Griselda: a society novel in rhymed verse

Wilfrid Scawen Blunt

Griselda: a society novel in rhymed verse

CHAPTER I

An idle story with an idle moral!Why do I tell it, at the risk of quarrelWith nobler themes? The world, alas! is so,And who would gather truth must bend him low,Nor fear to soil his knees with graveyard ground,If haply there some flower of truth be found.For human nature is an earthy fruit,Mired at the stem and fleshy at the root,And thrives with folly's mixon best o'erlaid,Nor less divinely so, when all is said.Brave lives are lived, and worthy deeds are doneEach virtuous day, 'neath the all-pitying sun;But these are not the most, perhaps not evenThe surest road to our soul's modern heaven.The best of us are creatures of God's chance(Call it His grace), which works deliverance;The rest mere pendulums 'twixt good and ill,Like soldiers marking time while standing still.'Tis all their strategy, who have lost faithIn things Divine beyond man's life and death,Pleasure and pain. Of heaven what know we,Save as unfit for angels' company,Say rather hell's? We cling to sins confessed,And say our prayers still hoping for the best.We fear old age and ugliness and pain,And love our lives, nor look to live again.I do but parable the crowd I know,The human cattle grazing as they go,Unheedful of the heavens. Here and thereSome prouder, may be, or less hungry steerLifting his face an instant to the sky,And left behind as the bent herd goes by,Or stung to a short madness, tossing wildHis horns aloft, and charging the gay field,Till the fence stops him, and he vanquished too,Turns to his browsing – lost his Waterloo.The moral of my tale I leave to othersMore bold, who point the finger at their brothers,And surer know than I which way is bestTo virtue's goal, where all of us find rest,Whether in stern denial of things sweet,Or yielding timely, lest life lose its feetAnd fall the further.A plain tale is mineOf naked fact, unconscious of design,Told of the world in this last centuryOf man's (not God's) disgrace, the XIXth. WeHave made it all a little as it isIn our own images and likenesses,And need the more forgiveness for our sin.Therefore, my Muse, impatient to begin,I bid thee fearless forward on thy road:Steer thou thy honest course 'twixt bad and good.Know this, in art that thing alone is evilWhich shuns the one plain word that shames the devil.Tell truth without preamble or excuse,And all shall be forgiven thee – all, my Muse!*****In London then not many years agoThere lived a lady of high fashion, whoFor her friends' sake, if any still there beWho hold her virtues green in memory,Shall not be further named in this true taleThan as Griselda or the Lady L.,Such, if I err not, was the second nameHer parents gave when to the font she came,And such the initial letter bravely setOn her coach door, beneath the coronet,Which bore her and her fortunes – bore, alas!For, as in this sad world all things must pass,However great and nobly framed and fair:Griselda, too, is of the things that were.But while she lived Griselda had no needOf the world's pity. She was proudly bredAnd proudly nurtured. Plenty her full hornHad fairly emptied out when she was born,And dowered her with all bounties. She was fairAs only children of the noblest are,And brave and strong and opulent of health,Which made her take full pleasure of her wealth.She had a pitying scorn of little soulsAnd little bodies, levying heavy tollsOn all the world which was less strong than she.She used her natural strength most naturally,And yet with due discretion, so that allStood equally in bondage to her thrall.She was of that high godlike shape and sizeWhich has authority in all men's eyes:Her hair was brown, her colour white and red,Nor idly moved to blush. She held her headStraight with her back. Her body, from the kneeTall and clean shaped, like some well-nurtured tree,Rose finely finished to the finger tips;She had a noble carriage of the hips,And that proportionate waist which only artDares to divine, harmonious part with part.But of this more anon, or rather never.All that the world could vaunt for its endeavourWas the fair promise of her ankles setUpon a pair of small high-instepped feet,In whose behalf, though modestly, God wot,As any nun, she raised her petticoatOne little inch more high than reason meetWas for one crossing a well-besomed street.This was the only tribute she allowedTo human folly and the envious crowd;Nor for my part would I be found her judgeFor her one weakness, nor appear to grudgeWhat in myself, as surely in the rest,Bred strange sweet fancies such as feet suggest.We owe her all too much. This point apart,Griselda, modesty's own counterpart,Moved in the sphere of folly like a star,Aloof and bright