PART II.

Women are deemed cold, careless, proud,

Who suffer bravely in a crowd;

Smiles flash from hearts in sorrow set,

As gleams from jewels edged with jet.

Some months had passed — it was not long —

When Daisy stood amid a throng,

Turning her white cheek from the light,

Clasping her small hands fiercely tight!

For she had heard two brave men say,—

A stranger one — one Allen Gray,—

No braver hero ever died

Than he whose love she lost through pride.

Unselfish, earnest, daring, brave,

All but himself he tried to save;

Heedless of death and danger — why?

One heart alone could make reply.

One spirit that had vainly sought

Rest from a hungry surge of thought;

Fierce retribution!— thus to be

Tortured by praise of Graham Lee!

Hero! but not for her to claim —

There was the anguish, there the shame:

How little yielding‘ twould have cost

To call him still her own, though lost.

But she had cast away the right,

And, mutely wretched, heard that night,

With stormy heart and tearless cheek,

His praise whose name she dared not speak.

Few knew that they were lovers — none

That their two hearts had pulsed as one;

So the world called her cold and changed;

Friends thought her haughty and estranged.

The current of her life's May-time

Ran chill beneath a crust of rime;

And lovers wore, for Daisy's sake,

The icy chains they could not break.

A yearning sadness in her face

But added to that nameless grace,

That spell by which some women reign

In hearts they never strove to gain.

Love fell on her superb repose

Like warm light on a sculptured rose,

As if — beguiled — to flush apart

The chiselled whiteness of its heart.

The voice of passion to her soul

Swept, as the storm-voiced surges roll

Up toward a star-like beacon steep,

Dashed backward rayless to the deep.

As fire-fly lighting up a maze

Of cobwebs with its dying blaze;

Held by a grim black spider fast —

Flashing with glory to the last.

Thus tangled in a cruel fate,

Dared through her folly, feared too late,

The light of Daisy's lost love made

The past fall back in deepest shade.

Strong natures suffer more than those

Who, bowing down, parade their woes

For a brief season, and then rise:

The brave heart uncomplaining dies.

So after years that inner gloom

Had only softened Daisy's bloom,

Giving such meaning to her eyes

As worldlings cannot analyze.

And when her pink cheek turned too soon

Pale as magnolia buds in June,

No one could call its fairness blight,

Or wish a flush upon the white.

When just one shade of roundness passed

From her proud form, they said at last

That she must travel. Well she knew

Love and regret would travel too!

‘ Twas not one shore alone, whose surge

Came wailing to her like a dirge;

The surf, the waves of every sea,

Everywhere, moaned of Graham Lee.

And when in a far distant land,

Upon a sunny southern strand,

Where warm waves, green as malachite,

Come leaping, as from vats of light,

Where summer's sumptuous golden blaze

Wraps earth in a voluptuous haze

Of lambent splendor; where the skies

Drop balm as erst in Paradise,

Where clusters of imperial trees

Nod their green plumes o'er slumberous seas;

Warm, amorous deeps! whose crystal calms

Dream of the emerald-crested palms.

A shore of bloom! a sea so bright!

Entranced they mingle in the light;

Apart — yet wedded by the sun,

As severed hearts through love made one.

Where air as an elixir fine

Exhilarates like sparkling wine;

Where mere existence brings a joy

Life's trifling ills cannot destroy:

There, where the aromatic breeze —

Fledged in a nest of orange-trees,

Kissing the slumb'rous waves — made sweet

The sea-foam swept to Daisy's feet.

The gloom, the shadow, passed not by;

Still white her cheek, as shells that lie

Like drifted snow on golden strand,

Where stood she writing in the sand.

And still the envious surges came

To wash away that precious name

Writ on her heart's warm shore for years,

Merged by its tidal flow of tears.

She stood in a sequestered cove,

While countless memories of love

Heaped treasure, till her sea of grief

Blushed — breaking on a coral-reef!

For precious memories often grow

From out the darkest voids of woe;

As fissures by the sea-worm drilled

In Eastern shells, with pearls are filled.

The creeping tide swells, shot with flame,

Stole up and kissed away that name

Which Fate indeed, with mocking hand,

For her had written in the sand.

