Complete Works of Lewis Carroll (132 page)

ONLY A WOMAN’S HAIR.

‘Only a woman’s hair’!
Fling it aside!

A bubble on Life’s mighty stream:

Heed it not, man, but watch the broadening tide

Bright with the western beam.

Nay!
In those words there rings from other years

The echo of a long low cry,

Where a proud spirit wrestles with its tears

In loneliest agony.

And, as I touch that lock, strange visions throng

Upon my soul with dreamy grace—

Of woman’s hair, the theme of poet’s song

In every time and place.

A child’s bright tresses, by the breezes kissed

To sweet disorder as she flies,

Veiling, beneath a cloud of golden mist,

Flushed cheek and laughing eyes—

Or fringing, like a shadow, raven-black,

The glory of a queen-like face—

Or from a gipsy’s sunny brow tossed back

In wild and wanton grace—

Or crown-like on the hoary head of Age,

Whose tale of life is well-nigh told—

Or, last, in dreams I make my pilgrimage

To Bethany of old.

I see the feast—the purple and the gold—

The gathering crowd of Pharisees,

Whose scornful eyes are centred to behold

Yon woman on her knees.

The stifled sob rings strangely on mine ears,

Wrung from the depth of sin’s despair:

And still she bathes the sacred feet with tears,

And wipes them with her hair.

He scorned not then the simple loving deed

Of her, the lowest and the last;

Then scorn not thou, but use with earnest heed

This relic of the past.

The eyes that loved it once no longer wake:

So lay it by with reverent care—

Touching it tenderly for sorrow’s sake—

It is a woman’s hair.

Feb.
17, 1862.
 

THE SAILOR’S WIFE.

See!
There are tears upon her face—

Tears newly shed, and scarcely dried:

Close, in an agonised embrace,

She clasps the infant at her side.

Peace dwells in those soft-lidded eyes,

Those parted lips that faintly smile—

Peace, the foretaste of Paradise,

In heart too young for care or guile.

No peace that mother’s features wear;

But quivering lip, and knotted brow,

And broken mutterings, all declare

The fearful dream that haunts her now.

The storm-wind, rushing through the sky,

Wails from the depths of cloudy space;

Shrill, piercing as the seaman’s cry

When death and he are face to face.

Familiar tones are in the gale:

They ring upon her startled ear:

And quick and low she pants the tale

That tells of agony and fear:

“Still that phantom-ship is nigh—

With a vexed and life-like motion,

All beneath an angry sky,

Rocking on an angry ocean.

“Round the straining mast and shrouds

Throng the spirits of the storm:

Darkly seen through driving clouds,

Bends each gaunt and ghastly form.

“See!
The good ship yields at last!

Dumbly yields, and fights no more;

Driving, in the frantic blast,

Headlong on the fatal shore.

“Hark!
I hear her battered side,

With a low and sullen shock,

Dashed, amid the foaming tide,

Full upon a sunken rock.

“His face shines out against the sky,

Like a ghost, so cold and white;

With a dead despairing eye

Gazing through the gathered night.

“Is he watching, through the dark

Where a mocking ghostly hand

Points a faint and feeble spark

Glimmering from the distant land?

“Sees he, in this hour of dread,

Hearth and home and wife and child?

Loved ones who, in summers fled,

Clung to him and wept and smiled?

“Reeling sinks the fated bark

To her tomb beneath the wave:

Must he perish in the dark—

Not a hand stretched out to save?

“See the spirits, how they crowd!

Watching death with eyes that burn!

Waves rush in——” she shrieks aloud,

Ere her waking sense return.

The storm is gone: the skies are clear:

Hush’d is that bitter cry of pain:

The only sound, that meets her ear,

The heaving of the sullen main.

Though heaviness endure the night,

Yet joy shall come with break of day:

She shudders with a strange delight—

The fearful dream is pass’d away.

She wakes: the grey dawn streaks the dark:

With early song the copses ring:

Far off she hears the watch-dog bark

A joyful bark of welcoming!

Feb.
23, 1857.
 

AFTER THREE DAYS.

I stood within the gate

Of a great temple, ’mid the living stream

Of worshipers that thronged its regal state

Fair-pictured in my dream.

Jewels and gold were there;

And floors of marble lent a crystal sheen

To body forth, as in a lower air,

The wonders of the scene.

Such wild and lavish grace

Had whispers in it of a coming doom;

As richest flowers lie strown about the face

Of her that waits the tomb.

The wisest of the land

Had gathered there, three solemn trysting-days,

For high debate: men stood on either hand

To listen and to gaze.

The aged brows were bent,

Bent to a frown, half thought, and half annoy,

That all their stores of subtlest argument

Were baffled by a boy.

In each averted face

I marked but scorn and loathing, till mine eyes

Fell upon one that stirred not in his place,

Tranced in a dumb surprise.

Surely within his mind

Strange thoughts are born, until he doubts the lore

Of those old men, blind leaders of the blind,

Whose kingdom is no more.

Surely he sees afar

A day of death the stormy future brings;

The crimson setting of the herald-star

That led the Eastern kings.

Thus, as a sunless deep

Mirrors the shining heights that crown the bay,

So did my soul create anew in sleep

The picture seen by day.

Gazers came and went—

A restless hum of voices marked the spot—

In varying shades of critic discontent

Prating they knew not what.

“Where is the comely limb,

The form attuned in every perfect part,

The beauty that we should desire in him?”

Ah!
Fools and slow of heart!

Look into those deep eyes,

Deep as the grave, and strong with love divine;

Those tender, pure, and fathomless mysteries,

That seem to pierce through thine.

Look into those deep eyes,

Stirred to unrest by breath of coming strife,

Until a longing in thy soul arise

That this indeed were life:

That thou couldst find Him there,

Bend at His sacred feet thy willing knee,

And from thy heart pour out the passionate prayer

“Lord, let me follow Thee!”

But see the crowd divide:

Mother and sire have found their lost one now:

The gentle voice, that fain would seem to chide

Whispers “Son, why hast thou”—

In tone of sad amaze—

“Thus dealt with us, that art our dearest thing?

Behold, thy sire and I, three weary days,

Have sought thee sorrowing.”

And I had stayed to hear

The loving words “How is it that ye sought?”—

But that the sudden lark, with matins clear,

Severed the links of thought.

Then over all there fell

Shadow and silence; and my dream was fled,

As fade the phantoms of a wizard’s cell

When the dark charm is said.

Yet, in the gathering light,

I lay with half-shut eyes that would not wake,

Lovingly clinging to the skirts of night

For that sweet vision’s sake.

Feb.
16, 1861.