and most particular.By girlish choice and whim of her first willShe had espoused the amiable Lord L.,A worthy nobleman, in high reputeFor wealth and virtue, and her kin to boot;A silent man, well mannered and well dressed,Courteous, deliberate, kind, sublimely blessedWith fortune's favours, but without pretence,Whom manners almost made a man of sense.In early life he had aspired to fameIn the world of letters by the stratagemOf a new issue, from his private press,Of classic bards in senatorial dress,"In usum Marchionis." He had spentMuch of his youth upon the Continent,Purchasing marbles, bronzes, pictures, gems,In every town from Tiber unto Thames,And gaining store of curious knowledge tooOn divers subjects that the world least knew:Knowledge uncatalogued, and overlaidWith dust and lumber somewhere in his head.A slumberous man, in whom the lamp of lifeHad never quite been lighted for the strifeAnd turmoil of the world, but flickered downIn an uncertain twilight of its own,With an occasional flash, that only madeA deeper shadow for its world of shade.When he returned to England, all admiredThe taste of his collections, and inquiredTo whose fair fortunate head the lot should fallTo wear these gems and jewels after all.But years went by, and still unclaimed they shone,A snare and stumbling-block to more than one,Till in his fiftieth year 'twas vaguely said,Lord L. already had too long delayed.Be it as it may, he abdicated lifeThe day he took Griselda to his wife.And then Griselda loved him. All agreed,The world's chief sponsors for its social creed,That, whether poor Lord L. was or was notThe very fool some said and idiot,Or whether under cloak of dulness crass,He veiled that sense best suited to his case,Sparing his wit, as housewives spare their light,For curtain eloquence and dead of night;And spite of whispered tales obscurely spread,Doubting the fortunes of her nuptial bed,Here at this word all sides agreed to rest:Griselda did her duty with the best.Yet, poor Griselda! When in lusty youthA love-sick boy I stood unformed, uncouth,And watched with sad and ever jealous eyeThe vision of your beauty passing by,Why was it that that brow inviolate,That virginal courage yet unscared by fate,That look the immortal queen and huntress woreTo frightened shepherds' eyes in days of yoreConsoled me thus, and soothed unconsciously,And stilled my jealous fears I knew not why?How shall I tell the secret of your soulWhich then I blindly guessed, or how cajoleMy boyhood's ancient folly to declareNow in my wisdom the dear maid you were,Though such the truth?Griselda's early daysOf married life were not that fitful mazeOf tears and laughter which betoken aught,Changed or exchanged, of pain with pleasure bought,Of maiden freedom conquered and subdued,Of hopes new born and fears of womanhood.Those who then saw Griselda saw a childWell pleased and happy, thoughtlessly beguiledBy every simplest pleasure of her age,Gay as a bird just issued from its cage,When every flower is sweet. No eye could traceDoubt or disquiet written on her face,Where none there was. And, if the truth be told,Griselda grieved not that Lord L. was old.She found it well that her sweet seventeenShould live at peace with fifty, and was seenJust as she felt, contented with her lot,Pleased with what was and pleased with what was not.She held her husband the more dear that heWas kind within the bounds of courtesy,And love was not as yet within her plan,And life was fair, and wisdom led the van.For she was wise – oh, wise! She rose at eightAnd played her scales till breakfast, and then satThe morning through with staid and serious looks,Counting the columns of her household books,Her daily labour, or with puzzled headBent over languages alive and dead,Wise as, alas! in life those only areWho have not yet beheld a twentieth year.Wealth had its duties, time its proper use,Youth and her marriage should be no excuse;Her education must be made complete!Lord L. looked on and quite approved of it.The afternoons, in sense of duty done,Went by more idly than the rest had gone.If in the country, which Lord L. preferred,She had her horse, her dogs, her favourite bird,Her own rose-garden, which she loved to rake,Her fish to feed with bread crumbs in the lake,Her schools, old women, poor and almshouses,Her sick to visit, or her church to dress.Lord L. was pleased to see her bountiful:They hardly found the time to find it dull.In London, where they spent their second year,Came occupations suited to the sphereIn which they lived; and to the just pretenceOf our Griselda's high-born consequence,New duties to the world which no excuseAdmitted. She was mistress of L. HouseAnd heir to its traditions. These must beObserved by her in due solemnity.Her natural