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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Three Women + +Author: Ella Wheeler Wilcox + +Release Date: November 27, 2008 [EBook #27336] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THREE WOMEN *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + +</pre> + + +<BR><BR> + +<A NAME="img-front"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-front.jpg" ALT="Ella Wheeler Wilcox" BORDER="2" WIDTH="389" HEIGHT="555"> +<H3 CLASS="h3center" STYLE="width: 389px"> +Ella Wheeler Wilcox +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +THREE WOMEN +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BY +</H3> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +ELLA WHEELER WILCOX +</H2> + +<BR><BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +Author of "Poems of Passion," "Maurine," "Poems of<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Pleasure," "How Salvator Won," "Custer and Other</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">Poems," "Men, Women and Emotions,"</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 3em">"The Beautiful Land of Nod," Etc.</SPAN><BR> +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +CHICAGO—NEW YORK +<BR> +W. B. CONKEY COMPANY +<BR> +PUBLISHERS +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H5 ALIGN="center"> +Entered according to act of Congress, In the year 1897, by +<BR> +ELLA WHEELER WILCOX, +<BR> +In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. +<BR> +Entered at Stationers' Hall, London. +<BR><BR> +All Rights Reserved. +<BR><BR> +Made in the United States. +</H5> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap007"></A> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +THREE WOMEN<BR> +</H1> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I> +My love is young, so young;<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Young is her cheek, and her throat,</SPAN><BR> +And life is a song to be sung<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">With love the word for each note.</SPAN><BR> +</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I> +Young is her cheek and her throat;<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Her eyes have the smile o' May.</SPAN><BR> +And love is the word for each note<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">In the song of my life to-day.</SPAN><BR> +</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I> +Her eyes have the smile o' May;<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Her heart is the heart of a dove,</SPAN><BR> +And the song of my life to-day<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Is love, beautiful love.</SPAN><BR> +</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I> +Her heart is the heart of a dove,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Ah, would it but fly to my breast</SPAN><BR> +Where lone, beautiful love,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Has made it a downy nest.</SPAN><BR> +</I></P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I> +Ah, would she but fly to my breast,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">My love who is young, so young;</SPAN><BR> +I have made her a downy nest<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And life is a song to be sung.</SPAN><BR> +</I> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +THREE WOMEN. +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +I. +</H3> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +A dull little station, a man with the eye<BR> +Of a dreamer; a bevy of girls moving by;<BR> +A swift moving train and a hot Summer sun,<BR> +The curtain goes up, and our play is begun.<BR> +The drama of passion, of sorrow, of strife,<BR> +Which always is billed for the theatre Life.<BR> +It runs on forever, from year unto year,<BR> +With scarcely a change when new actors appear.<BR> +It is old as the world is—far older in truth,<BR> +For the world is a crude little planet of youth.<BR> +And back in the eras before it was formed,<BR> +The passions of hearts through the Universe stormed.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Maurice Somerville passed the cluster of girls<BR> +Who twisted their ribbons and fluttered their curls<BR> +In vain to attract him; his mind it was plain<BR> +Was wholly intent on the incoming train.<BR> +That great one eyed monster puffed out its black breath,<BR> +Shrieked, snorted and hissed, like a thing bent on death,<BR> +Paused scarcely a moment, and then sped away,<BR> +And two actors more now enliven our play.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +A graceful young woman with eyes like the morn,<BR> +With hair like the tassels which hang from the corn,<BR> +And a face that might serve as a model for Peace,<BR> +Moved lightly along, smiled and bowed to Maurice,<BR> +Then was lost in the circle of friends waiting near.<BR> +A discord of shrill nasal tones smote the ear,<BR> +As they greeted their comrade and bore her from sight.<BR> +(The ear oft is pained while the eye feels delight<BR> +In the presence of women throughout our fair land:<BR> +God gave them the graces which win and command,<BR> +But the devil, who always in mischief rejoices,<BR> +Slipped into their teachers and ruined their voices.)<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +There had stepped from the train just behind Mabel Lee<BR> +A man whose deportment bespoke him to be<BR> +A child of good fortune. His mien and his air<BR> +Were those of one all unaccustomed to care.<BR> +His brow was not vexed with the gold seeker's worry,<BR> +His manner was free from the national hurry.<BR> +Repose marked his movements. Yet gaze in his eye,<BR> +And you saw that this calm outer man was a lie;<BR> +And you knew that deep down in the depths of his breast<BR> +There dwelt the unmerciful imp of unrest.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +He held out his hand; it was clasped with a will<BR> +In both the firm palms of Maurice Somerville.<BR> +"Well, Reese, my old Comrade;" "Ha, Roger, my boy,"<BR> +They cried in a breath, and their eyes gemmed with joy<BR> +(Which but for their sex had been set in a tear),<BR> +As they walked arm in arm to the trap waiting near,<BR> +And drove down the shining shell roadway which wound<BR> +Through forest and meadow, in search of the Sound.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Roger:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +I smell the salt water—that perfume which starts<BR> +The blood from hot brains back to world withered hearts;<BR> +You may talk of the fragrance of flower filled fields,<BR> +You may sing of the odors the Orient yields,<BR> +You may tell of the health laden scent of the pine,<BR> +But give me the subtle salt breath of the brine.<BR> +Already I feel lost emotions of youth<BR> +Steal back to my soul in their sweetness and truth;<BR> +Small wonder the years leave no marks on your face,<BR> +Time's scythe gathers rust in this idyllic place.<BR> +You must feel like a child on the Great Mother's breast,<BR> +With the Sound like a nurse watching over your rest?<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Maurice:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +There is beauty and truth in your quaint simile,<BR> +I love the Sound more than the broad open sea.<BR> +The ocean seems always stern, masculine, bold,<BR> +The Sound is a woman, now warm, and now cold.<BR> +It rises in fury and threatens to smite,<BR> +Then falls at your feet with a coo of delight;<BR> +Capricious, seductive, first frowning, then smiling,<BR> +And always, whatever its mood is, beguiling.<BR> +Look, now you can see it, bright beautiful blue,<BR> +And far in the distance there loom into view<BR> +The banks of Long Island, full thirty miles off;<BR> +A sign of wet weather to-morrow. Don't scoff!<BR> +We people who chum with the waves and the wind<BR> +Know more than all wise signal bureaus combined.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +But come, let us talk of yourself—for of me<BR> +There is little to tell which your eyes may not see.