Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MILLAIS'S 'HUGUENOTS', by ANONYMOUS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MILLAIS'S 'HUGUENOTS', by                    
First Line: Your fav'rite picture rises up before me
Last Line: Is hushed in deepest calm
Subject(s): "love - Loss Of;mendelssohn-bartholdy, Felix (1809-1847);millais, Sir John E. (1829-1896);


TO H., PLAYING ONE OF MENDELSSOHN'S "SONGS WITHOUT WORDS."

YOUR fav'rite picture rises up before me,
Whene'er you play that tune;
I see two figures standing in a garden,
In the still August noon.

One is a girl's, with pleading face turned upwards,
Wild with great alarm;
Trembling with haste she binds her broidered kerchief
About the other's arm,

Whose gaze is bent on her in tender pity,
Whose eyes look into hers
With a deep meaning, though she cannot read it,
Hers are so dim with tears.

What are they saying in the sunny garden,
With summer flowers ablow?
What gives the woman's voice its passionate pleading?
What makes the man's so low?

"See, love!" she murmurs; "you shall wear my kerchief,
It is the badge, I know;
And it will bear you safely through the conflict,
If—if, indeed, you go!

"You will not wear it? Will not wear my kerchief?
Nay! Do not tell me why,
I will not listen! If you go without it,
You will go hence to die.

"Hush! Do not answer! It is death, I tell you!
Indeed, I speak the truth.
You, standing there, so warm with life and vigor,
So bright with health and youth;

"You would go hence, out of the glowing sunshine,
Out of the garden's bloom,
Out of the living, thinking, feeling present,
Into the unknown gloom!"

Then he makes answer, "Hush! O, hush, my darling!
Life is so sweet to me,
So full of hope, you need not bid me guard it,
If such a thing might be!

"If such a thing might be!—but not through falsehood,
I could not come to you;
I dare not stand here in your pure, sweet presence,
Knowing myself untrue."

"It is no sin!" the wild voice interrupts him,
"This is no open strife.
Have you not often dreamt a nobler warfare,
In which to spend your life?

"Oh! for my sake—though but for my sake, wear it!
Think what my life would be
If you, who gave it first true worth and meaning,
Were taken now from me.

"Think of the long, long days, so slowly passing!
Think of the endless years!
I am so young! Must I live out my lifetime
With neither hopes nor fears?"

He speaks again, in mournful tones and tender,
But with unswerving faith:
"Should not love make us braver, ay, and stronger,
Either for life or death?

"And life is hardest! O my love! my treasure!
If I could bear your part
Of this great sorrow, I would go to meet it
With an unshrinking heart.

"Child! child! I little dreamt in that bright summer,
When first your love I sought,
Of all the future store of woe and anguish
Which I, unknowing, wrought.

"But you 'll forgive me? Yes, you will forgive me,
I know, when I am dead!
I would have loved you,—but words have scant meaning;
God loved you more instead!"

Then there is silence in the sunny garden,
Until, with faltering tone,
She sobs, the while still clinging closer to him,
"Forgive me—go—my own!"

So human love, and death by faith unshaken,
Mingle their glorious psalm,
Albeit low, until the passionate pleading
Is hushed in deepest calm.





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