years,          415

We might be still as happy as God grants

To any of His creatures. Think upon it:

For I am well-to-do—no kin, no care,

No burthen, save my care for you and yours:

And we have known each other all our lives,          420

And I have loved you longer than you know.’

 

  Then answer’d Annie; tenderly she spoke:

‘You have been as God’s good angel in our house.

God bless you for it, God reward you for it,

Philip, with something happier than myself.          425

Can one love twice? can you be ever loved

As Enoch was? what is it that you ask?’

‘I am content’ he answer’d ‘to be loved

A little after Enoch.’ ‘O’ she cried

Scared as it were ‘dear Philip, wait a while:          430

If Enoch comes—but Enoch will not come—

Yet wait a year, a year is not so long:

Surely I shall be wiser in a year:

O wait a little!’ Philip sadly said

‘Annie, as I have waited all my life          435

I well may wait a little.’ ‘Nay’ she cried

‘I am bound: you have my promise—in a year:

Will you not bide your year as I bide mine?’

And Philip answer’d ‘I will bide my year.’

 

  Here both were mute, till Philip glancing up          440

Beheld the dead flame of the fallen day

Pass from the Danish barrow overhead;

Then fearing night and chill for Annie, rose

And sent his voice beneath him thro’ the wood.

Up came the children laden with their spoil;          445

Then all descended to the port, and there

At Annie’s door he paused and gave his hand,

Saying gently ‘Annie, when I spoke to you,

That was your hour of weakness. I was wrong.

I am always bound to you, but you are free.’          450

Then Annie weeping answer’d ‘I am bound.’

 

  She spoke; and in one moment as it were,

While yet she went about her household ways,

Ev’n as she dwelt upon his latest words,

That he had lov’d her longer than she knew,          455

That autumn into autumn flash’d again,

And there he stood once more before her face,

Claiming her promise. ‘Is it a year?’ she ask’d.

‘Yes, if the nuts’ he said ‘be ripe again:

Come out and see.’ But she—she put him off—          460

So much to look to—such a change—a month—

Give her a month—she knew that she was bound—

A month—no more. Then Philip with his eyes

Full of that lifelong hunger, and his voice

Shaking a little like a drunkard’s hand,          465

‘Take your own time, Annie, take your own time.’

And Annie could have wept for pity of him;

And yet she held him on delayingly

With many a scarce-believable excuse,

Trying his truth and his long-sufferance,          470

Till half-another year had slipped away.

 

  By this the lazy gossips of the port,

Abhorrent of a calculation crost

Began to chafe as at a personal wrong.

Some thought that Philip did but trifle with her;          475

Some that she but held off to draw him on;

And others laugh’d at her and Philip too,

As simple folk that knew not their own minds;

And one, in whom all evil fancies clung

Like serpent eggs together, laughingly          480

Would hint at worse in either. Her own son

Was silent, tho’ he often look’d his wish;

But evermore the daughter prest upon her

To wed the man so dear to all of them

And lift the household out of poverty;          485

And Philip’s rosy face contracting grew

Careworn and wan; and all these things fell on her

Sharp as reproach.

 

                    At last one night it chanced

That Annie could not sleep, but earnestly          490

Pray’d for a sign ‘my Enoch is he gone?’

Then compass’d round by the blind wall of night

Brook’d not the expectant terror of her heart,

Started from bed, and struck herself a light,

Then desperately seized the holy Book,          495

Suddenly set it wide to find a sign,

Suddenly put her finger on the text,

‘Under a palmtree.’ That was nothing to her:

No meaning there: she closed the Book and slept:

When lo! her Enoch sitting on a height,          500

Under a palmtree, over him the Sun:

‘He is gone,’ she thought, ‘he is happy, he is singing

Hosanna in the highest: yonder shines

The Sun of Righteousness, and these be palms

Whereof the happy people strowing cried          505

“Hosanna in the highest!”’ Here she woke,

Resolved, sent for him and said wildly to him

‘There is no reason why we should not wed.’

‘Then for God’s sake,’ he answer’d, ‘both our sakes,

So you will wed me, let it be at once.’          510

 

  So these were wed and merrily rang the bells,

Merrily rang the bells and they were wed.

But never merrily beat Annie’s heart.

A footstep seem’d to fall beside her path,

She knew not whence; a whisper on her ear,          515

She knew not what; nor loved she to be left

Alone at home nor ventured out alone.

What ail’d her then, that ere she enter’d, often

Her hand dwelt lingeringly on the latch,

Fearing to enter: Philip thought he knew:          520

Such doubts and fears were common to her state,

Being with child: but when her child was born,

Then her new child was as herself renew’d,

Then the new mother came about her heart,

Then her good Philip was her all-in-all,          525

And that mysterious instinct wholly died.