<BR> +Since we finished at College (eight years, is it not?)<BR> +I simply have dreamed away life in this spot.<BR> +With my dogs and my horses, a book and a pen,<BR> +And a week spent in town as a change now and then.<BR> +Fatigue for the body, disease for the mind,<BR> +Are all that the city can give me, I find.<BR> +Yet once in a while there is wisdom I hold<BR> +In leaving the things that are dearer than gold,—<BR> +Loved people and places—if only to learn<BR> +The exquisite rapture it is to return.<BR> +But you, I remember, craved motion and change;<BR> +You hated the usual, worshiped the strange.<BR> +Adventure and travel I know were your theme:<BR> +Well, how did the real compare with the dream?<BR> +You have compassed the earth since we parted at Yale,<BR> +Has life grown the richer, or only grown stale?<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Roger:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Stale, stale, my dear boy! that's the story in short,<BR> +I am weary of travel, adventure and sport;<BR> +At home and abroad, in all climates and lands,<BR> +I have had what life gives when a full purse commands,<BR> +I have chased after Pleasure, that phantom faced elf,<BR> +And lost the best part of my youth and myself.<BR> +And now, barely thirty, I'm heart sick and blue;<BR> +Life seems like a farce scarcely worth sitting through.<BR> +I dread its long stretch of dissatisfied years;<BR> +Ah! wealth is not always the boon it appears.<BR> +And poverty lights not such ruinous fires<BR> +As gratified appetites, tastes and desires.<BR> +Fate curses, when letting us do as we please—<BR> +It stunts a man's soul to be cradled in ease.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Maurice:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +You are right in a measure; the devil I hold<BR> +Is oftener found in full coffers of gold<BR> +Than in bare, empty larders. The soul, it is plain,<BR> +Needs the conflicts of earth, needs the stress and the strain<BR> +Of misfortune, to bring out its strength in this life—<BR> +The Soul's calisthenics are sorrow and strife.<BR> +But, Roger, what folly to stand in youth's prime<BR> +And talk like a man who could father old Time.<BR> +You have life all before you; the past,—let it sleep;<BR> +Its lessons alone are the things you should keep.<BR> +There is virtue sometimes in our follies and sinnings;<BR> +Right lives very often have faulty beginnings.<BR> +Results, and not causes, are what we should measure.<BR> +You have learned precious truths in your search after pleasure.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +You have learned that a glow worm is never a star,<BR> +You have learned that Peace builds not her temples afar.<BR> +And now, dispossessed of the spirit to roam,<BR> +You are finely equipped to establish a home.<BR> +That's the one thing you need to lend savor to life,<BR> +A home, and the love of a sweet hearted wife,<BR> +And children to gladden the path to old age.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Roger:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Alas! from life's book I have torn out that page;<BR> +I have loved many times and in many a fashion,<BR> +Which means I know nothing at all of the passion.<BR> +I have scattered my heart, here and there, bit by bit,<BR> +'Til now there is nothing worth while left of it;<BR> +And, worse than all else, I have ceased to believe<BR> +In the virtue and truth of the daughters of Eve.<BR> +There's tragedy for you—when man's early trust<BR> +In woman, experience hurls to the dust!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Maurice:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Then you doubt your own mother?<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Roger:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 5em">She passed heavenward</SPAN><BR> +Before I remember; a saint, I have heard,<BR> +While she lived; there are scores of good women to-day,<BR> +<I>Temptation has chanced not to wander their way.</I><BR> +The devil has more than his lordship can do,<BR> +He can't make the rounds, so some women keep true.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Maurice:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +You think then each woman, if tempted, must fall?<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Roger:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Yes, if tempted her way—not one way suits them all—<BR> +They have tastes in their sins as they have in their clothes,<BR> +The tempter, of course, has to first study those.<BR> +One needs to be flattered, another is bought;<BR> +One yields to caresses, by frowns one is caught.<BR> +One wants a bold master, another a slave,<BR> +With one you must jest, with another be grave.<BR> +But swear you're a sinner whom she has reformed<BR> +And the average feminine fortress is stormed.<BR> +In rescuing men from abysses of sin<BR> +She loses her head—and herself tumbles in.<BR> +The mind of a woman was shaped for a saint,<BR> +But deep in her heart lies the devil's own taint.<BR> +With plans for salvation her busy brain teems,<BR> +While her heart longs in secret to know how sin seems.<BR> +And if with this question unanswered she dies,<BR> +Temptation came not in the right sort of guise.<BR> +There's my estimate, Reese, of the beautiful sex;<BR> +I see by your face that my words wound and vex,<BR> +But remember, my boy, I'm a man of the world.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Maurice:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Thank God, in the vortex I have not been hurled.<BR> +If experience breeds such a mental disease,<BR> +I am glad I have lived with the birds and the bees,<BR> +And the winds and the waves, and let people alone<BR> +So far in my life but good women I've known.<BR> +My mother, my sister, a few valued friends—<BR> +A teacher, a schoolmate, and there the list ends.<BR> +But to know one true woman in sunshine and gloom,<BR> +From the zenith of life to the door of the tomb,<BR> +To know her, as I knew that mother of mine,<BR> +Is to know the whole sex and to kneel at the shrine.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Roger:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Then you think saint and woman synonymous terms?<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Maurice:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Oh, no! we are all, men and women, poor worms<BR> +Crawling up from the dampness and darkness of clay<BR> +To bask in the sunlight and warmth of the day.<BR> +Some climb to a leaf and reflect its bright sheen,<BR> +Some toil through the grass, and are crushed there unseen.<BR> +Some sting if you touch them, and some evolve wings;<BR> +Yet God dwells in each of the poor, groping things.<BR> +They came from the Source—to the Source they go back;<BR> +The sinners are those who have missed the true track.<BR> +We can not judge women or men as a class,<BR> +Each soul has its own distinct place in the mass.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +There is no sex in sin; it were folly to swear<BR> +All women are angels, but worse to declare<BR> +All are devils as you do. You're morbid, my boy,<BR> +In what you thought gold you have found much alloy<BR> +And now you are doubting there is the true ore.<BR> +But wait till you study my sweet simple store<BR> +Of pure sterling treasures; just wait till you've been<BR> +A few restful weeks, or a season, within<BR> +The charmed circle of home life; then, Roger, you'll find<BR> +These malarial mists clearing out of your mind.<BR> +As a ship cuts the fog and is caught by the breeze,<BR> +And swept through the sunlight to fair, open seas,<BR> +So your heart will be caught and swept out to the ocean<BR> +Of youth and youth's birthright of happy emotion.<BR> +I'll wager my hat (it was new yesterday)<BR> +That you'll fall in love, too, in a serious way.<BR> +Our girls at Bay Bend are bewitching and fair,<BR> +And Cupid lurks ever in salt Summer air.