class="line">Across a break on the mist-wreathen isle

The silent water slipping from the hills,

They sent a crew that landing burst away

In search of stream or fount, and fill’d the shores          635

With clamour. Downward from his mountain gorge

Stept the long-hair’d, long-bearded solitary,

Brown, looking hardly human, strangely clad,

Muttering and mumbling, idiotlike it seem’d,

With inarticulate rage, and making signs          640

They knew not what: and yet he led the way

To where the rivulets of sweet water ran;

And ever as he mingled with the crew,

And heard them talking, his long-bounden tongue

Was loosen’d, till he made them understand;          645

Whom, when their casks were fill’d they took aboard:

And there the tale he utter’d brokenly,

Scarce credited at first but more and more,

Amazed and melted all who listen’d to it:

And clothes they gave him and free passage home;          650

But oft he work’d among the rest and shook

His isolation from him. None of these

Came from his county, or could answer him,

If question’d, aught of what he cared to know.

And dull the voyage was with long delays,          655

The vessel scarce sea-worthy; but evermore

His fancy fled before the lazy wind

Returning, till beneath a clouded moon

He like a lover down thro’ all his blood

Drew in the dewy meadowy morning-breath          660

Of England, blown across her ghostly wall:

And that same morning officers and men

Levied a kindly tax upon themselves,

Pitying the lonely man and gave him it:

Then moving up the coast they landed him,          665

Ev’n in that harbour whence he sail’d before.

 

  There Enoch spoke no word to anyone,

But homeward—home—what home? had he a home?

His home, he walk’d. Bright was that afternoon,

Sunny but chill; till drawn thro’ either chasm,          670

Where either haven open’d on the deeps,

Roll’d a sea-haze and whelm’d the world in gray;

Cut off the length of highway on before,

And left but narrow breadth to left and right

Of wither’d holt or tilth or pasturage.          675

On the nigh-naked tree the robin piped

Disconsolate, and thro’ the dripping haze

The dead weight of the dead leaf bore it down:

Thicker the drizzle grew, deeper the gloom;

Last, as it seem’d, a great mist-blotted light          680

Flared on him, and he came upon the place.

 

  Then down the long street having slowly stolen,

His heart foreshadowing all calamity,

His eyes upon the stones, he reach’d the home

Where Annie lived and loved him, and his babes          685

In those far-off seven happy years were born;

But finding neither light nor murmur there

(A bill of sale gleam’d thro’ the drizzle) crept

Still downward thinking ‘dead or dead to me!’

 

  Down to the pool and narrow wharf he went,          690

Seeking a tavern which of old he knew,

A front of timber-crost antiquity,

So propt, worm-eaten, ruinously old,

He thought it must have gone; but he was gone

Who kept it; and his widow, Miriam Lane,          695

With daily-dwindling profits held the house;

A haunt of brawling seamen once, but now

Stiller, with yet a bed for wandering men.

There Enoch rested silent many days.

 

  But Miriam Lane was good and garrulous,          700

Nor let him be, but often breaking in,

Told him with other annals of the port,

Not knowing—Enoch was so brown, so bow’d

So broken—all the story of his house.

His baby’s death, her growing poverty,          705

How Philip put her little ones to school,

And kept them in it, his long wooing her,

Her slow consent, and marriage, and the birth

Of Philip’s child: and o’er his countenance

No shadow past, nor motion: anyone,          710

Regarding, well had deem’d he felt the tale

Less than the teller: only when she closed

‘Enoch, poor man, was cast away and lost’

He, shaking his gray head pathetically,

Repeated muttering ‘cast away and lost;’          715

Again in deeper inward whispers ‘lost!’

 

  But Enoch yearn’d to see her face again;

‘If I might look on her sweet face again

And know that she is happy.’ So the thought

Haunted and harass’d him, and drove him forth,          720

At evening when the dull November day

Was growing duller twilight, to the hill.

There he sat down gazing on all below;

There did a thousand memories roll upon him,

Unspeakable for sadness. By and by          725

The ruddy square of comfortable light,

Far-blazing from the rear of Philip’s house,

Allured him, as the beacon-blaze allures

The bird of passage, till he madly strikes

Against it, and beats out his weary life.          730

 

  For Philip’s dwelling fronted on the street,

The latest house to landward; but behind,

With one small gate that open’d on the waste,

Flourish’d a little garden square and wall’d:

And in it throve an ancient evergreen,          735

A yewtree, and all around it ran a walk

Of shingle, and a walk divided it:

But Enoch shunn’d the middle walk and stole

Up by the wall, behind the yew; and thence

That which he better might have shunn’d, if griefs          740

Like his have worse or better, Enoch saw.

