived, Had we really achieved what we nearly achieved!
We but catch at the skirts of the thing we would be, And fall back on the lap of a false destiny.
So it will be, so has been, since this world began!
And the happiest, noblest, and best part of man Is the part which he never hath fully play'd out:
For the first and last word in life's volume is--
Doubt.
The face of the most fair to our vision allow'd Is the face we encounter and lose in the crowd.
The thought that most thrills our existence is one Which, before we can frame it in language, is gone.
O Horace! the rustic still rests by the river, But the river flows on, and flows past him forever!
Who can sit down, and say . . . "What I will be, I will"?
Who stand up, and affirm . . . "What I was, I am still"?
Who is that must not, if question'd, say . . . . . .
"What I would have remain'd or become, I am not"?
We are ever behind, or beyond, or beside Our intrinsic existence. Forever at hide And seek with our souls. Not in Hades alone Doth Sisyphus roll, ever frustrate, the stone, Do the Danaids ply, ever vainly, the sieve.
Tasks as futile does earth to its denizens give.
Yet there's none so unhappy, but what he hath been Just about to be happy, at some time, I ween;
And none so beguiled and defrauded by chance, But what once in his life, some minute circumstance Would have fully sufficed to secure him the bliss Which, missing it then, he forever must miss.
And to most of us, ere we go down to the grave, Life, relenting, accords the good gift we would have;
But, as though by some strange imperfection in fate, The good gift, when it comes, comes a moment too late.
The Future's great veil our breath fitfully flaps, And behind it broods ever the mighty Perhaps.
Yet! there's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip;
But while o'er the brim of life's beaker I dip, Though the cup may next moment be shatter'd, the wine Spilt, one deep health I'll pledge, and that health shall be thine, O being of beauty and bliss! seen and known In the deeps of my soul, and possess'd there alone!
My days know thee not; and my lips name thee never.
Thy place in my poor life is vacant forever.
We have met: we have parted. No more is recorded In my annals on earth. This alone was afforded To the man whom men know me, or deem me, to be.
But, far down, in the depth of my life's mystery, (Like the siren that under the deep ocean dwells, Whom the wind as it wails, and the wave as it swells, Cannot stir in the calm of her coralline halls, 'Mid the world's adamantine and dim pedestals;
At whose feet sit the sylphs and sea fairies; for whom The almondine glimmers, the soft samphires bloom)--
Thou abidest and reignest forever, O Queen Of that better world which thou swayest unseen!
My one perfect mistress! my all things in all!
Thee by no vulgar name known to men do I call;
For the Seraphs have named thee to me in my sleep, And that name is a secret I sacredly keep.
But, wherever this nature of mine is most fair, And its thoughts are the purest--belov'd, thou art there!
And whatever is noblest in aught that I do, Is done to exalt and to worship thee too.
The world gave thee not to me, no! and the world Cannot take thee away from me now. I have furl'd The wings of my spirit above thy bright head;
At thy feet are my soul's immortalities spread.
Thou mightest have been to me much. Thou art more.
And in silence I worship, in darkness adore.
If life be not that which without us we find--
Chance, accident, merely--but rather the mind, And the soul which, within us, surviveth these things, If our real existence have truly its springs Less in that which we do than in that which we feel, Not in vain do I worship, not hopeless I kneel!
For then, though I name thee not mistress or wife, Thou art mine--and mine only,--O life of my life!
And though many's the slip 'twixt the cup and the lip, Yet while o'er the brim of life's beaker I dip, While there's life on the lip, while there's warmth in the wine, One deep health I'll pledge, and that health shall be thine!
II.
This world, on whose peaceable breast we repose Unconvulsed by alarm, once confused in the throes Of a tumult divine, sea and land, moist and dry, And in fiery fusion commix'd earth and sky.
Time cool'd it, and calm'd it, and taught it to go The round of its orbit in peace, long ago.
The wind changeth and whirleth continually:
All the rivers run down and run into the sea:
The wind whirleth about, and is presently still'd:
All the rivers run down, yet the sea is not fill'd:
The sun goeth forth from his chambers; the sun Ariseth, and lo! he descendeth anon.
All returns to its place. Use and Habit are powers Far stronger than Passion, in this world of ours.
The great laws of life readjust their infraction, And to every emotion appoint a reaction.
III.
Alfred Vargrave had time, after leaving Lucile, To review the rash step he had taken, and feel What the world would have call'd "his erroneous position."
Thought obtruded its claim, and enforced recognition:
Like a creditor who, when the gloss is worn out On the coat which we once wore with pleasure, no doubt, Sends us in his account for the garment we bought.
Ev'ry spendthrift to passion is debtor to thought.
IV.
He felt ill at ease with himself. He could feel Little doubt what the answer would be from Lucile.
Her eyes, when they parted--her voice, when they met, Still enraptured his heart, which they haunted. And yet, Though, exulting, he deem'd himself loved, where he loved, Through his mind a vague self-accusation there moved.
O'er his fancy, when fancy was fairest, would rise The infantine face of Matilda, with eyes So sad, so reproachful, so cruelly kind, That his heart fail'd within him. In vain did he find A thousand just reasons for what he had done;
The vision that troubled him would not be gone.
In vain did he say to himself, and with truth, "Matilda has beauty, and fortune, and youth;