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Roger:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +I question your gifts as a prophet, and yet,<BR> +I confess in my travels I never have met<BR> +A woman whose face so impressed me at sight,<BR> +As one seen to-day; a mere girl, sweet and bright,<BR> +Who entered the train quite alone and sat down<BR> +Surrounded by parcels she'd purchased in town.<BR> +A trim country lass, but endowed with the beauty<BR> +Which makes a man think of his conscience and duty.<BR> +Some women, you know, move us that way—God bless them,<BR> +While others rouse only a thirst to possess them<BR> +The face of the girl made me wish to be good,<BR> +I went out and smoked to escape from the mood.<BR> +When conscience through half a man's life has been sleeping<BR> +What folly to wake it to worry and weeping!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Maurice:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The pessimist role is a modern day fad,<BR> +But, Roger, you make a poor cynic, my lad.<BR> +Your heart at the core is as sound as a nut,<BR> +Though the wheels of your mind have dropped into the rut<BR> +Of wrong thinking. You need a strong hand on the lever<BR> +Of good common sense, and an earnest endeavor<BR> +To pull yourself out of the slough of despond<BR> +Back into the highway of peace just beyond.<BR> +And now, here we are at Peace Castle in truth,<BR> +And there stands its Chatelaine, sweet Sister Ruth,<BR> +To welcome you, Roger; you'll find a new type<BR> +In this old-fashioned girl, who in years scarcely ripe,<BR> +And as childish in heart as she is in her looks,<BR> +And without worldly learning or knowledge of books,<BR> +Yet in housewifely wisdom is wise as a sage.<BR> +She is quite out of step with the girls of her age,<BR> +For she has no ambition beyond the home sphere.<BR> +Ruth, here's Roger Montrose, my comrade of dear<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em">College days.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The gray eyes of the girl of nineteen<BR> +Looked into the face oft in fancy she'd seen<BR> +When her brother had talked of his comrade at Yale.<BR> +His stature was lower, his cheek was more pale<BR> +Than her thought had portrayed him; a look in his eye<BR> +Made her sorry, she knew not for what nor knew why,<BR> +But she longed to befriend him, as one needing aid<BR> +While he, gazing down on the face of the maid,<BR> +Spoke some light words of greeting, the while his mind ran<BR> +On her "points" good and bad; for the average man<BR> +When he looks at a woman proceeds first to scan her<BR> +As if she were horse flesh, and in the same manner<BR> +Notes all that is pleasing, or otherwise. So<BR> +Roger gazed at Ruth Somerville.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 8em">"Mouth like a bow</SPAN><BR> +And eyes full of motherhood; color too warm,<BR> +And too round in the cheek and too full in the form<BR> +For the highest ideal of beauty and art.<BR> +Domestic—that word is the cue to her part<BR> +She would warm a man's slippers, but never his veins;<BR> +She would feed well his stomach, but never his brains.<BR> +And after she looks on her first baby's face,<BR> +Her husband will hold but a second-class place<BR> +In her thoughts or emotions, unless he falls ill,<BR> +When a dozen trained nurses her place can not fill.<BR> +She is sweet of her kind; and her kind since the birth<BR> +Of this sin ridden, Circe-cursed planet, the Earth,<BR> +Has kept it, I own, with its medleys of evil<BR> +From going straight into the hands of the devil.<BR> +It is not through its heroes the world lives and thrives,<BR> +But through its sweet commonplace mothers and wives.<BR> +We love them, and leave them; deceive, and respect them,<BR> +We laud loud their virtues and straightway neglect them.<BR> +They are daisy and buttercup women of earth<BR> +Who grace common ways with their sweetness and worth.<BR> +We praise, but we pass them, to reach for some flower<BR> +That stings when we pluck it, or wilts in an hour.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"You are thornless, fair Ruth! you are useful and sweet!<BR> +But lovers shall pass you to sigh at the feet<BR> +Of the selfish and idle, for such is man's way;<BR> +Your lot is to work, and to weep, and to pray.<BR> +To give much and get little; to toil and to wait<BR> +For the meager rewards of indifferent fate.<BR> +Yet so wholesome your heart, you will never complain;<BR> +You will feast on life's sorrow and drink of its pain,<BR> +And thank God for the banquet; 'tis women like you<BR> +Who make the romancing of preachers seem true.<BR> +The earth is your debtor to such large amounts<BR> +There must be a heaven to square up accounts,<BR> +Or else the whole scheme of existence at best<BR> +Is a demon's poor effort at making a jest."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +That night as Ruth brushed out her bright hazel hair<BR> +Her thoughts were of Roger, "His bold laughing air<BR> +Is a cloak to some sorrow concealed in his breast,<BR> +His mind is the home of some secret unrest."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +She sighed; and there woke in her bosom once more<BR> +The impulse to comfort and help him; to pour<BR> +Soothing oil from the urn of her heart on his wounds.<BR> +Where motherhood nature in woman abounds<BR> +It is thus Cupid comes; unannounced and unbidden,<BR> +In sweet pity's guise, with his arrows well hidden.<BR> +But once given welcome and housed as a guest,<BR> +He hurls the whole quiver full into her breast,<BR> +While he pulls off his mask and laughs up in her eyes<BR> +With an impish delight at her start of surprise.<BR> +So intent is this archer on bagging his game<BR> +He scruples at nothing which gives him good aim.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Ruth's heart was a virgin's, in love menaced danger<BR> +While she sat by her mirror and pitied the stranger.<BR> +But just as she blew out her candle and stood<BR> +Robed for sleep in the moonlight, a change in her mood<BR> +Quickly banished the dreamer, and brought in its stead<BR> +The practical housekeeper. Sentiment fled;<BR> +And she puzzled her brain to decide which were best,<BR> +Corn muffins or hot graham gems, for the guest!<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +II.<BR> +</H3> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The short-sighted minister preached at Bay Bend<BR> +His long-winded sermon quite through to the end,<BR> +Unmindful there sat in the Somerville pew<BR> +A stranger whose pale handsome countenance drew<BR> +All eyes from his own reverend self; nor suspected<BR> +What Ruth and her brother too plainly detected<BR> +That the stranger was bored.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">"Though his gaze never stirred</SPAN><BR> +From the face of the preacher, his heart has not heard,"<BR> +Ruth said to herself; and her soft mother-eye<BR> +Was fixed on his face with a look like a sigh<BR> +In its tremulous depths, as they rose to depart.<BR> +Then suddenly Roger, alert, seemed to start<BR> +And his dull, listless glance changed to one of surprise<BR> +And of pleasure. Ruth saw that the goal of his eyes<BR> +Was her friend Mabel Lee in the vestibule; fair<BR> +As a saint that is pictured with sun tangled hair<BR> +And orbs like the skies in October. She smiled,<BR> +And the saint disappeared in the innocent child<BR> +With an unconscious dower of beauty and youth<BR> +She paused in the vestibule waiting for Ruth<BR> +And seemed not to notice the warm eager gaze<BR> +Of two men fixed upon her in different ways.<BR> +One, the look which souls lift to a being above,<BR> +The other a look of unreasoning love<BR> +Born of fancy and destined to grow in an hour<BR> +To a full fledged emotion of mastering power.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +She spoke, and her voice disappointed the ear;<BR> +It lacked some deep chords that the heart hoped to hear.<BR> +It was sweet, but not vibrant; it came from the throat,<BR> +And one listened in vain for a full chested note.<BR> +While something at times like a petulant sound<BR> +Seemed in strange disaccord with the peace so profound<BR> +Of the eyes and the brow.