Ardath, Marie Corelli [e ink ebook reader txt] 📗

that warm flush upon her face!—the splendid hope, faith, and triumph of her attitude! What strange miracle was here accomplished!—an Angel had become human for the sake of love, even as light substantiates itself in the colors of flowers!—the Eden lily had consented to be gathered,—the paradise dove had fluttered down to earth! Breathless, bewildered, lifted to a height of transport beyond all words, Alwyn gazed upon her in entranced, devout silence,—the vast cathedral seemed to swing round and round in great glittering circles, and nothing was real, nothing steadfast, but that slight, sweet maiden in her soft gray robes, with the Ardath-blossoms gleaming white against her breast! Angel she was,—angel she ever would be,—and yet—what did she SEEM? Naught but:

 

“A child-like woman, wise and very fair, Crowned with the garland of her golden hair!”

 

This, and no more,—and yet in this was all earth and all heaven comprised!—He gazed and gazed, overwhelmed by the amazement of his own bliss,—he could have gazed upon her so in speechless ravishment for hours, when, with a gesture of infinite grace and appeal, she stretched out her hands toward him: “Speak to me, dearest one!” she murmured wistfully—“Tell me,—am I welcome?”

 

“O exquisite humility!—O beautiful maiden-timid hesitation! Was she,—even she, God’s Angel, so far removed from pride, as to be uncertain of her lover’s reception of such a gift of love? Roused from his half-swooning sense of wonder, he caught those gentle hands, and laid them tenderly against his breast,—tremblingly, and all devoutly, he drew the lovely, yielding form into his arms, close to his heart,—with dazzled sight he gazed down into that pure, perfect face, those clear and holy eyes shining like new-created stars beneath the soft cloud of clustering fair hair!

 

“Welcome!” he echoed, in a tone that thrilled with passionate awe and ecstasy;—“My Edris! My Saint! My Queen! Welcome, more welcome than the first flowers seen after winter snows!—welcome, more welcome than swift rescue to one in dire peril!—welcome, my Angel, into the darkness of mortal things, which haply so sweet a Presence shall make bright! O sacred innocence that I am not worthy to shield! … O sinless beauty that I am all unfitted to claim or possess! Welcome to my life, my heart, my soul! Welcome, sweet Trust, sweet Hope, sweet Love, that as Christ lives, I will never wrong, betray, or resign again through all the glory spaces of far Eternity!”

 

As he spoke, his arms closed more surely about her,—his lips met hers,—and in the mingled human and divine rapture of that moment, there came a rushing noise, as of thousands of wings beating the air, followed by a mighty wave of music that rolled approachingly and then departingly through and through the Cathedral arches—and a Voice, clear and resonant as a silver clarion, proclaimed aloud: “Those whom GOD hath joined together, let no MAN put asunder!”

 

Then, with a surging, jubilant sound, like the sea in a storm, the music seemed to tread past in a measured march of stately harmony,—and presently there was silence once more,—the silence and sunshine of the morning pouring through the rose windows of the church and sparkling on the Cross above the Altar,—the silence of a love made perfect,—of twin souls made ONE!

 

And then Edris drew herself gently from her lover’s embrace and raised her head,—putting her hand confidingly in his, a lovely smile played on her sweetly parted lips: “Take me, Theos,” she said softly, “Lead me,—into the World!”

 

 

Slowly the great side-doors of the Cathedral swung back on their hinges,—and out on the steps in a glorious blaze of sunlight came Poet and Angel together. The one, a man in the full prime of splendid and vigorous manhood,—the other, a maiden, timid and sweet, robed in gray attire with a posy of white flowers at her throat. A simple girl, and most distinctly human,—the fresh, pure color reddened in her cheeks,—the soft springtide wind fanned her gold hair, and the sunbeams seemed to dance about her in a bright revel of amaze and curiosity. Her lustrous eyes dwelt on the busy Platz below with a vaguely compassionate wonder—a look that suggested some far foreknowledge of things, that at the same time were strangely unfamiliar. Hand in hand with her companion she stood,—while he, holding her fast, drunk in the pureness of her beauty, the love-light of her glance, the holy radiance of her smile, till every sense in him was spiritualized anew by the passionate faith and reverence in his heart, the marvellous glory that had fallen upon his life, the nameless rapture that possessed his soul!—To have knelt at her feet, and bowed his head before her in worshipping silence, would have been to follow the strongest impulse in him,—but she had given him a higher duty than this. He was to “LEAD HER,”—lead her “into the world!”—the dreary, dark world, so unfitted to receive such brightness,—she had come to him clad in all the sacred weakness of womanhood; and it was his proud privilege to guard and shelter her from evil,—

from the evil in others, but chiefly from the evil in himself. No taint must touch that spotless life with which God had entrusted him!—sorrow might come—nay, MUST come, since, so long as humanity errs, so long must angels grieve,—sorrow, but not sin! A grand, awed sense of responsibility filled him,—a responsibility that he accepted with passionate gratitude and joy … he had attained a vaster dignity than any king on any throne, … and all the visible Universe was transfigured into a golden pageant of loveliness and light, fairer than the fabled Valley of Avilion!

