Jean Ingelow

“ When she comes down to us? O, fool! O, fool!
She must not let her man go forth, to leave
Her desolate, and reap the whole world's scorn,
A harvest for himself.' With that they passed."
He said, "My crystal drop of perfectness,
I pity thee; it was an evil ghost:
Thou wilt not heed the counsel?" "I will not,"
Quoth she; "I am loyal to the Highest. Him
I hold by even as thou, and deem Him best.
Sir, am I fairer than when last we met?"
"God add," said he, "unto thy much yet more,
As I do think thou art." "And think you, sir,"
Niloiya saith, "that I have reached the prime?" ”

“ As new-washed flowers shake off the down-dropt rain,
And make denial of it, yet more blue
And fair of favour afterward, so they.
The wild woodrose was not more fresh of blee
Than her soft dimpled cheek: but I beheld,
Come home, a token hung about her neck,
Sparkling upon her bosom for his sake,
Her love, the Spaniard, she denied it not,
All unaware, good sooth, such love was bale.
And all that day went like another day,
Ay, all the next; then was I glad at heart;
Methought, 'I am glad thou wilt not waste thy youth
Upon an alien man, mine enemy,
Thy nation's enemy. ”

“ Hugh appeared to be cogitating over Emily's proposal; his little grave face was the image of his father's. "You may if Mrs. Nemily says so," answered Gladys. "You always want to do what Mrs. Nemily pleases, don't you?"
"Oh yes," said the sprite, dancing round the room; and off they set into the garden.
"And so do we all," said Barbara.
Gladys was sitting at Emily's feet now, and had a little covered basket in her hand, which rustled as if it contained some living thing.
"Janie and Bertie don't know—none of the little ones know," said
Barbara; "we thought we had better not tell them." ”

“ My sisters, dwell they not
With women that bespake them for their sons?
Now, therefore, let a wife be found for me,
Fair as the day, and gentle to my will
As thou art to my father's." When she heard,
Niloiya sighed, and answered, "It is well."
And Japhet went out from her presence.
Then
Quoth the great Master: "Wherefore sought ye not,
Woman, these many days, nor tired at all,
Till ye had found, a maiden for my son?
In this ye have done ill." Niloiya said:
"Let not my lord be angry. All my soul
Is sad: my lord hath walked afar so long,
That some despise thee ”

“ To thy great father, and our lands lie waste,—
None till them: therefore think the women scorn
To give me,—whatsoever gems I send,
And goodly raiment,— (yea, I seek afar,
And sue with all desire and humbleness
Through every master's house, but no one gives) —
A daughter for my son." With that she ceased.
Then said the Master: "Some thou hast with thee,
Brought up among thy children, dutiful
And fair; thy father gave them for my slaves,—
Children of them whom he brought captive forth
From their own heritage." And she replied,
Right scornfully: "Shall Japhet wed a slave?" ”

“ If she have freedom: if she have it not,
None shall there be to serve."
And she alit,
The time being done, desponding at her door,
And went behind a screen, where should have wrought
The daughters of the captives; but there wrought
One only, and this rose from off the floor,
Where she the river rush full deftly wove,
And made obeisance. Then Niloiya said,
"Where are thy fellows?" And the maid replied,
"Let not Niloiya, this my lady loved,
Be angry; they are fled since yesternight."
Then said Niloiya, "Amarant, my slave,
When have I called thee by thy name before?" ”

“ And beaded drops stood out upon his brow;
"How could I humble me," forlorn he cried,
"To a base beggar? Nay, I will avow
That I did ill. I will reveal the whole;
I kept that knowledge in my secret soul."
"Hear him!" the Phantom muttered; "hear this man,
O changeless God upon the judgment throne."
With that, cold tremors through his pulses ran,
And lamentably he did make his moan;
While, with its arms upraised above his head,
The dim dread visitor approached his bed.
"Into these doors," it said, "which thou hast closed,
Daily this woman shall from henceforth come ”

“ He answered, "Hail! what wilt thou?" Then she said,
"The palace of thy fathers standeth nigh."
"I know it," quoth he; and she said again,
"The Elder, learning thou wouldst pass, hath sent
To fetch thee"; then he rose and followed her.
So first they walked beneath a lofty roof
Of living bough and tendril, woven on high
To let no drop of sunshine through, and hung
With gold and purple fruitage, and the white
Thick cups of scented blossom. Underneath,
Soft grew the sward and delicate, and flocks
Of egrets, ay, and many cranes, stood up. ”