taste, I think, repelled the noise,The rush, and dust, and crush of London joys;But habit, which becomes a second sense,Had reconciled her to its influenceEven in girlhood, and she long had knownThat life in crowds may still be life alone,While mere timidity and want of easeShe never ranked among youth's miseries.She had her parents too, who made demandUpon her thoughts and time, and close at handSisters and friends. With these her days were spentIn simple joys and girlish merriment.She would not own that being called a wifeShould make a difference in her daily life.Then London lacks not of attractions fitFor serious minds, and treasures infiniteOf art and science for ingenious eyes,And learning for such wits as would be wise,Lectures in classes, galleries, schools of art:In each Griselda played conspicuous part —Pupil and patron, ay, and patron-saintTo no few poor who live by pens and paint.The world admired and flattered as a friend,And only wondered what would be the end.And so the days went by. Griselda's face,Calm in its outline of romantic grace,Became a type even to the vulgar mindOf all that beauty means when most refined,The visible symbol of a soul within,Conceived immaculate of human sin,And only clothed in our humanityThat we may learn to praise and better be.Where'er she went, instinctively the crowdMade way before her, and ungrudging bowedTo one so fair as to a queen of earth,Ruling by right of conquest and of birth.And thus I first beheld her, standing calmIn the swayed crowd upon her husband's arm,One opera night, the centre of all eyes,So proud she seemed, so fair, so sweet, so wise.Some one behind me whispered "Lady L.!His Lordship too! and thereby hangs a tale."His Lordship! I beheld a placid man,With gentle deep-set eyes, and rather wan,And rather withered, yet on whose smooth faceTime seemed to have been in doubt what lines to traceOf youth or age, and so had left it bare,As it had left its colour to his hair.An old young man perhaps, or really old,Which of the two could never quite be told.I judged him younger than his years gave right:His looks betrayed him least by candlelight.Yet, young or old, that night he seemed to meSublime, the priest of her divinityAt whose new shrine I worshipped. But enoughOf me and my concerns! More pertinent stuffMy tale requires than this first boyish love,Which never found the hour its fate to prove.My Lady smiling motions with her hand;The crowd falls back; his Lordship, gravely bland,Leads down the steps to where his footmen stayIn state. Griselda's carriage stops the way!And was Griselda happy? Happy? – Yes,In her first year of marriage, and no lessPerhaps, too, in her second and her third.For youth is proud, nor cares its last sad wordTo ask of fate, and not unwilling clingsTo what the present hour in triumph brings.It was enough, as I have said, for herThat she was young and fortunate and fair.The world that loved her was a lovely world,The rest she knew not of. Fate had not hurledA single spear as yet against her life.She would not argue as 'twixt maid and wife,Where both were woman, human nature, man,Which held the nobler place in the world's plan.Her soul at least was single, and must beUnmated still through its eternity.And, even here in life, what reason yetTo doubt or question or despair of Fate?Her youth, an ample web, before her shoneFor hope to weave its subtlest fancies on,If she had cared to dream. Her lot was goodBeyond the common lot of womanhood,And she would prove her fortune best in this,That she would not repine at happiness.Thus to her soul she argued as the SpringBrought back its joy to each begotten thing —Begotten and begetting. Who shall sayWhich had the better reason, she or they?In the fourth year a half acknowledged griefMade its appearance in Griselda's life.Her sisters married, younger both than she,Mere children she had thought, and happily.Each went her way engrossed by her new bliss,Too gay to guess Griselda's dumb distress.Her home was broken. In their pride they wroteThings that like swords against her bosom smote,The detail of their hopes, and loves, and fears.Griselda read, and scarce restrained her tears.Her mother too, the latest fledgling flown,Had vanished from the world. She was alone.When she returned to London, earlierThan was her custom, in the following year,She found her home a desert, dark and gaunt;L. House looked emptier, gloomier than its wont.Griselda sighed, for on the table layTwo letters, which announced each in its wayThe expected tidings of her sisters' joy.Either was brought to bed – and with a boy.Her generous heart leaped forth to these in vain,It could not cheat a first sharp touch of pain,But yielded to its sorrow.That same night,Lord L., whose sleep was neither