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">Though our sight is deceived</SPAN><BR> +The ear is an organ that may be believed.<BR> +The faces of people are trained to conceal,<BR> +But their unruly voices are prone to reveal<BR> +What lies deep in their natures; a voice rarely lies,<BR> +But Mabel Lee's voice told one tale, while her eyes<BR> +Told another. Large, liquid, and peaceful as lakes<BR> +Where the azure dawn rests, ere the loud world awakes,<BR> +Were the beautiful eyes of the maiden. "A saint,<BR> +Without mortal blemish or weak human taint,"<BR> +Said Maurice to himself. To himself Roger said:<BR> +"The touch of her soft little hands on my head<BR> +Would convert me. What peace for a world weary breast<BR> +To just sit by her side and be soothed into rest."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Daring thoughts for a stranger. Maurice, who had known<BR> +Mabel Lee as a child, to himself would not own<BR> +Such bold longings as those were. He held her to be<BR> +Too sacred for even a thought that made free.<BR> +And the voice in his bosom was silenced and hushed<BR> +Lest the bloom from her soul by his words should be brushed.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +There are men to whom love is religion; but woman<BR> +Is far better pleased with a homage more human.<BR> +Though she may not be able to love in like fashion,<BR> +She wants to be wooed with both ardor and passion.<BR> +Had Mabel Lee read Roger's thoughts of her, bold<BR> +Though they were, they had flattered and pleased her, I hold.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The stranger was duly presented.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Roger:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">Miss Lee,</SPAN><BR> +I am sure, has no least recollection of me,<BR> +But the pleasure is mine to have looked on her face<BR> +Once before this.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Mabel:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">Indeed? May I ask where?</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Roger:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">The place</SPAN><BR> +Was the train, and the time yesterday.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Mabel:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">"Then I came</SPAN><BR> +From my shopping excursion in town by the same<BR> +Fast express which brought you? Had I known that the friend<BR> +Of my friends, was so near me en route for Bay Bend,<BR> +I had waived all conventions and asked him to take<BR> +One-half of my parcels for sweet pity's sake.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Roger:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +You sadden me sorely. As long as I live<BR> +I shall mourn the great pleasure chance chose not to give.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Maurice:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Take courage, mon ami. Our fair friend, Miss Lee,<BR> +Fills her time quite as full of sweet works as the bee;<BR> +Like the bee, too, she drives out the drones from her hive.<BR> +You must toil in her cause, in her favor to thrive.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Roger:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +She need but command me. To wait upon beauty<BR> +And goodness combined makes a pleasure of duty.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Maurice:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Who serves Mabel Lee serves all Righteousness too.<BR> +Pray, then, that she gives you some labor to do.<BR> +The cure for the pessimist lies in good deeds.<BR> +Who toils for another forgets his own needs,<BR> +And mischief and misery never attend<BR> +On the man who is occupied fully.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Ruth:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 6em">Our friend</SPAN><BR> +Has the town on her shoulders. Whatever may be<BR> +The cause that is needy, we look to Miss Lee.<BR> +Have you gold? She will make you disgorge it ere long;<BR> +Are you poor? Well, perchance you can dance—sing a song—<BR> +Make a speech—tell a story, or plan a charade.<BR> +Whatever you have, gold or wits, sir, must aid<BR> +In her numerous charities.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Mabel:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 6em">Riches and brain</SPAN><BR> +Are but loans from the Master. He meant them, 'tis plain,<BR> +To be used in His service; and people are kind,<BR> +When once you can set them to thinking. I find<BR> +It is lack of perception, not lack of good heart<BR> +Which makes the world selfish in seeming. My part<BR> +Is to call the attention of Plenty to need,<BR> +And to bid Pleasure pause for a moment and heed<BR> +The woes and the burdens of Labor.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Roger:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 6em">One plea</SPAN><BR> +From the rosy and eloquent lips of Miss Lee<BR> +Would make Avarice pour out his coffers of gold<BR> +At her feet, I should fancy; would soften the cold,<BR> +Selfish heart of the world to compassionate sighs,<BR> +And bring tears of pity to vain Pleasure's eyes.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +As the sunset a color on lily leaves throws,<BR> +The words and the glances of Roger Montrose<BR> +O'er the listener's cheeks sent a pink tinted wave;<BR> +While Maurice seemed disturbed, and his sister grew grave.<BR> +The false chink of flattery's coin smites the ear<BR> +With an unpleasant ring when the heart is sincere.<BR> +Yet the man whose mind pockets are filled with this ore,<BR> +Though empty his brain cells, is never a bore<BR> +To the opposite sex.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 6em">While Maurice knew of old</SPAN><BR> +Roger's wealth in that coin that does duty for gold<BR> +In Society dealings, it hurt him to see<BR> +The cheap metal offered to sweet Mabel Lee.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +(Yet, perchance, the hurt came, not so much that 'twas offered,<BR> +As in seeing her take, with a smile, what was proffered.)<BR> +They had walked, two by two, down the elm shaded street,<BR> +Which led to a cottage, vine hidden, and sweet<BR> +With the breath of the roses that covered it, where<BR> +Mabel paused in the gateway; a picture most fair.<BR> +"I would ask you to enter," she said, "ere you pass,<BR> +But in just twenty minutes my Sunday-school class<BR> +Claims my time and attention; and later I meet<BR> +A Committee on Plans for the boys of the street.<BR> +We seek to devise for these pupils in crime<BR> +Right methods of thought and wise uses of time.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Roger:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +I am but a vagrant, untutored and wild,<BR> +May I join your street class, and be taught like a child?<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Mabel:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +If you come I will carefully study your case.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Maurice:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +I must go along, too, just to keep him in place.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Mabel:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Then you think him unruly?<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Maurice:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 6em">Decidedly so.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Roger:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +I was, but am changed since one-half hour ago.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Mabel:<I></I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The change is too sudden to be of much worth;<BR> +The deepest convictions are slowest of birth.<BR> +Conversion, I hold, to be earnest and lasting,<BR> +Begins with repentance and praying and fasting,<BR> +And (begging your pardon for such a bold speech),<BR> +You seem, sir, a stranger to all and to each<BR> +Of these ways of salvation.