Name/Title
On returning Lucille?Entry/Object ID
001892Tags
Unknown CatagoryScope and Content
On returning 'Lucile'.
I return you the volume. I sat up last night
And read the last lines by the lamp's paling light;
A few of that Lucile my affections had won;
But I can't bear to think of her turning a nun.
When the woman that charmed us can charm us no more,
When the part she has played in the novel is o'er-
Why, let her be strangled. Lucile might have died
When she had taught her old lover to love his new bride,
And while by that lover's emotions, we feel
That the last light of beauty still floats o'er Lucile.
But to turn from life's path because once she is crost,
All hearts to renounce because one heart is lost,
The wound which proud spirits hide deep, to confess
By stalking in grave-clothes instead of a dress;
Then to glide with the stealthy-faced Jesuit and sham
A faith in old bones which she knows are a flam,
And instead of a woman and womanhood's queen
To become a mock angel, a 'soeur seraphine'.
All this would, believe me, a weakness reveal
Unknown to great natures, unknown to Lucile.
If she really is worth all the pother they make,
If a man could split three pairs of gloves for her sake,
If she has that mysterious charm far above
All beauty, all riches, which genius could lend,
She knows that this world never goes as we please,
She knows stricken dear ones as thick as crushed fleas,
That to love a Lord B. is the lot of the race
And the most tragic Juliet is still commonplace.
She will trust time to deaden what time cannot heal
And live a brave woman and true to Lucile.
I see her still mix with the bright and the gay
As bright and as gay in appearance as they
With the thought of the past buried deep in her breast —
As the slain in that greenwood on Inkerman’s crest.
Her waltzing days over, she now declines balls,
But keeps up her dinners, receptions and calls;
Her genius is softened; the lustre that shon so keenly,
So keenly, shines still but its keenness is gone —
And instead of the splendor of noontide, you trace
Evening’s breath in her voice, evening’s calm in her face —.
She has pity for all, strives all sorrows to soothe
And for Constance and Alfred makes love’s course run smooth.
No doubt at her villa the Dorcas Club meets,
And she’s foremost in getting up Sunday school treats;
A sister of charity found at the post
When, Heaven knows, charity is wanted the most.
And sometimes, when tattle and crowds are a bore,
Or at some touch of memory the full heart runs o’er —
To that garden that looks on the hills she may steal
And dream of the past and the lost of Lucile.
But see, while I write, o'er the drear waste of snow
The coy sun of Ithaca struggles to glow;
I set out for my walk and no doubt I shall feel
Full of virtue and sense after lecturing Lucile.