Outward, upon her right did reach

A long, white, narrow line of beach,

Where careless groups now idly strayed,

Watching the flush of sunset fade.

And when across that crimson glow

Her gaze went out as long ago,

O'er colder seas, unto a ship

Which toward the setting sun did dip,

On the far point of that white sand

Standing together, hand in hand,

Like forms of sculptured bronze revealed

Against the sunset's burnished shield,

Two figures smote her‘ wildered sight,

And left two blots upon the light;

Darker than iron ship afar

Or smoke that hid the evening star.

For there, between her and the sun,

Stood Graham Lee, and with him one

Whose beauty stirred to bitter strife

The chilly current of her life.

As summer sends a mighty thrill

Through clust'ring icy floes, until

Their shudd'ring breaks the ghastly sleep

Of Nova Zembla's pallid deep.

More dead he seemed to her that hour —

There, in the strength of manly power,

Bending to see those dark eyes shine —

Than cold and still beneath the brine.

Six years had marked their weary length

On her young life — whose faith and strength

A widowed heart left purified —

To live, now wishing she had died.

More lost she felt, and more alone,

Leaning against that hard, cold stone,

Than when his ship was outward bound,

Or when she thought of him as drowned.

They turned, and sauntered towards the cove;

Oh, woman's strength! oh, woman's love!

She stirred not till their eyes had met,

And knew herself remembered yet.

Down wastes of absence, grief, and gloom —

Warmed by his gaze — uprose the bloom

Of Hope's lost violets through the snow,

A purple path to long ago!

She saw the creole's large, dark eyes

Glance up to his in mute surprise;

She saw him leave the girl and stand

Before her with an outstretched hand.

Then turned and fled — no matter where,

So those she fled from were not there —

Seaward away, across the strand,

Where hungry waves crept up the sand.

On Memory's scroll there came a blot,

A space of time remembered not;

When sense awoke, clouds late aglow

With sunset fire, looked drifts of snow.

For, like a disembodied soul

By angels clad in silvery stole

And shining sandals for its flight

Along the upward paths of light,

The moon had risen there, and turned

Volcanic cloud-peaks while they burned,

White as the frozen coronet

On Jura's misty forehead set.

And where, from out her casket fine,

Eve had dropped rubies on the brine,

In gleaming lengths of shimmering sheen

Long lines of moonlight paved the green.

Yet not to star, or sea, or skies

She gazed, but into deep, dear eyes

Bending upon her with the glow,

The old, sweet love of long ago.

Subtly it thrilled through every vein,

Making her white cheek flush again;

As pale hydrangeas blushing shine,

Whose roots are steeped in purple wine.

She felt love's subtle, potent charm

Binding her on that strong right arm;

‘ T was softer than the cold gray stone,

‘ T was sweeter thus than all alone.

One moment struggling to be free,

She cried: “Release me, Graham Lee;

For there is more to part us now

Than distance, death, or broken vow.”

“Daisy” — his voice was deep and clear —

“Stay; would I dare to hold you here

So near my heart, if unto you

That heart had ever been untrue?

“Perchance, had I not found you soon,

As yon gray cloud beside the moon

Is silver-lined,— that wore a crown

Of glory when the sun went down,

“My future might have worn at last

A light, which, likened to the past,

Would be as yonder placid moon

Unto the sumptuous suns of June.

“You thought me dead — I thought you lost;

Our hearts have both been tempest tossed,

And never anchored since that hour

When each defied the other's power.

“The stately creole by my side

Is my young sister — not my bride;

Earth holds one mate alone for me,

One bride — say, Daisy, shall it be?”

No blot on the horizon's verge,

No black smoke hid the star, no surge

Came up to fret the silent sea,

No answer came to Graham Lee.

What need of words? From eye to eye

How quick the magnet glances fly —

Electric sparks from soul to soul —

As magnets flash from pole to pole.

From noiseless waters, stealing slow,

The drooping white stalactites grow;

From noiseless drops stalagmites rise,

Silent they meet, and crystallize.

The overflowing loves that spring

From two proud natures meeting, cling

In strong, pure bliss from heart to home,

As cavern spars from floor to dome.