“ A slave." He said, "I thought to do thee good,
For good hath been thy counsel"; but she cried,
"Good master, be you therefore pitiful
To me, a slave." And Japhet wondered much
At her, and at her beauty, for he thought,
"None of the daughters are so fair as this,
Nor stand with such a grace majestical;
She in her locks is like the travelling sun,
Setting, all clad in coifing clouds of gold.
And would she die unmatched?" He said to her,
"What! wilt thou sail alone in yonder ship,
And dwell alone hereafter?" "Ay," she said,
"And serve my mistress." ”

“ Jean Ingelow's life has been a quiet but busy and earnest one. She was born in the quaint old city of Boston, England, in 1830. Her father was a well-to-do banker; her mother a cultivated woman of Scotch descent, from Aberdeenshire. Jean grew to womanhood in the midst of eleven brothers and sisters, without the fate of struggle and poverty, so common among the great.
She writes to a friend concerning her childhood:--
"As a child, I was very happy at times, and generally wondering at something.... ”

“ The child was singing, and the blackbirds piped,
Glad in fair sunshine. And the women both
Were quiet, gazing in each other's eyes.
He found his voice, and spoke: "This is not well,
Though whom you speak of should have done you wrong;
A man that could desert and plan to wed
Will not his purpose yield to God and right,
Only to law. You, whom I pity so much,
If you be come this day to urge a claim,
You will not tell me that your claim will hold;
'Tis only, if I read aright, the old,
Sorrowful, hateful story!" ”

“ I looked, my thought would make its way—
"Fair is your child of face and limb,
The round blue eyes full sweetly shine."
He answered me with glance benign—
"Ay, Sir; but he is none of mine.
Although I set great store by him."
With that, as if his heart was fain
To open—nathless not complain—
He let my quiet questions gain
His story: "Not of kin to me,"
Repeating; "but asleep, awake,
For worse, for better, him I take,
To cherish for my dead wife's sake,
And count him as her legacy.
"I married with the sweetest lass
That ever stepped on meadow grass ”

“ And the neighbors cried "What need?
'Tis a lass in any weed
Aye bonny!"
Now my heart, my heart is sair.
What's the good, though I be fair,
For thou'lt never see me mair,
Man Johnnie!
LIKE A LAVEROCK IN THE LIFT. It's we two, it's we two, it's we two for aye,
All the world and we two, and Heaven be our stay.
Like a laverock in the lift, sing, O bonny bride!
All the world was Adam once, with Eve by his side.
What's the world, my lass, my love!—what can it do?
I am thine, and thou art mine; life is sweet and new. ”

“ Behold, across the snow to thee He comes,
Thy heaven descends, and is it long to wait?
Thou shalt not wait: 'This night, this night,' he saith,
'I stand at the door and knock.'
"It is enough—can such an one be here—
Yea, here? O God forgive you, fishermen!
One! is there only one? But do thou know,
O woman pale for want, if thou art here,
That on thy lot much thought is spent in heaven ”

“ Methought she trembled, as all sick through fears,
Helpless, appalled, appealing to the night;
Like one who throws his arms up to the sky
And bows down suffering, hopeless of reply.
"At length, as if an everlasting Hand
Had taken hold upon her in her place,
And swiftly, like a golden grain of sand,
Through all the deep infinitudes of space
Was drawing her—God's truth as here I stand—
Backward and inward to itself; her face
Fast lessened, lessened, till it looked no more
Than smallest atom on a boundless shore. ”

“ Two or three lilies thrown under a lilac tree by John's father had come back to report themselves, nothing more recent or more startling than that, for he was still thinking of the elder brother. "And he must have hated him to the full as much as my poor father did," was his thought. "That garden had been shut up for his sake many, many years. Wait a minute, if that man got the estate wrongfully, I'll have nothing to do with it after all. Nonsense! Why do I slander the dead in my thoughts? ”

“ With sullen hungry love bemoan thy brood,
For boys have wrung their necks, those imp-like things,
Whose beaks dripped crimson daily at their food.
"Cry, thou black prophetess! cry, and despair,
None love thee, none! Their father was thy foe,
Whose father in his youth did know thy lair,
And steal thy little demons long ago.
"Thou madest many childless for their sake,
And picked out many eyes that loved the light.
Cry, thou black prophetess! sit up, awake,
Forebode; and ban them through the desolate night"
Lo! ”

