The Lost Clue
C. U. D. (poet; Macmillan’s)
C. U. D.
Metadata research and editing
DVPP Project Team
Kailey
Fukushima
University of Victoria Digital Victorian Periodical Poetry Project
Victoria, BC, Canada
In the public domain
Macmillan’s Magazine
3
13
34–35
I watch the fire burning low,
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The Lost Clue
.
I watch the fire burning low,
And muse upon the dreamy past ;
Uncalled its visions come and go,
Nor swiftly rise, nor ling’ring last.
It was not so in days of old—
I watched not then a flick’ring flame ;
Each morn its tale of duty told,
And noble fancies quick’ning came ;
And round my life a golden thread,
That softly bound it, still ran on ;
Unravel’d now, all worn and frayed,
The strands hang idle, one by one.
I take them up, but cannot twine
A constant purpose through the day ;
And that old strength—nay, was it mine
Or hers ? and with her past away ?
Within the grate how dimly move
The visionary forms, and blend !
The gleaming slabs around, above,
Fit framework to the pictures lend.
And ever there she moves along,
The laughing child, the sweet bright[girl
;
Ah ! did I hear a well-known song,
That thus my pulses throb and whirl ?
Mark where about a rustic porch
The rose o’ertops the eglantine ;
Look, in the doorway’s low-brow’d arch,
She sits, half shadow, half in shine.
Why plays the blush along her cheek ?
Why drop the steadfast eyes so low ?
The lips are parted—doth she speak,
Or comes the quick breath to and fro ?
And all in shadow, see, there stands
A youth that pleads,—you cannot
doubt
His pleading,—see the trembling hands
Steal down to find each other out.
’Tis gone—how chill it is to-night !
A flame shoots up, and thro’ the
room
Its sudden gleams dart on, and light
A picture hanging in the gloom ;
And in the weird and mystic gleam
The canvas glows and stirs with life ;
The sweet face smiles, the liquid beam
Rekindles in thine eyes, dear wife ;
And closer to thy mother-breast
The dear arms strain the babe that lies
Encradled there ;—ah, me ! that nest
Brief home it gave, brief love those
eyes
Ah, no ! no love is brief—I feel
Love cannot die—why linger here ?—
Beside thy bed, dear wife, I kneel,
And seem thy sweet low voice to
hear,—
“ Pine not, dear love,” it seems to say,
“ Nor let an idle sorrow quell
The constant will, the thought, the play
Of fancy that I love so well.
“ I shall not see thee rise, nor see
The promise of our child unfold ;
But thou wilt watch her ; she will be
More than her mother was of old.
“ I could have wished—but God is good,
How good we know not yet—and
thou
Wilt watch the child, whose womanhood
Can know, dear heart, no mother
now.”
Is this a vision too ? ’Tis past—
The embers smoulder in the grate,
And thro’ the shutter comes at last
The struggling day-beam, chill and
late.
But through the twilight lightly falls
A prattling voice upon my ear ;
Dear child, that tone my strength re-
calls,
In thine thy mother’s voice I hear.
C. U. D.