vexed nor light,And who for many years had ceased to dream,Beheld a vision. Slowly he becameAware of a strange light which in his eyesShone to his vast discomfort and surprise;And, while perplexed with vague mistrusts and fears,He saw a face, Griselda's face, in tearsBefore him. She was standing by his bedHolding a candle. It was cold, she said,And shivered. And he saw her wrap her shawlAbout her shoulders closely like a pall.Why was she there? Why weeping? Why this light,Burning so brightly in the dead of night?These riddles poor Lord L.'s half-wakened brainTried dimly to resolve, but tried in vain."I cannot sleep to-night," went on the voice,"The streets disturb me strangely with their noise,The cabs, the striking clocks." Lord L.'s distressStruggled with sleep. He thought he answered "Yes.""What can I do to make me sleep? I am ill,Unnerv'd to-night. This house is like a well.Do I disturb you here, and shall I go?"Lord L. was moved. He thought he answered "No.""If you would speak, perhaps my tears would stop.Speak! only speak!"Lord L. here felt a dropUpon his hand. She had put down the light,And sat upon his bed forlornly whiteAnd pale and trembling. Her dark hair unboundLay on her knees. Her lips moved, but their soundCame strangely to his ears and half-unheard.He only could remember the last word:"I am unhappy – listen L.! – alone."She touched his shoulder and he gave a groan."This is too much. You do not hear me. See,I cannot stop these tears. Too much!"And heNow well awake, looked round him. He could catchA gleam of light just vanished, and the latchSeemed hardly silent. This was all he knew.He sat some moments doubting what to do,Rose, went out, shivered, hearing nothing, creptBack to his pillow, where the vision weptOr seemed to weep awhile ago, and thenWith some disquiet went to sleep again.Next morning, thinking of his dream, Lord L.Went down to breakfast in intent to tellThe story of his vision. But he metWith little sympathy. His wife was late,And in a hurry for her school of art.His lordship needed time to make a startOn any topic, and no time she gave.Griselda had appointments she must save,And could not stop to hear of rhyme or reason —The dream must wait a more convenient season.And so it was not told.Alas, alas!Who shall foretell what wars shall come to pass,What woes be wrought, what fates accomplishèd,What new dreams dreamt, what new tears vainly shed,What doubts, what anguish, what remorse, what fearsBegotten in the womb of what new years! —And all because of this, that poor Lord L.Was slow of speech, or that he slept too well!

CHAPTER II

Thus then it was. Griselda's childhood endsWith this untoward night; and what portendsMay only now be guessed by those who readSigns on the earth and wonders overhead.I dare not prophesy.What next appearsIn the vain record of Griselda's yearsIs hardly yet a token, for her lifeShowed little outward sign of change or strife,Though she was changed and though perhaps at war.Her face still shone untroubled as a starIn the world's firmament, and still she moved,A creature to be wondered at and loved.Her zeal, her wit, her talents, her good senseWere all unchanged, though each seemed more intenseAnd lit up with new passion and inspiredTo active purpose, valiant and untired.She faced the world, talked much and well, made friends,Promoted divers schemes for divers ends,Artistic, social, philanthropical:She had a store of zeal for each and all.She pensioned poets, nobly took in handAn emigration plan to Newfoundland,Which ended in disaster and a ball.She visited St. George's hospital,The Home for Fallen Women, founded schoolsOf music taught on transcendental rules.L. House was dull though splendid. She had schemesOf a vast London palace on the Thames,Which should combine all orders new and oldOf architectural taste a house could hold,And educate the masses. Then one day,She fairly wearied and her soul gave way.Again she sought Lord L., but not to askThis time his counsel in the thankless taskShe could no more make good, the task of living.He was too mere a stranger to her grieving,Her needs, her weakness. All her woman's heartWas in rebellion at the idle partHe played in her sad life, and needed notMere pity for a pain to madness wrought.She did not ask his sympathy. She saidOnly that she was weary as the dead,And needed change of air, and life, and scene:She wished to go where all the world had been —To Paris, Florence, Rome. She could not dieAnd not have seen the Alps and Italy.Lord L. had tried all Europe, and knew bestWhere she could flee her troubles and find rest.Such was her will. Lord L., without more goad,Prepared for travel – and they went abroad.I will not follow here from day to dayGriselda's steps. Suffice it if I sayShe