The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-05-19

- Ys: Year after year; Fl, His hopes to see his own Each kept the vision of his wife and babes, as last he saw them, constantly before his eyes. Miss Proctor's hero saw
 "A fair face but pale with sorrow,
 With blue eyes brimful of tears
 And the little red mouth quivering
 With smile to hide its fears;
 Holding out the baby toward me,
 So it was that last saw her
 As the ship put out to sea-"
 And before Arden there came "A phantom made of many phantoms things and places known Far Tn darker isle beyond the line; house."
 Each was mourned as dead; and like the dead, in due season, forgotten. Each was rescued, and each returned to his wife-not his wife. Each found that no man is indispensable to the worlds happiness or prosperity even husbands can be replaced.
 The wandering old mariner says:
 "So at last we reached the harbor,
 remember nothing more,
 
 With my hand upon the door.
 Then paused-I heard her speaking;
 Low, soft words she said;
 
 She was seated by the fire;
 In her arms she held child,
 Whispering baby words caressing,
 And then looked up and smiled
 Smiled on him who stood beside her.
 Oh, the bitter truth was told
 In her look of trusting fondness-
 had seen that look of old.
 So with Enoch Then moving up the coast they landed him Ev'n in that harbor whence he sailed before.
  And on the right of the hearth he saw Philip, the sighted suitor of old times, Stout, rosy, with his babe across his knees; And Der her second father stopped girl, A later. but loftier Annie Lee, Fair hair'd and tall, and from her lifted hand Dangled length of ribbon and a ring To tempt the babe.
 The bitter agony of these revela- tions, the direful injury done, the in- nocence of purpose, and the awful re- suits which would follow the lost all produced sorrow the more con- suming because it could not vent itself against any person or thing but the blind cruelty of fate. Miss Proctor's heart broken, though resolute, outcast says, forgivingly and passionately
 drew near and nearer to her,
 And l took her trembling hand,
 Looking on her white face, looking
 That she might understand
 All the love and all the pity
 That my lips refused to say.
 thank God no thought save sorrow
 Rose Tn our crushed hearts that day. The same divine bravery and Christ like sacrifice breathed through Enoch's prayer,
 Not to tell her, never to let her know. And as he turned back into the dark ness of the night and the darker night of despair, so the other martyr
 =" rose, and turning Wrung his hand but made no sign;
 And l stopped and kissed her forehead Once more, as if she were mine.
 Nothing of farewell uttered, Save in broken words to pray
 That God would ever guard and bless her Then in silence passed away.
 read the poem quite through in breathless suspense, and then re-read it. And when had brushed away the unbidden tears, curiosity led me to re- view the history of the author and her works, as well as to compare their dates with the chronology of "Enoch Arden"
 Miss Proctor's first large collection, containing "Homeward Bound" ap- peared in 1858. Though from the meagre data before me I am inclined to think that the same poem was pub- lished either in the Book of Beauty" or in Household Words, at some time between 1S43 and 1855. Tennyson's "Enoch Arden" first appeared with other poems in 1864.
 The details of "Homeward Bound" and of "Enoch Arden" are by no means the same. One was "wrecked off red Algiers," the other lodged upon the "loneliest isle in a lonely sea-" One was slave to the "Black Moors of Barbary;" with the other
 '. had not his poor heart Spoken with That. which being everywhere, Lets none who speak with Him, seem all Surely the man had died of solitude. One was bound by self-devoted band,
 Bound to rescue Christian captives,
 Pining in foreign land; the other by
 another ship (She wanted water) blown by ba1iing winds. One saw and revealed himself, the other saw and hid himself. One roamed "six-and-twenty years over the great restless ocean," the other ? turned carpenter and wrought to make the boatmen fishing nets." But | the noble heart, whose piteous moan ings have made the world weep show CTS of praise to England's poet laure- ate, was the same that, years before, throbbed in the breast of Miss Proc tors hero and caused him
 in broken words to pray That God would ever guard and bless her, Then in silence passed away.