 

  For cups and silver on the burnish’d board

Sparkled and shone; so genial was the hearth:

And on the right hand of the hearth he saw

Philip, the slighted suitor of old times,          745

Stout, rosy, with his babe across his knees;

And o’er her second father stoopt a girl,

A later but a loftier Annie Lee,

Fair-hair’d and tall, and from her lifted hand

Dangled a length of ribbon and a ring          750

To tempt the babe, who rear’d his creasy arms,

Caught at and ever miss’d it, and they laugh’d:

And on the left hand of the hearth he saw

The mother glancing often toward her babe,

But turning now and then to speak with him,          755

Her son, who stood beside her tall and strong,

And saying that which pleased him, for he smiled.

 

  Now when the dead man come to life beheld

His wife his wife no more, and saw the babe

Hers, yet not his, upon the father’s knee,          760

And all the warmth, the peace, the happiness,

And his own children tall and beautiful,

And him, that other, reigning in his place,

Lord of his rights and of his children’s love,—

Then he, tho’ Miriam Lane had told him all,          765

Because things seen are mightier than things heard,

Stagger’d and shook, holding the branch, and fear’d

To send abroad a shrill and terrible cry,

Which in one moment, like the blast of doom,

Would shatter all the happiness of the hearth.          770

 

  He therefore turning softly like a thief,

Lest the harsh shingle should grate underfoot,

And feeling all along the garden-wall,

Lest he should swoon and tumble and be found,

Crept to the gate, and open’d it, and closed,          775

As lightly as a sick man’s chamber-door,

Behind him, and came out upon the waste.

 

  And there he would have knelt, but that his knees

Were feeble, so that falling prone he dug

His fingers into the wet earth, and pray’d.          780

 

  ‘Too hard to bear! why did they take me thence?

O God Almighty, blessed Saviour, Thou

That did’st uphold me on my lonely isle,

Uphold me, Father, in my loneliness

A little longer! aid me, give me strength          785

Not to tell her, never to let her know.

Help me not to break in upon her peace.

My children too! must I not speak to these?

They know me not. I should betray myself.

Never: no father’s kiss for me—the girl          790

So like her mother, and the boy, my son.’

 

  There speech and thought and nature fail’d a little,

And he lay tranced; but when he rose and paced

Back toward his solitary home again,

All down the long and narrow street he went          795

Beating it in upon his weary brain,

As tho’ it were the burthen of a song,

‘Not to tell her, never to let her know.’

 

  He was not all unhappy. His resolve

Upbore him, and firm faith, and evermore          800

Prayer from the living source within the will,

And beating up thro’ all the bitter world,

Like fountains of sweet water in the sea,

Kept him a living soul. ‘This miller’s wife’

He said to Miriam ‘that you told me of,          805

Has she no fear that her first husband lives?’

‘Ay, ay, poor soul’ said Miriam, ‘fear enow!

If you could tell her you had seen him dead,

Why, that would be her comfort;’ and he thought

‘After the Lord has call’d me she shall know,          810

I wait his time’ and Enoch set himself,

Scorning an alms, to work whereby to live.

Almost to all things could he turn his hand.

Cooper he was and carpenter, and wrought

To make the boatmen fishing-nets, or help’d          815

At lading and unlading the tall barks,

That brought the stinted commerce of those days;

Thus earn’d a scanty living for himself:

Yet since he did but labour for himself,

Work without hope, there was not life in it          820

Whereby the man could live; and as the year

Roll’d itself round again to meet the day

When Enoch had return’d, a languor came

Upon him, gentle sickness, gradually

Weakening the man, till he could do no more,          825

But kept the house, his chair, and last his bed.

And Enoch bore his weakness cheerfully.

For sure no gladlier does the stranded wreck

See thro’ the gray skirts of a lifting squall

The boat that bears the hope of life approach          830

To save the life despair’d of, than he saw

Death dawning on him, and the close of all.

 

  For thro’ that dawning gleam’d a kindlier hope

On Enoch thinking ‘after I am gone,

Then may she learn I loved her to the last.’          835

He call’d aloud for Miriam Lane and said

‘Woman, I have a secret—only swear,

Before I tell you—swear upon the book

Not to reveal it, till you see me dead.’

‘Dead,’ clamour’d the good woman, ‘hear him talk!          840

I warrant, man, that we shall bring you round.’

‘Swear’ added Enoch sternly ‘on the book.’

And on the book, half-frighted, Miriam swore.

Then Enoch rolling his gray eyes upon her,

‘Did you know Enoch Arden of this town?’          845

‘Know him?’ she said ‘I knew him far away.

Ay, ay, I mind him coming down the street;

Held his head high, and cared for no man, he.’

Slowly