 

Yet still he kept her close beside him on the steps of the mighty Dom, half-longing, half-hesitating to take her further, and ever and anon assailed by a dreamy doubt as to whether she might not even now pass away from him suddenly and swiftly, as a mist fading into heaven,—when all at once the sound of beating drums and martial trumpets struck loudly on the quiet morning air. A brilliant regiment of mounted Uhlans emerged from an opposite street, and cantered sharply across the Platz and over the Rhine-bridge, with streaming pennons, burnished helmets and accoutrements glistening in a long compact line of silvery white, that vanished as speedily as it had appeared, like a winding flash of meteor flame. Alwyn drew a deep, quick breath; the sight of those armed soldiers roused him to the fact that he was actually in the turmoil of present daily events,—that his supernal happiness was no vision, but REALITY,—that Edris, his Spirit-love, was with him in tangible human guise of flesh and blood,—

though how such a mysterious marvel had been accomplished, he knew no more than scientists know how the lovely life of green leaf and perfect flower can still be existent in seeds that have lain dormant and dry in old tombs for thousands of years! And as he looked at her proudly,—adoringly,—she raised her beautiful, innocent, questioning eyes to his.

 

“This is a city?” she asked—“a city of men who labor for good, and serve each other?”

 

“Alas, not so, my sweet!” he answered, his voice trembling with its own infinite tenderness; “there is no city on the sad Earth where men do not labor for mere vanity’s sake, and oppose each other!”

 

Her inquiring gaze softened into a celestial compassion.

 

“Come,—let us go!” she said gently. “We twain, made one in love and faith, must hasten to begin our work!—darkness gathers and deepens over the Sorrowful Star,—but we, perchance, with Christ’s most holy Blessing, may help to lift the Shadows into Light!”

 

*

 

Away in a sheltered mountainous retreat, apart from the louder clamor of the world, the Poet and his heavenly companion dwell in peace together. Their love, their wondrous happiness, no mortal language can define,—for spiritual love perfected as far exceeds material passion as the steadfast glory of the sun outshines the nickering of an earthly taper. Few, very few, there are who recognize, or who attain, such joy,—for men chiefly occupy themselves with the SEMBLANCES of things, and therefore fail to grasp all high realities. Perishable beauty,—perishable fame,—

these are mere appearances; imperishable Worth is the only positive and lasting good, and in the search for imperishable Worth alone, the seeker must needs encounter Angels unawares!

 

But for those whose pleasure it is to doubt and deny all spiritual life and being, the history of Theos Alwyn can be disposed of with much languid ease and cold logic, as a foolish chimera scarce worth narrating. Practically viewed, there is nothing wonderful in it, since it can all be traced to a powerful exertion of magnetic skill. Tranced into a dream bewilderment by the arts of the mystic Chaldean, Heliobas,—tricked into visiting the Field of Ardath, what more likely than that a real earth-born maiden, trained to her part, should have met the dreamer there, and, with the secret aid of the hermit Elezar, continued his strange delusion? What more fitting as a sequel to the whole, than that the same maiden should have been sent to him again in the great Rhine Cathedral, to complete the deception and satisfy his imagination by linking her life finally with his?—It is a perfectly simple explanation of what some credulous souls might be inclined to consider a mystery,—and let the dear, wise, oracular people who cannot admit any mystery in anything, and who love to trace all seeming miracles to clever imposture, accept this elucidation by all means,—they will be able to fit every incident of the story into such an hypothesis, with most admirable and consecutive neatness!

Al-Kyris was truly a Vision,—the rest was,—What? Merely the working of a poetic imagination under mesmeric influence!

 

So be it! The Poet knows the truth,—but what are Poets? Only the Prophets and Seers! Only the Eyes of Time, which clearly behold Heaven’s Fact beyond this world’s Fable. Let them sing if they choose, and we will hear them in our idle hours,—we will give them a little of our gold,—a little of our grudging praise, together with much of our private practical contempt and misprisal! So say the unthinking and foolish—so will they ever say,—and hence it is, that though the fame of Theos Alwyn widens year by year, and his sweet clarion harp of Song rings loud warning, promise, hope, and consolation above the noisy tumult of the whirling age, people listen to him merely in vague wonderment and awe, doubting his prophet utterance, and loth to put away their sin. But he, never weary in well-doing, works on, … ever regardless of Self, caring nothing for Fame, but giving all the riches of his thought for Love. Clear, grand, pure, and musical, his writings fill the time with hope and passionate faith and courage,—his inspiration fails not, and can never fail, since Edris is his fount of ecstasy,—his name, made glorious by God’s blessing, shall never, as in his perished Past, be again forgotten!

 

And what of Edris? What of the “Flower-crowned Wonder” of the Field of Ardath, strayed for a while out of her native Heaven?

Does the world know her marvellous origin? Perhaps the mystic Heliobas knows,—perhaps even good Frank Villiers has hazarded a reverent guess at his friend’s great secret—but to the uninstructed, what does she seem?

 

Nothing but a WOMAN, MOST PURE WOMANLY; a woman whose influence on all is strangely sweet and lasting,—whose spirit overflows with tenderest sympathy for the many wants and sorrows of mankind,—

whose voice charms away care,—whose smile engenders peace,—whose eyes, lustrous and thoughtful, are unclouded by any shadow of sin,—and on whose serene beauty the passing of years leaves no visible trace. That she is fair