A tie less human than divine allies
The mother to her son. Nought compensates
In after-life that link of severed love
When the bird flits forth from the parent tree.
Friends claim inviolate ties, till Time reveals
That change was their own being; Love absorbs
And prostrates hearts before his altar-place,
Until they die exhausted by their fires;
Ambition rules until, the summit gained,
The storm is met that sleeps not; but that first,
Purest, and holiest of earthly loves,
Taintless of self, was sent to prove to man
That the first spring of human happiness
Welled from the heart of woman.
As they sate
Beside the lamp, the expression was the same;
The matron, dignified but unaustere,
Looked like the mother of that son. It was
A countenance that storied forth a life.
Ancestral lineage her brow revealed,
Untouched by pride, where the retiring hair
Revealed the tinge of Time's autumnal hand.
The purity of life shone through her face
As from a crystal vase. Humility,
That is itself a grace, spoke from her eyes,
Beneath whose lids the earnest spirit looked.
The shadow drawn from anxious thought o'ercast
Her cheek, allying her to earthly grief.
It was the sad expression of a soul
That felt itself allied to a frail form,
Enduring penance for expected joy.

And thus she filled that antique chair, as one
Not of the present, picturing the past;
As when with darkened vision from dim aisles
We gaze on the rich oriel's gorgeous lights,
Where sainted women, clad in purple robes,
In breathless adoration bowed, with eyes
Upraised ascend through azure depths above,
Into beatitudes of heaven.
Her eyes,
Even while he entered, traced the change upon
His countenance; his cheek and brow were pale,
As from internal conflict, when the flush
Of an excitement past has died away.
He sat beside her footstool; in his hands
He placed her own, but spake not.
" Astrophel!
The hour is late, and still upon your brow
I trace the deeper furrowed lines of toil
From an undue exertion; for awhile,
My son, to purer airs you must depart."
Then with the smile of one who would be heard,
He placed his finger on her lips:
" My mother,
You render me the selfish man I am.
If I forsake these city solitudes,
I leave you as a monument among them,
Doubly alone; the absent are the dead,
And I become even as that sister dear
Who lives for us no more. Reliant youth
Draws strength from vital roots of its firm life
Fibred to earth. The grasp of age is weak,
And in the breath of cities dwells a taint
That lowers the pulsings of the heart."
" My son,
All places visited by God are blest:
Inhabitant amidst a wilderness,
I breathe within the presence of the Power
In whom I trust, whose throne is everywhere
Even as on Sinai or on Ararat.
The tree outlives light variations felt
From sun or storm, and falls at its own time,
While in its greener strength the sapling fails.
The artizan attunes his hand with rest;
How fares it then with him whose life is thought,
Woven from the network of the brain?"
" Yet hear me!
You ever first in your self-sacrifice,
Who with the morning and the night shall take
My vacant place? My sister is a dream
That was, a shadow on our memory.
We go to her who comes not; for, alas!
Life is a secret and a mystery,
The grave the key that opens it, revealing
Unfelt or conscious immortality.

And thus, it may be, to lament the dead
Is the last weakness of humanity.
If we are true, we should lament our life
Withholding us from them: earth takes their forms,
God leaves their shadows in our memories;
Faith, hope, and love, aspiring heavenward
Even from the dust of their humility."
He ceased, conscious her eyes on him were turned,
As all the past rose in the mother's soul:

" My son, you are the pillar and support
Of a fall'n house; whate'er of hope remains
Centres in you. The fortunes of our race
Are passed, and we hold little now beyond
The tenure of your strength outworn. I seek
To guard a life in yours which is my own."
Astrophel turned on her the staid regard
Of filial love:


" Mother, I shall obey.
Fortune has walked beside me since we met;
I found a friend at the most needed hour,
And proved his faith."
He paused, as one unused
To hide his thought; a faint tinge on his cheek
Was visible, by her not unobserved:
What 'scapes the mother's apprehensive eye?
" The tale you have unfolded of your friend
Lacks yet addition; you have faintly traced
The outlines of event."
And while she spake,
She parted back the full and flowing hair
That clustered o'er his brows, while gazing on him
With a maternal pride:
" My son, you are wont
To be diffuse on trifles; 'tis the mode
Of thoughtful men; as if they loved to sport
With straws upon the surfaces of talk,
That yield light relaxation."
" Mother dear,"
(He spake with face averted from the lamp),
" I have slight tale to tell. I slept beneath
The trees, and waked before an older man
Regarding me. Recall the highest type
Of race in him. There are affinities
Allying men; he felt that which I was;
Our converse, as our hearts, became as one.
Within such sympathies a mystery dwells;
The threads inwoven are that in their fine
And subtle meshes bind the spirits twain;
The intuitive eyes, the voice that vibrates on
The ear like a remembered melody.
By planetary influence we are drawn
Toward each other's being; flower-like,
The aroma of the spirit borne from one
Is wafted to another."
On the face
Of that high dame stole something like a smile,
Playing in faintest lustre:
" Astrophel,
You are not wont to waste your poetry
On inattentive ears, and mine are dulled
By life and time's realities. Say, in prose,
Was he, that elder man, companionless?
Did none attend him? Was his earnest tongue
And courtesy the attraction sole that left
Impressions that have made you eloquent?"

Her casual glance upon the mirror fell
His face reflecting; his abstracted brow
O'ershadowed by his hand, as if he watched
The expiring lamp. She saw that his cheek flushed;
He turned to her from whom was nothing veiled:

" The friend who crossed my path was not alone,
One by his side, the echo of his thoughts,
His daughter sole, or, rather, truth herself
His pledge confirmed, and with a voice which, heard,
Became a part of memory."
She smiled,
But in that smile reposed a silent joy.
She read the opening of the eternal tale;
The genesis of love, the veiling leaves,
The covert in the garden paradise,
Ere the first fruit is tasted, when the voice
Of guardian and of watcher are in vain.

" Enough, my son, the tale is given; this night
Claims other thoughts." And then a sadness stole
In shadow o'er her brow.
Astrophel rose
With countenance changed; his brow was overcast
With the oppression of a solemn thought:
" My mother dear, our memory is the same,
The one thought filling either breast is ours;
The duty of the night is unfulfilled.
You have recalled, though you have nothing said,
The date of this remembered day. You prove —
Who proves it like the mother? — the deep joy
Rising from obligation met. I go,
Ere midnight to return; I bear with me
The offering of your spirit in my own."
She answered nothing, her voice lost in sighs,
And they embraced as those whose hearts are one.
Her eyes were thick with tears, yet silent still,
The audible silence of a stricken soul
In incommunicable grief. He passed,
And left her in that chamber's solitude.