VI.

Ah no! but no such speculation now
Could smooth the agony on Ranolf's brow.
page 451 And so he may depart,
And bind up as he can his bleeding heart;
And moan his lovely wild-flower reft away,
With unresigning anguish night and day;
And gnash his teeth and tear his hair,
Untaught to bear!
And for a time his faith in joy forswear;
And feel how vain
Is poor Philosophy to stifle pain;
How impotent against the ready sting
Of every trivial and inanimate thing,
That seems to start up eloquent everywhere,
More poignant memories of the Lost to bring—
All leagued with Love to drive him to despair!
Not only the brief words she left to tell
The motive and the purpose of her flight,
Scratched upon shining flax-blades with a shell,
And laid to meet—but not too soon—his sight;—
Ah! how it tore his heart—that simple scrawl—
Pothooks and hangers painfully produced—
Disjointed—childlike! yet a wonder all,
In one to symbolled language so unused,
And with such marvellous aptitude acquired;
The tenfold talent by the heart inspired;
Docility no school but one e'er knew—
Whose teacher Love, has Love for learner too!
Not these alone—but every object round
Had silent power and pungency to wound:
The withered wreaths of flowers hung up with care
Which for his pleasure she so loved to wear;
The span-board mirror on the reeded wall
That oft had imaged such a happy smile,
And so much beauty, on its surface small;
page 452 The broidry-staves her tedium to beguile—
Rude with still-dangling vary-coloured strands;—
Half-charred mid ashes white, the very brands
Left lying where her loving busy hands
Had laid them on that latest fire extinct—
Ah, with what torturing memories were they linked!
Ah, those dumb things—how deeply did he feel
The maddening pathos of their mute appeal!

Yes! let him wrestle with distress;
And feel how grief grown languid, though not less,
In the exhaustion of mere weariness,
Renews itself from its excess;—
Learn how the heart bereft of one beloved,
Will, self-upbraiding self-reproved,
In bitterest grief feel bitter grief,
Because its grief seems all too slight and brief;
Because it cannot grieve enough—nor feed
The ravenous appetite for woe the sense
Of its immeasurable loss will breed—
Thirsting for grief more crushing—more intense;
Recoiling from the hateful thought, that e'er
The time should come when it may bear
To think upon such loss, and not despair!