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Roger:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 6em">Since yesterday, miss,</SPAN><BR> +When, unseen, I first saw you (believe me in this),<BR> +I have deeply repented my sins of the past.<BR> +To-night I will pray, and to-morrow will fast—<BR> +Or, make it next week, when my shore appetite<BR> +May be somewhat subdued in its ravenous might.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Maurice:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +That's the way of the orthodox sinner! He waits<BR> +Until time or indulgence or misery sates<BR> +All his appetites, then his repentance begins,<BR> +When his sins cease to please, then he gives up his sins<BR> +And grows pious. Now prove you are morally brave<BR> +By actually giving up something you crave!<BR> +We have fricasseed chicken and strawberry cake<BR> +For our dinner to-day.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Roger:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">For dear principle's sake</SPAN><BR> +I could easily do what you ask, were it not<BR> +Most unkind to Miss Ruth, who gave labor and thought<BR> +To that menu, preparing it quite to my taste.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Ruth:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +But the thought and the dinner will both go to waste,<BR> +If we linger here longer; and Mabel, I see,<BR> +Is impatient to go to her duties.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Roger:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">The bee</SPAN><BR> +Is reluctant to turn from the lily although<BR> +The lily may obviously wish he would go<BR> +And leave her to muse in the sunlight alone.<BR> +Yet when the rose calls him, his sorrow, I own,<BR> +Has its recompense. So from delight to delight<BR> +I fly with my wings honeyladen.<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">Good night.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I> +Oh, love is like the dawnlight<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">That turns the dark to day,</SPAN><BR> +And love is like the deep night<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">With secrets hid away.</SPAN><BR> +</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I> +And love is like the moonlight<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Where tropic Summers glow,</SPAN><BR> +And love is like the twilight<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">When dreams begin to grow.</SPAN><BR> +</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I> +Oh, love is like the sunlight<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">That sets the world ablaze.</SPAN><BR> +And love is like the moonlight<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">With soft illusive rays.</SPAN><BR> +</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I> +And love is like the starlight<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">That glimmers o'er the skies.</SPAN><BR> +And love is like the far light<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">That shines from God's great eyes.</SPAN><BR> +</I> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +III.<BR> +</H3> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Maurice Somerville from his turreted den<BR> +Looked out of the window and laid down his pen.<BR> +A soft salty wind from the water was blowing,<BR> +Below in the garden sat Ruth with her sewing.<BR> +And stretched on the grass at her feet Roger lay<BR> +With a book in his hand.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">Through the ripe August day,</SPAN><BR> +Piped the Katydids' voices, Jack Frost's tally-ho<BR> +Commanding Queen Summer to pack up and go.<BR> +Maurice leaned his head on the casement and sighed,<BR> +Strong and full in his heart surged love's turbulent tide.<BR> +And thoughts of the woman he worshiped with longing<BR> +Took shape and like angels about him came thronging.<BR> +The world was all Mabel! her exquisite face<BR> +Seemed etched on the sunlight and gave it its grace;<BR> +Her eyes made the blue of the heavens, the sun<BR> +Was her wonderful hair caught and coiled into one<BR> +Shining mass. With a reverent, worshipful awe,<BR> +It was Mabel, fair Mabel, dear Mabel he saw,<BR> +When he looked up to God.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">They had been much together</SPAN><BR> +Through all the bright stretches of midsummer weather,<BR> +Ruth, Roger, and Mabel and he. Scarce a day<BR> +But the four were united in work or in play.<BR> +And much of the play to a man or a maid<BR> +Not in love had seemed labor. Recital, charade,<BR> +Garden party, church festival, musical, hop,<BR> +Were all planned by Miss Lee without respite or stop.<BR> +The poor were the richer; school, hospital, church,<BR> +The heathen, the laborer left in the lurch<BR> +By misfortune, the orphan, the indigent old,<BR> +Our kind Lady Bountiful aided with gold<BR> +Which she filched from the pockets of pleasure—God's spoil,<BR> +And God's blessing will follow such lives when they toil<BR> +Through an infinite sympathy.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">Fair Mabel Lee</SPAN><BR> +Loved to rule and to lead. She was eager to be<BR> +In the eyes of the public. That modern day craze<BR> +Possessed her in secret, and this was its phase.<BR> +An innocent, even commendable, fad<BR> +Which filled empty larders and cheered up the sad.<BR> +She loved to do good. But, alas! in her heart,<BR> +She loved better still the authoritative part<BR> +Which she played in her town.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">'Neath the saint's aureole</SPAN><BR> +Lurked the feminine tyrant who longed to control,<BR> +And who never would serve; but her sway was so sweet,<BR> +That her world was contented to bow at her feet.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Who toils in the great public vineyard must needs<BR> +Let other hands keep his own garden from weeds.<BR> +So busy was Mabel with charity fairs<BR> +She gave little thought to her home or its cares.<BR> +Mrs. Lee, like the typical modern day mother,<BR> +Was maid to her daughter; the father and brother<BR> +Were slaves at her bidding; an excellent plan<BR> +To make a tyrannical wife for some man.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Yet where was the man who, beholding the grace<BR> +Of that slight girlish creature, and watching her face<BR> +With its infantile beauty and sweetness, would dare<BR> +Think aught but the rarest of virtues dwelt there?<BR> +Rare virtues she had, but in commonplace ones<BR> +Which make happy husbands and home loving sons<BR> +She was utterly lacking. Ruth Somerville saw<BR> +In sorrow and silence this blemishing flaw<BR> +In the friend whom she loved with devotion! Maurice<BR> +Saw only the angel with eyes full of peace.<BR> +The faults of plain women are easily seen.<BR> +But who cares to peer back of beauty's fair screen<BR> +For things which are ugly to look on?<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">The lover</SPAN><BR> +Is not quite in love when his sharp eyes discover<BR> +The flaws in his jewel.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">Maurice from his room</SPAN><BR> +Looked dreamily down on the garden of bloom,<BR> +Where Ruth sat with Roger; he smiled as he thought<BR> +How quickly the world sated cynic was brought<BR> +Into harness by Cupid. The man mad with drink,<BR> +And the man mad with love, is quite certain to think<BR> +All other men drunkards or lovers. In truth<BR> +Maurice had expected his friend to love Ruth.<BR> +"She was young, she was fair; with her bright sunny art<BR> +She could scatter the mists from his world befogged heart.<BR> +She could give him the one heaven under God's dome,<BR> +A peaceful, well ordered, and love-guarded home.<BR> +And he? why of course he would worship her! When<BR> +Cupid finds the soft spot in the hearts of such men<BR> +They are ideal husbands." Maurice Somerville<BR> +Felt the whole world was shaping itself to his will.