Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, UNSPOKEN DIALOGUE, by RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

UNSPOKEN DIALOGUE, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Above the trailing mignonette
Last Line: The man she loved no more.
Alternate Author Name(s): Houghton, 1st Baron; Houghton, Lord
Subject(s): Love - Loss Of


ABOVE the trailing mignonette
That dressed the window-sill,
A Lady watched, with lips firm-set,
And looks of earnest will:
Four decades o'er her life had met,
And left her lovely still.

Not to the radiant firmament,
Not to the garden's grace,
The courses of her mind were bent, --
But where, with sweetest face,
Forth from the other window leant,
The Daughter of the place.

Thus ran her thoughts: "O, wretched day!
When She was born so fair;
Well could I let my charms decay,
If she were not their heir:
I loathe the sunbeams as they play
About her golden hair.

"Yet why? She is too good -- too mild --
So madly to aspire --
He is no Boy to be beguiled
By sparks of coloured fire;
I will not dream a pretty child
Can mar my deep desire.

"Her fatherless and lonely days
Are sere before their time;
In scenes of gaiety and praise
She will regain her prime,
And cease to haunt these wooded ways,
With sentimental rhyme."

On to the conscious maiden past
Those words without the tongue;
Half-petulantly back she cast
The glistening curls that hung
About her neck, and answered fast,
"Yes, I am young -- too young.

"Yet am I graver than my wont,
Graver when He is here;
Beneath the glory of his front
I tremble -- not with fear,
But, as I read, Bethesda's font
Felt with the Angel near.

"Must I mate only with my kind,
With something as unwise
As my poor self, and never find
Affection I can prize
At once with an adoring mind,
And with admiring eyes?

"My mother trusts to drag me down
To some low range of life,
By pleasures of the clamo'rous town,
And vanity's mean strife;
And in such selfish tumult drown
My hope to be his wife."

Then darker round the Lady grew
The meditative cloud, --
And stormy thoughts began to brew
She dared not speak aloud,
For then, without disguise, she knew
That rivalry avowed.

"What is my being, if I lose
My love's last stake? while She
Has the fair future where to choose
Her woman's destiny,
Free scope those means and powers to use
Which Time denies to me.

"Was it for this her baby arms
About my neck were flung?
Was it for this I found such charms
In her uncertain tongue?
Was it for this those vain alarms
My mother-soul unstrung?

"O horrible! to wish my child --
My sole one left -- unborn,
And, seeing her so meek and mild,
To hold such gifts in scorn:
My nature is grown waste and wild,
My heart with fury torn."

Speechless -- enchanted to the spot --
The girl could scarce divine
The whole disaster of her lot;
But, without sound or sign,
She cried, "O, mother! Love him not-
O, let his love be mine!

"You have had years of full delight --
Your girlhood's passion-dream
Was realized to touch and sight,
As bright as it could seem;
And now you interpose, like night,
Before my life's first gleam.

"Yet You were once what I am now,
You won your maiden prize --
You told me of my Father -- how
You lived but in his eyes:
You spoke of the perpetual vow,
The troth that never dies.

"Dear mother! dearer, kinder, far,
If by my childhood's bed
Your care had never strove to bar
Misfortune from my head,
But laid me where my brothers are,
Among the quiet dead.

"Ah! why not die? This cruel strife
Can thus -- thus only -- cease.
Dear Lord! take home this erring life,
This struggling soul release;
From Heaven, perchance, upon his wife,
I might look down in peace."

That prayer, like some electric flame,
Struck with resistless force
The Lady's agitated frame;
Nor halted in its course
Till her hard pride was turned to shame,
Her passion to remorse.

She spoke -- her words were very low --
But resolute in tone;
"Dear child! -- He comes -- nay, blush not so
To have your secret known,
'Tis best -- 'tis best that I should go --
And leave you here alone."

Then, as his steps grew near and fast,
Her hand was on the door,
Her heart, by holy grace, had cast
The demon from its core, --
And on the threshold calm she past
The Man she loved no more.





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