Behind him a past that was over forever:
Before him a future devoid of endeavor And purpose. He felt a remorse for the one, Of the other a fear. What remain'd to be done?
Whither now should he turn? Turn again, as before, To his old easy, careless existence of yore He could not. He felt that for better or worse A change had pass'd o'er him; an angry remorse Of his own frantic failure and error had marr'd Such a refuge forever. The future seem'd barr'd By the corpse of a dead hope o'er which he must tread To attain it. Life's wilderness round him was spread, What clew there to cling by?
He clung by a name To a dynasty fallen forever. He came Of an old princely house, true through change to the race And the sword of Saint Louis--a faith 'twere disgrace To relinquish, and folly to live for! Nor less Was his ancient religion (once potent to bless Or to ban; and the crozier his ancestors kneel'd To adore, when they fought for the Cross, in hard field With the Crescent) become, ere it reach'd him, tradition;
A mere faded badge of a social position;
A thing to retain and say nothing about, Lest, if used, it should draw degradation from doubt.
Thus, the first time he sought them, the creeds of his youth Wholly fail'd the strong needs of his manhood, in truth!
And beyond them, what region of refuge? what field For employment, this civilized age, did it yield, In that civilized land? or to thought? or to action?
Blind deliriums, bewilder'd and endless distraction!
Not even a desert, not even the cell Of a hermit to flee to, wherein he might quell The wild devil-instincts which now, unreprest, Ran riot through that ruin'd world in his breast.
XI.
So he lay there, like Lucifer, fresh from the sight Of a heaven scaled and lost; in the wide arms of night O'er the howling abysses of nothingness! There As he lay, Nature's deep voice was teaching him prayer;
But what had he to pray to?
The winds in the woods, The voices abroad o'er those vast solitudes, Were in commune all round with the invisible Power that walk'd the dim world by Himself at that hour.
But their language he had not yet learn'd--in despite Of the much he HAD learn'd--or forgotten it quite, With its once native accents. Alas! what had he To add to that deep-toned sublime symphony Of thanksgiving? . . . A fiery finger was still Scorching into his heart some dread sentence. His will, Like a wind that is put to no purpose, was wild At its work of destruction within him. The child Of an infidel age, he had been his own god, His own devil.
He sat on the damp mountain sod, and stared sullenly up at the dark sky.
The clouds Had heap'd themselves over the bare west in crowds Of misshapen, incongruous potents. A green Streak of dreary, cold, luminous ether, between The base of their black barricades, and the ridge Of the grim world, gleam'd ghastly, as under some bridge, Cyclop-sized, in a city of ruins o'erthrown By sieges forgotten, some river, unknown And unnamed, widens on into desolate lands.
While he gazed, that cloud-city invisible hands Dismantled and rent; and reveal'd, through a loop In the breach'd dark, the blemish'd and half-broken hoop Of the moon, which soon silently sank; and anon The whole supernatural pageant was gone.
The wide night, discomforted, conscious of loss, Darken'd round him. One object alone--that gray cross--
Glimmer'd faint on the dark. Gazing up, he descried, Through the void air, its desolate arms outstretch'd, wide, As though to embrace him.
He turn'd from the sight, Set his face to the darkness, and fled.
XII.
When the light Of the dawn grayly flicker'd and glared on the spent Wearied ends of the night, like a hope that is sent To the need of some grief when its need is the sorest, He was sullenly riding across the dark forest Toward Luchon.
Thus riding, with eyes of defiance Set against the young day, as disclaiming alliance With aught that the day brings to man, he perceived Faintly, suddenly, fleetingly, through the damp-leaved Autumn branches that put forth gaunt arms on his way, The face of a man pale and wistful, and gray With the gray glare of morning. Eugene de Luvois, With the sense of a strange second sight, when he saw That phantom-like face, could at once recognize, By the sole instinct now left to guide him, the eyes Of his rival, though fleeting the vision and dim, With a stern sad inquiry fix'd keenly on him, And, to meet it, a lie leap'd at once to his own;
A lie born of that lying darkness now grown Over all in his nature! He answer'd that gaze With a look which, if ever a man's look conveys More intensely than words what a man means convey'd Beyond doubt in its smile an announcement which said, "I have triumph'd. The question your eyes would imply Comes too late, Alfred Vargrave!"
And so he rode by, And rode on, and rode gayly, and rode out of sight, Leaving that look behind him to rankle and bite.
XIII.
And it bit, and it rankled.
XIV.
Lord Alfred, scarce knowing, Or choosing, or heeding the way he was going, By one wild hope impell'd, by one wild fear pursued, And led by one instinct, which seem'd to exclude From his mind every human sensation, save one The torture of doubt--had stray'd moodily on, Down the highway deserted, that evening in which With the Duke he had parted; stray'd on, through rich Haze of sunset, or into the gradual night, Which darken'd, unnoticed, the land from his sight, Toward Saint Saviour; nor did the changed aspect of all The wild scenery around him avail to recall To his senses their normal perceptions, until, As he stood on the black shaggy brow of the hill At the mouth of the forest, the moon, which had hung Two dark hours in a cloud, slipp'd on fire from among The rent vapors, and sunk o'er the ridge of the world.
Then he lifted his eyes, and saw round him unfurl'd, In one moment of splendor, the leagues of dark trees, And the long rocky line of the wild Pyrenees.