<BR> +And his heart stirred with joy as, by thought necromancy,<BR> +He made the near future unfold to his fancy,<BR> +And saw Ruth the bride of his friend, and the place<BR> +She left vacant supplied with the beauty and grace<BR> +Of this woman he longed for, the love of his life,<BR> +Fair Mabel, his angel, his sweet spirit wife.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Maurice to his desk turned again and once more<BR> +Began to unburden his bosom and pour<BR> +His heart out on paper—the poet's relief,<BR> +When drunk with life's rapture or sick with its grief.<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Song.</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +When shall I tell my lady that I love her?<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Will it be while the sunshine woos the world,</SPAN><BR> +Or when the mystic twilight bends above her,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Or when the day's bright banners all are furled?</SPAN><BR> +Will wild winds shriek, or will the calm stars glow,<BR> +When I shall tell her that I love her so,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">I love her so?</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +I think the sun should shine in all his glory;<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Again, the twilight seems the fitting time.</SPAN><BR> +Yet sweet dark night would understand the story,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">So old, so new, so tender, so sublime.</SPAN><BR> +Wild storms should rage to chord with my desire,<BR> +Yet faithful stars should shine and never tire,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">And never tire.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Ah, if my lady will consent to listen,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">All hours, all times, shall hear my story told.</SPAN><BR> +In amorous dawns, on nights when pale stars glisten<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">In dim hushed gloamings and in noon hours bold,</SPAN><BR> +While thunders crash, and while the winds breathe low,<BR> +Will I re-tell her that I love her so.<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">I love her so.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +IV.<BR> +</H3> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The October day had been luscious and fair<BR> +Like a woman of thirty. A chill in the air<BR> +As the sun faced the west spoke of frost lurking near.<BR> +All day the Sound lay without motion, and clear<BR> +As a mirror, and blue as a blond baby's eyes.<BR> +A change in the tide brought a change to the skies.<BR> +The bay stirred and murmured and parted its lips<BR> +And breathed a long sigh for the lost lovely ships,<BR> +That had gone with the Summer.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">Its calm placid breast</SPAN><BR> +Was stirred into passionate pain and unrest.<BR> +Not a sail, not a sail anywhere to be seen!<BR> +The soft azure eyes of the sea turned to green.<BR> +A sudden wind rose; like a runaway horse<BR> +Unchecked and unguided it sped on its course.<BR> +The waves bared their teeth, and spat spray in the face<BR> +Of the furious gale as they fled in the chase.<BR> +The sun hurried into a cloud; and the trees<BR> +Bowed low and yet lower, as if to appease<BR> +The wrath of the storm king that threatened them. Close<BR> +To the waves at their wildest stood Roger Montrose.<BR> +The day had oppressed him; and now the unrest<BR> +Of the wind beaten sea brought relief to his breast,<BR> +Or at least brought the sense of companionship. Lashed<BR> +By his higher emotions, the man's passions dashed<BR> +On the shore of his mind in a frenzy of pain,<BR> +Like the waves on the rocks, and a frenzy as vain.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Since the day he first looked on her face, Mabel Lee<BR> +Had seemed to his self sated nature to be,<BR> +On life's troubled ocean, a beacon of light,<BR> +To guide him safe out from the rocks and the night.<BR> +Her calm soothed his passion; her peace gave him poise;<BR> +She seemed like a silence in life's vulgar noise.<BR> +He bathed in the light which her purity cast,<BR> +And felt half absolved from the sins of the past.<BR> +He longed in her mantle of goodness to hide<BR> +And forget the whole world. By the incoming tide<BR> +He talked with his heart as one talks with a friend<BR> +Who is dying. "The summer has come to an end<BR> +And I wake from my dreaming," he mused. "Wake to know<BR> +That my place is not here—I must go—I must go.<BR> +Who dares laugh at Love shall hear Love laughing last,<BR> +As forth from his bowstring barbed arrows are cast.<BR> +I scoffed at the god with a sneer on my lip,<BR> +And he forces me now from his chalice to sip<BR> +A bitter sweet potion. Ah, lightly the part<BR> +Of a lover I've played many times, but my heart<BR> +Has been proud in its record of friendship. And now<BR> +The mad, eager lover born in me must bow<BR> +To the strong claims of friendship. I love Mabel Lee;<BR> +Dared I woo as I would, I could make her love me.<BR> +The soul of a maid who knows not passion's fire<BR> +Is moth to the flame of a man's strong desire.<BR> +With one kiss on her lips I could banish the nun<BR> +And wake in her virginal bosom the one<BR> +Mighty love of her life. If I leave her, I know<BR> +She will be my friend's wife in a season or so.<BR> +He loves her, he always has loved her; 'tis he<BR> +Who ever will do all the loving; and she<BR> +Will accept it, and still be the saint to the end,<BR> +And she never will know what she missed; but my friend<BR> +Has the right to speak first. God! how can he delay?<BR> +I marvel at men who are fashioned that way.<BR> +He has worshiped her since first she put up her tresses,<BR> +And let down the hem of her school-girlish dresses<BR> +And now she is full twenty-two; were I he<BR> +A brood of her children should climb on my knee<BR> +By this time! What a sin against love to postpone<BR> +The day that might make her forever his own.<BR> +The man who can wait has no blood in his veins.<BR> +Maurice is a dreamer, he loves with his brains<BR> +Not with soul and with senses. And yet his whole life<BR> +Will be blank if he makes not this woman his wife.<BR> +She is woof of his dreams, she is warp of his mind;<BR> +Who tears her away shall leave nothing behind.<BR> +No, no, I am going: farewell to Bay Bend<BR> +I am no woman's lover—I <I>am</I> one man's friend.<BR> +Still-born in the arms of the matron eyed year<BR> +Lies the beautiful dream that my life buries here.<BR> +Its tomb was its cradle; it came but to taunt me,<BR> +It died, but its phantom shall ever more haunt me."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +He turned from the waves that leaped at him in wrath<BR> +To find Mabel Lee, like a wraith, in his path.<BR> +The rose from her cheek had departed in fear;<BR> +The tip of her eyelash was gemmed with a tear.<BR> +The rude winds had disarranged mantle and dress,<BR> +And she clung with both hands to her hat in distress.<BR> +"I am frightened," she cried, in a tremulous tone;<BR> +"I dare not proceed any farther alone.<BR> +As I came by the church yard the wind felled a tree,<BR> +And invisible hands seemed to hurl it at me;<BR> +I hurried on, shrieking; the wind, in disgust,<BR> +Tore the hat from my head, filled my eyes full of dust,<BR> +And otherwise made me the butt of its sport.<BR> +Just then I spied you, like a light in the port,<BR> +And I steered for you. Please do not laugh at my fright!<BR> +I am really quite bold in the calm and the light,<BR> +But when a storm gathers, or darkness prevails,<BR> +My courage deserts me, my bravery fails,<BR> +And I want to hide somewhere and cover my ears,<BR> +And give myself up to weak womanish tears."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Her ripple of talk allowed Roger Montrose<BR> +A few needed moments to calm and compose<BR> +His excited emotions; to curb and control<BR> +The turbulent feelings that surged through his soul<BR> +At the sudden encounter.