Читать книгу Sunrise - Black William - Страница 20

"Oh thou, clothed round with raiment of white waves,

Thy brave brows lightening through the gray wet air,

Thou, lulled with sea-sounds of a thousand caves,

And lit with sea-shine to thy inland lair,

Whose freedom clothed the naked souls of slaves

And stripped the muffled souls of tyrants bare,

Oh, by the centuries of thy glorious graves,

By the live light of the earth that was thy care,

Live, thou must not be dead,

Live; let thy armed head

Lift itself up to sunward and the fair

Daylight of time and man,

Thine head republican,

With the same splendor on thine helmless hair

That in his eyes kept up a light

Who on thy glory gazed away their sacred sight."

The cry there was in this voice! Surely his heart answered,

"Oh Milton's land, what ails thee to be dead!"

Was it in this very room, he wondered, that the old Polish refugee was used to lift up his trembling hand and bid his compatriots drink to "the white chalk-line beyond the sea?" How could he forget, as he and she sat together that morning, and gazed across the blue waters to the far and sunlit line of coast, the light that shone on her face as she said, "If I were English, how proud I should be of England!" And this England of her veneration and her love—did it not contain some, at least, who would answer to her appeal?

Presently Natalie Lind shut the book and gently laid it down, and stole out of the room. She was gone only for a few seconds. When she returned, she had in her hand a volume of sketches, of which she had been speaking during dinner.

He did not open this volume at once. On the contrary, he was silent for a little while; and then he looked up, and addressed Natalie, with a strange grave smile on his face.

"I was about to tell your father, Miss Lind, when you came in, that if I could not translate for you, or carry a message across the Atlantic for him, he might at least find something else that I can do. At all events, may I say that I am willing to join you, if I can be of any help at all?"

Ferdinand Lind regarded him for a second, and said, quite calmly,

"It is unnecessary. You have already joined us."