 

  And where was Enoch? prosperously sail’d

The ship ‘Good Fortune,’ tho’ at setting forth

The Biscay, roughly ridging eastward, shook

And almost overwhelm’d her, yet unvext          530

She slipt across the summer of the world,

Then after a long tumble about the Cape

And frequent interchange of foul and fair,

She passing thro’ the summer world again,

The breath of heaven came continually          535

And sent her sweetly by the golden isles,

Till silent in her oriental haven.

 

  There Enoch traded for himself, and bought

Quaint monsters for the market of those times,

A gilded dragon also for the babes.          540

 

  Less lucky her home-voyage: at first indeed

Thro’ many a fair sea-circle, day by day,

Scarce-rocking, her full-busted figure-head

Stared o’er the ripple feathering from her bows:

Then follow’d calms, and then winds variable,          545

Then baffling, a long course of them; and last

Storm, such as drove her under moonless heavens

Till hard upon the cry of ‘breakers’ came

The crash of ruin, and the loss of all

But Enoch and two others. Half the night,          550

Buoy’d upon floating tackle and broken spars,

These drifted, stranding on an isle at morn

Rich, but the loneliest in a lonely sea.

 

  No want was there of human sustenance,

Soft fruitage, mighty nuts, and nourishing roots;          555

Nor save for pity was it hard to take

The helpless life so wild that it was tame.

There in a seaward-gazing mountain-gorge

They built, and thatch’d with leaves of palm, a hut,

Half hut, half native cavern. So the three,          560

Set in this Eden of all plenteousness,

Dwelt with eternal summer, ill-content.

 

  For one, the youngest, hardly more than boy,

Hurt in that night of sudden ruin and wreck,

Lay lingering out a three years’ death-in-life.          565

They could not leave him. After he was gone,

The two remaining found a fallen stem;

And Enoch’s comrade, careless of himself,

Fire-hollowing this in Indian fashion, fell

Sun-stricken, and that other lived alone.          570

In those two deaths he read God’s warning ‘wait.’

 

  The mountain wooded to the peak, the lawns

And winding glades high up like ways to Heaven,

The slender coco’s drooping crown of plumes,

The lightning flash of insect and of bird,          575

The lustre of the long convolvuluses

That coil’d around the stately stems, and ran

Ev’n to the limit of the land, the glows

And glories of the broad belt of the world,

All these he saw; but what he fain had seen          580

He could not see, the kindly human face,

Nor ever hear a kindly voice, but heard

The myriad shriek of wheeling ocean-fowl,

The league-long roller thundering on the reef,

The moving whisper of huge trees that branch’d          585

And blossom’d in the zenith, or the sweep

Of some precipitous rivulet to the wave,

As down the shore he ranged, or all day long

Sat often in the seaward-gazing gorge,

A shipwreck’d sailor, waiting for a sail:          590

No sail from day to day, but every day

The sunrise broken into scarlet shafts

Among the palms and ferns and precipices;

The blaze upon the waters to the east;

The blaze upon his island overhead;          595

The blaze upon the waters to the west;

Then the great stars that globed themselves in Heaven,

The hollower-bellowing ocean, and again

The scarlet shafts of sunrise—but no sail.

 

  There often as he watch’d or seem’d to watch,          600

So still, the golden lizard on him paused,

A phantom made of many phantoms moved

Before him haunting him, or he himself

Moved haunting people, things and places, known

Far in a darker isle beyond the line;          605

The babes, their babble, Annie, the small house,

The climbing street, the mill, the leafy lanes,

The peacock-yewtree and the lonely Hall,

The horse he drove, the boat he sold, the chill

November dawns and dewy-glooming downs,          610

The gentle shower, the smell of dying leaves,

And the low moan of leaden-colour’d seas.

 

  Once likewise, in the ringing of his ears,

Tho’ faintly, merrily—far and far away—

He heard the pealing of his parish bells;          615

Then, tho’ he knew not wherefore, started up

Shuddering, and when the beauteous hateful isle

Return’d upon him, had not his poor heart

Spoken with That, which being everywhere

Lets none, who speaks with Him, seem all alone,          620

Surely the man had died of solitude.

 

  Thus over Enoch’s early-silvering head

The sunny and rainy seasons came and went

Year after year. His hopes to see his own,

And pace the sacred old familiar fields,          625

Not yet had perished, when his lonely doom

Came suddenly to an end. Another ship

(She wanted water) blown by baffling winds,

Like the Good Fortune, from her destined course,

Stay’d by this isle, not knowing where she lay:          630

For since the mate had seen at early dawn