“ Of name unknown, thy scorn becomes thee not.
Doth not thy Master suffer what thine eyes
Thou countest all too clean to open on?"
But still it hovered, and the quietness
Of holy heaven was on the drooping lids;
And not as one that answereth, it let fall
The music from its mouth, but like to one
That doth not hear, or, hearing, doth not heed.
"A message: 'I have heard thee, while remote
I went My rounds among the unfinished stars.'
A message: 'I have left thee to thy ways,
And mastered all thy vileness, for thy hate
I have made to serve the ends of My great love. ”

“ Thee, weak and crippled, home. My little ones,
Thou shalt importune for their slender mite,
And pray, and move them that they give it up
For love of Me.'"
The curate answered him,
"Art thou content, O great one from afar!
If I may ask, and not offend?" He said,
"I am. Behold! I stand not all alone,
That I should think to do a perfect work.
I may not wish to give; for I have heard
'Tis best for me that I receive. For me,
God is the only giver, and His gift
Is one." ”

“ Red with the costly blood of beauteous man.
I am robbed, I am robbed (He saith) ; they sacrifice
To evil demons of My blameless flocks,
That I did fashion with My hand. Behold,
How goodly was the world! I gave it thee
Fresh from its finishing. What hast thou done?
I will cry out to the waters, Cover it,
And hide it from its Father. Lo, Mine eyes
Turn from it shamed.'"
With that the old man laughed
Full softly. "Ay," quoth he, "a goodly world,
And we have done with it as we did list.
Why did He give it us? Nay, look you, son:
Five score they were that died in yonder waste ”

“ Love's last words atween us twain.
"Hold by our past, my only love, my lover;
Fall not, but rise, O love, by loss of me!"
Boughs from our garden, white with bloom hang over.
Love, now the children slumber, I come out to thee.
SLEDGE BELLS. The logs burn red; she lifts her head,
For sledge-bells tinkle and tinkle, O lightly swung.
"Youth was a pleasant morning, but ah! to think 'tis fled,
Sae lang, lang syne," quo' her mother, "I, too, was young." ”

“ I feed my flock among the myrtles; all
My lambs are twins, and they have laid them down
Along the slopes of Beulah. Come, fair love,
From the other side the river, where their harps
Thou hast been helping them to tune. O come,
And pitch thy tent by mine; let me behold
Thy mouth,—that even in slumber talks of peace,—
Thy well-set locks, and dove-like countenance."
And Gladys hearkened, couched upon the grass,
Till she had rested; then did ask the boy,
For it was afternoon, and she was fain
To reach the shore, "Which is the path, I pray,
That leads one to the water?" ”

“ I hate red hair. The next Dissolution I'll stand for the borough of
Wigfield. Seven children to bring up, and one of them almost as big as
myself—what a fool I am! What can I have been thinking of?"
"What are you laughing at, papa?" said Barbara, who was sitting beside him.
"Not at you, my darling," he replied; "for you are something real."
For the next few weeks neither he nor Valentine saw much of Dorothea: excepting at three or four dinners, they scarcely met at all. After this came the Harrow holidays. Johnny came home, and with him the inevitable Crayshaw. ”

“ And Japhet said to him,
"My father, my belovéd, wilt thou yet
Be sad because of scorning? Eat this day;
For as an angel in their eyes thou art
Who stand before thee." But he answered, "Peace!
Thy words are wide."
And when Niloiya heard,
She said, "Is this a time for mirth of heart
And wine? Behold, I thought to wed my son,
Even this Japhet; but is this a time,
When sad is he to whom is my desire,
And lying under sorrow as from God?"
He answered, "Yea, it is a time of times;
Bring in the maid." Niloiya said, "The maid
That first I spoke on, shall not Japhet wed ”

“ It is, of course, a great disadvantage to any poet not to have been born in the country; learned in Nature the city-born poet can never be, as we see in the case of Milton, who loved Nature without knowing her. It is here that Jean Ingelow has such an advantage over Christina Rossetti. Her love of flowers, and birds, and trees, and all that makes the earth so beautiful, is not one whit stronger than Christina’s own, but it is a love born of an exhaustive detailed knowledge of Nature’s life. ”

“ And his brother spake,
"Where is our father? doth he preach to-day?"
And Japhet answered, "Yea. He said to me,
'Go forward; I will follow when the folk
By yonder mountain-hold I shall have warned.'"
And Shem replied, "How thinkest thou?—thine ears
Have heard him oft." He answered, "I do think
These be the last days of this old fair world."
Then he did tell him of the giant folk:
How they, than he, were taller by the head;
How one must stride that will ascend the steps
That lead to their wide halls; and how they drave,
With manful shouts, the mammoth to the north ”