found her wished-for Paris wearisome,Another London and without her home,And so went on, as still the fashion was,Some years ago, e'er Pulman cars with gasAnd quick night flittings had submerged mankindIn one mad dream of luggage left behind,By the Rhone boat to Provence. This to herSeemed a delicious land, strange, barren, fair,An old-world wilderness of greys and browns,Rocks, olive-gardens, grim dismantled towns,Deep-streeted, desolate, yet dear to see,Smelling of oil and of the Papacy.Griselda first gave reins to her romanceIn this forgotten corner of old France,Feeding her soul on that ethereal food,The manna of days spent in solitude.Lord L. was silent. She, as far awaySaw other worlds which were not of to-day,With cardinals, popes, Petrarch and the Muse.She stopped to weep with Laura at Vaucluse,Where waiting in the Mistral poor Lord L.,Who did not weep, sat, slept and caught a chill;This sent them southwards on through Christendom,To Genoa, Florence, and at last to Rome,Where they remained the winter.Change had wroughtA cure already in Griselda's thought,Or half a cure. The world in truth is wide,If we but pace it out from side to side,And our worst miseries thus the smaller come.Griselda was ashamed to grieve in Rome,Among the buried griefs of centuries,Her own sweet soul's too pitiful disease.She found amid that dust of human hopesAn incantation for all horoscopes,A better patience in that wreck of Time:Her secret woes seemed chastened and sublimeThere in the amphitheatre of woe.She suffered with the martyrs. These would know,Who offered their chaste lives and virgin blood,How mortal frailty best might be subdued.She saw the incense of her sorrow riseWith theirs as an accepted sacrificeBefore the face of the Eternal GodOf that Eternal City, and she trodThe very stones which seemed their griefs to soundBeneath her steps, as consecrated ground.In face of such a suffering hers must beA drop, a tear in the unbounded seaWhich girds our lives. Rome was the home of grief,Where all might bring their pain and find relief,The temple of all sorrows: surely yet,Sorrow's self here seemed swallowed up in it.'Twas thus she comforted her soul. And then,She had found a friend, a phœnix among men,Which made it easier to compound with life,Easier to be a woman and a wife.This was Prince Belgirate. He of allThe noble band to whose high fortune fallThe name and title proudest upon earthWhile pride shall live by privilege of birth,The name of Roman, shone conspicuousThe head and front of his illustrious house,Which had produced two pontiffs and a saintBefore the world had heard of Charles le Quint;A most accomplished nobleman in truth,And wise beyond the manner of his youth,With wit and art and learning, and that senseOf policy which still is most intenseAmong the fertile brains of Italy,A craft inherited from days gone by.As scholar he was known the pupil aptOf Mezzofanti, in whose learning lappedAnd prized and tutored as a wondrous child,He had sucked the milk of knowledge undefiledWhile yet a boy, and brilliantly anonHad pushed his reputation thus begunThrough half a score of tongues. In art his placeWas as chief patron of the rising race,Which dreamed new conquests on the glorious wombOf ancient beauty laid asleep in Rome.The glories of the past he fain would seeWrought to new life in this new century,By that continuous instinct of her sons,Which had survived Goths, Vandals, Lombards, Huns,To burst upon a wondering world againWith full effulgence in the Julian reign.In politics, though prudently withdrawnFrom the public service, which he held in scorn,As being unworthy the deliberate zealOf one with head to think or heart to feel;And being neither priest, nor soldier, norVersed in the practice of Canonic lore,He made his counsels felt and privatelyLent his best influence to "the Powers that be," —Counsels the better valued that he stoodAlone among the youth of stirring blood,And bowed not to that Baal his proud knee,The national false goddess, Italy.He was too stubborn in his Roman prideTo trick out this young strumpet as a bride,And held in classic scorn who would becomeLess than a Roman citizen in Rome.A man of heart besides and that light witWhich leavens all, even pedantry's conceit.None better knew than he the art to shewA little less in talk than all he knew.His manner too, and voice, and countenance,Imposed on all, and these he knew to enhanceBy certain freedoms and simplicitiesOf language, which set all his world at ease.A very peer and prince and paragon,Griselda thought, Rome's latest, worthiest son,An intellectual phœnix.On her nightA sudden dawn had broke, portentous, bright.Her soul had found its fellow. From the day

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.