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">"I quite understand,"</SPAN><BR> +He said in a voice that was under command<BR> +Of his will, "All your fears in a storm of this kind.<BR> +There is something uncanny and weird in the wind;<BR> +Intangible, viewless, it speeds on its course,<BR> +And forests and oceans must yield to its force.<BR> +What art has constructed with patience and toil,<BR> +The wind in one second of time can despoil.<BR> +It carries destruction and death and despair,<BR> +Yet no man can follow it into its lair<BR> +And bind it or stay it—this thing without form.<BR> +Ah! there comes the rain! we are caught in the storm.<BR> +Put my coat on your shoulders and come with me where<BR> +Yon rock makes a shelter—I often sit there<BR> +To watch the great conflicts 'twixt tempest and sea.<BR> +Let me lie at your feet! 'Tis the last time, Miss Lee,<BR> +I shall see you, perchance, in this life, who can say?<BR> +I leave on the morrow at break o' the day."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Mabel:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Indeed? Why, how sudden! and may I inquire<BR> +The reason you leave us without one desire<BR> +To return? for your words seem a final adieu.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Roger:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +I never expect to return, that is true,<BR> +Yet my wish is to stay.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Mabel:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Are you not your own master?<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Roger:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Alas, yes! and therein lies the cause of disaster.<BR> +Myself bids me go, my calm, reasoning part,<BR> +The will is the man, not the poor, foolish heart,<BR> +Which is ever at war with the intellect. So<BR> +I silence its clamoring voices and go.<BR> +Were I less my own master, I then might remain.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Mabel:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Your words are but riddles, I beg you explain.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Roger:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +No, no, rather bid me keep silent! To say<BR> +Why I go were as weak on my part as to stay.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Mabel:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +I think you most cruel! You know, sir, my sex<BR> +Loves dearly a secret. Then why should you vex<BR> +And torment me in this way by hinting at one?<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Roger:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Let us talk of the weather, I think the storm done.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Mabel:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Very well! I will go! No, you need not come too,<BR> +And I will not shake hands, I am angry with you.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Roger:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +And you will not shake hands when we part for all time?<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Mabel:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Then read me your riddle!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Roger:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">No, that were a crime</SPAN><BR> +Against honor and friendship; girl, girl, have a care—<BR> +You are goading my poor, tortured heart to despair.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +His last words were lost in the loud thunder's crash;<BR> +The sea seemed ablaze with a sulphurous flash.<BR> +From the rocks just above them an evergreen tree<BR> +Was torn up by the roots and flung into the sea.<BR> +The waves with rude arms hurled it back on the shore;<BR> +The wind gained in fury. The glare and the roar<BR> +Of the lightning and tempest paled Mabel Lee's cheek,<BR> +Her pupils dilated; she sprang with a shriek<BR> +Of a terrified child lost to all save alarm,<BR> +And clasped Roger Montrose with both hands by the arm,<BR> +While her cheek pressed his shoulder. An agony, sweet<BR> +And unbearable, thrilled from his head to his feet,<BR> +His veins were like rivers, with billows of fire:<BR> +His will lost control; and long fettered desire<BR> +Slipped its leash. He caught Mabel Lee to his breast,<BR> +Drew her face up to his, on her frightened lips pressed<BR> +Wild caresses of passion that startled and shocked.<BR> +Like a madman he looked, like a madman he talked,<BR> +Waiting not for reply, with no pause but a kiss,<BR> +While his iron arms welded her bosom to his.<BR> +"Girl, girl, you demanded my secret," he cried;<BR> +"Well, that bruise on your lips tells the story! I tried,<BR> +Good God, how I tried! to be silent and go<BR> +Without speaking one word, without letting you know<BR> +That I loved you; yet how could you look in my eyes<BR> +And not see love was there like the sun in the skies?<BR> +Ah, those hands on my arm—that dear head lightly pressed<BR> +On my shoulder! God, woman, the heart in my breast<BR> +Was dry powder, your touch was the spark; and the blame<BR> +Must be yours if both lives are scorched black with the flame.<BR> +Do you hate me, despise me, for being so weak?<BR> +No, no! let me kiss you again ere you speak!<BR> +You are mine for the moment; and mine—mine alone<BR> +Is the first taste of passion your soft mouth has known.<BR> +Whoever forestalls me in winning your hand,<BR> +Between you and him shall this mad moment stand—<BR> +You shall think of me, though you think only to hate.<BR> +There—speak to me—speak to me—tell me my fate;<BR> +On your words, Mabel Lee, hangs my whole future life.<BR> +I covet you, covet you, sweet, for my wife;<BR> +I want to stay here at your side. Since I first<BR> +Saw your face I have felt an unquenchable thirst<BR> +To be good—to look deep in your eyes and find God,<BR> +And to leave in the past the dark paths I have trod<BR> +In my search after pleasure. Ah, must I go back<BR> +Into folly again, to retread the old track<BR> +Which leads out into nothingness? Girl, answer me,<BR> +As souls answer at Judgment."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">The face of the sea</SPAN><BR> +Shone with sudden pink splendor. The riotous wind<BR> +Swooned away with exhaustion. Each dark cloud seemed lined<BR> +With vermilion. The tempest was over. A word<BR> +Floated up like a feather; the silence was stirred<BR> +By the soul of a sigh. The last remnant of gray<BR> +In the skies turned to gold, as a voice whispered, "Stay."<BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I> +God grinds His poor people to powder<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">All day and all night I can hear,</SPAN><BR> +Their cries growing louder and louder.<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Oh, God, have You deadened Your ear?</SPAN><BR> +</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I> +The chimes in old Trinity steeple<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Ring in the sweet season of prayer,</SPAN><BR> +And still God is grinding His people,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">He is grinding them down to despair.</SPAN><BR> +</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I> +Mind, body and muscle and marrow,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">He grinds them again and again.</SPAN><BR> +Can He who takes heed of the sparrow<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Be blind to the tortures of men?</SPAN><BR> +</I> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +V.<BR> +</H3> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +In a bare little room of a tenement row<BR> +Of the city, Maurice sat alone. It was so<BR> +(In this nearness to life's darkest phases of grief<BR> +And despair) that his own bitter woe found relief.<BR> +Joy needs no companion; but sorrow and pain<BR> +Long to comrade with sorrow. The flowery chain<BR> +Flung by Pleasure about her gay votaries breaks<BR> +With the least strain upon it. The chain sorrow makes<BR> +Links heart unto heart. As a bullock will fly<BR> +To far fields when an arrow has pierced him, to die,<BR> +So Maurice had flown over far oceans to find<BR> +No balm for his wounds, and no peace for his mind.