to and fro, murmuring to herself fragments of well-remembered poetry. She spoke very low, but Shirley heard her, and while singing softly, she listened. This was the strain:
The Atlantic billows roar’d,
When such a destined wretch as I,
Washed headlong from on board,
Of friends, of hope, of all bereft,
His floating home for ever left.’
Here the fragment stopped, because Shirley’s song, erewhile somewhat full and thrilling, had become delicately faint.
‘Go on,’ said she.
‘Then you go on, too. I was only repeating “The Castaway.”’
‘I know; if you can remember it all, say it all.’
And as it was nearly dark, and, after all, Miss Keeldar was no formidable auditor, Caroline went through it. She went through it as she should have gone through it. The wild sea, the drowning mariner, the reluctant ship swept on in the storm, you heard were realized by her; and more vividly was realized the heart of the poet, who did not weep for ‘The Castaway,’ but who, in an hour of tearless anguish, traced a semblance to his own God-abandoned misery in the fate of that man-forsaken sailor, and cried from the depths where he struggled:
No light propitious shone,
When, snatch’d from all effectual aid,
We perish’d—each alone!
But I—beneath a rougher sea,
And whelm’d in deeper gulfs than he.’
‘I hope William Cowper is safe and calm in heaven now,’ said Caroline.
‘Do you pity what he suffered on earth?’ asked Miss Keeldar.
‘Pity him, Shirley? What can I do else? He was nearly broken-hearted when he wrote that poem, and it almost breaks one’s heart to read it. But he found relief in writing it—I know he did; and that gift of poetry—the most Divine bestowed on man—was, I believe, granted to allay emotions when their strength threatens harm. It seems to me, Shirley, that nobody should write poetry to exhibit intellect or attainment. Who cares for that sort of poetry? Who cares for learning—who cares for fine words in poetry? And who does not care for feeling—real feeling—however simply, even rudely, expressed?’
‘It seems you care for it, at all events; and certainly, in hearing that poem, one discovers that Cowper was under an impulse strong as that of the wind which drove the ship—an impulse which, while it would not suffer him to stop to add ornament to a single stanza, filled him with force to achieve the whole with consummate perfection. You managed to recite it with a steady voice, Caroline; I wonder thereat.’
‘Cowper’s hand did not tremble in writing the lines: why should my voice falter in repeating them? Depend on it, Shirley, no tear blistered the manuscript of “The Castaway”—I hear in it no sob of sorrow, only the cry of despair; but, that cry uttered, I believe the deadly spasm passed from his heart; that he wept abundantly, and was comforted.’
Shirley resumed her ballad minstrelsy. Stopping short, she remarked erelong:
‘One could have loved Cowper, if it were only for the sake of having the privilege of comforting him.’
‘You never would have loved Cowper,’ rejoined Caroline promptly; ‘he was not made to be loved by woman.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What I say. I know there is a kind of natures in the world—and very noble, elevated natures, too—whom love never comes near. You might have sought Cowper with the intention of loving him; and you would