<BR> +Cosmopolitan, always, is sorrow; at home<BR> +In all countries and lands, thriving well while we roam<BR> +In vain efforts to slay it. Toil only, brings peace<BR> +To the tempest tossed heart. What in travel Maurice<BR> +Failed to find—self-forgetfulness—came with his work<BR> +For the suffering poor in the slums of New York.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +He had wandered in strange heathen countries—had been<BR> +Among barbarous hordes; but the greed and the sin<BR> +Of his own native land seemed the shame of the hour.<BR> +In his gold there was balm, in his pen there was power<BR> +To comfort the needy, to aid and defend<BR> +The unfortunate. Close in their midst, as a friend<BR> +And companion, for more than twelve months he had dwelt.<BR> +Like a ray of pure light in a cellar was felt<BR> +This strong, wholesome presence. His little room bare<BR> +Of all luxuries, taught the poor souls who flocked there<BR> +For his counsel and aid, how by mere cleanliness<BR> +The grim features of want lose some lines of distress.<BR> +The slips from the plants on his window ledge, given<BR> +To beauty starved souls, spoke more clearly of heaven<BR> +And God than did sermons or dry creedy tracts.<BR> +Maurice was no preacher; and yet his kind acts<BR> +Of mercy and self-immolation sufficed<BR> +To wake in dark minds a bright image of Christ—<BR> +The Christ often heard of, but doubted before.<BR> +Maurice spoke no word of religion. Of yore<BR> +His heart had accepted the creeds of his youth<BR> +Without pausing to cavil, or question their truth.<BR> +Faith seemed his inheritance. But, with the blow<BR> +Which slew love and killed friendship, faith, too, seemed to go.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +It is easy to be optimistic in pleasure,<BR> +But when Pain stands us up by her portal to measure<BR> +The actual height of our trust and belief,<BR> +Ah! then is the time when our faith comes to grief.<BR> +The woes of our fellows, God sends them, 'tis plain;<BR> +But the devil himself is the cause of <I>our</I> pain.<BR> +We question the wisdom that rules o'er the world,<BR> +And our minds into chaos and darkness are hurled.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The average scoffer at faith goes about<BR> +Pouring into the ears of his fellows each doubt<BR> +Which assails him. One truth he fails wholly to heed;<BR> +That a doubt oft repeated may bore like a creed.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Maurice kept his thoughts to himself, but his pen<BR> +Was dipped in the gall of his heart now and then,<BR> +And his muse was the mouthpiece. The sin unforgiven<BR> +I hold by the Cherubim chanting in heaven<BR> +Is the sin of the poet who dares sing a strain<BR> +Which adds to the world's awful chorus of pain<BR> +And repinings. The souls whom the gods bless at birth<BR> +With the great gift of song, have been sent to the earth<BR> +To better and brighten it. Woe to the heart<BR> +Which lets its own sorrow embitter its art.<BR> +Unto him shall more sorrow be given; and life<BR> +After life filled with sorrow, till, spent with the strife,<BR> +He shall cease from rebellion, and bow to the rod<BR> +In submission, and own and acknowledge his God.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Maurice, with his unwilling muse in the gloom<BR> +Of a mood pessimistic, was shut in his room.<BR> +A whistle, a step on the stairway, a knock,<BR> +Then over the transom there fluttered a flock<BR> +Of white letters. The Muse, with a sigh of content,<BR> +Left the poet to read them, and hurriedly went<BR> +Back to pleasanter regions. Maurice glanced them through:<BR> +There were brief business epistles from two<BR> +Daily papers, soliciting work from his pen;<BR> +A woman begged money for Christ's sake; three men<BR> +Asked employment; a mother wrote only to say<BR> +How she blessed him and prayed God to bless him each day<BR> +For his kindness to her and to hers; and the last<BR> +Was a letter from Ruth. The pale ghost of the past<BR> +Rose out of its poor shallow grave, with the scent<BR> +And the mold of the clay clinging to it, and leant<BR> +O'er Maurice as he read, while its breath fanned his cheek.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Forgive me," wrote Ruth; "for at last I must speak<BR> +Of the two whom you wish to forget. Well I know<BR> +How you suffered, still suffer, from fate's sudden blow,<BR> +Though I am a woman, and women must stay<BR> +And fight out pain's battles where men run away.<BR> +But my strength has its limit, my courage its end,<BR> +The time has now come when I, too, leave Bay Bend.<BR> +Maurice, let the bitterness housed in your heart<BR> +For the man you long loved as a comrade, depart,<BR> +And let pity replace it. Oh, weep for his sorrow—<BR> +From your fountain of grief, held in check, let me borrow;<BR> +I have so overdrawn on the bank of my tears<BR> +That my anguish is now refused payment. For years<BR> +You loved Mabel Lee. Well, to some hearts love speaks<BR> +His whole tale of passion in brief little weeks.<BR> +As Minerva, full grown, from the great brow of Jove<BR> +Sprang to life, so full blown from our breasts may spring Love.<BR> +Love hid like a bee in my heart's lily cup;<BR> +I knew not he was there till his sting woke me up.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Maurice, oh Maurice! Can you fancy the woe<BR> +Of seeing the prize which you coveted so<BR> +Misused, or abused, by another? The wife<BR> +Of the man whom I worshiped is spoiling the life<BR> +That was wax in her hands, wax to shape as she chose.<BR> +You were blind to her faults, so was Roger Montrose.<BR> +Both saw but the saint; well, let saints keep their places,<BR> +And not crowd the women in life's hurried races.<BR> +As saint, Mabel Lee might succeed; but, oh brother,<BR> +She never was meant for a wife or a mother.<BR> +Her beautiful home has the desolate air<BR> +Of a house that is ruled by its servants. The care—<BR> +The thought of the <I>woman</I> (that sweet, subtle power<BR> +Pervading some rooms like the scent of a flower),<BR> +Which turns house into home—<I>that</I> is lacking. She goes<BR> +On her merciful rounds, does our Lady Montrose,<BR> +Looking after the souls of the heathen, and leaving<BR> +The poor hungry soul of her lord to its grieving.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +He craves her companionship; wants her to be<BR> +At his side, more his own, than the public's. But she<BR> +Holds such love is but selfish; and thinks he should make<BR> +Some sacrifice gladly for charity's sake.<BR> +Her schools, and her clubs, and her fairs fill her time;<BR> +He wants her to travel; no, that were a crime<BR> +To go seeking for pleasure, and leave duty here.<BR> +God had given her work and her labor lay near.<BR> +A month of the theater season in town?<BR> +No, the stage is an evil that needs putting down<BR> +By good people. So, scheme as he will, the poor man<BR> +Has to finally yield every project and plan<BR> +To this sweet stubborn saint; for the husband, you see,<BR> +Stands last in Her thoughts. He has come, after three<BR> +Patient years, to that knowledge; his wishes, his needs<BR> +Must always give way to her whims, or her creeds.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +She knows not the primer of loving; her soul<BR> +Is engrossed with the poor petty wish to <I>control</I>.<BR> +And she chafes at restriction. Love loves to be bound,<BR> +And its sweetest of freedom in bondage is found.<BR> +She pulls at her fetters. One worshiping heart<BR> +And its faithful devotion play but a small part<BR> +In her life. She would rather be lauded and praised<BR> +By a crowd of inferior followers, raised<BR> +To the pitiful height of their leader, than be<BR> +One man's goddess. There, now, is the true Mabel Lee!<BR> +Grieve not that you lost her, but grieve for the one<BR> +Who with me stood last night by the corpse of his son,<BR> +And with me stood alone. Ah! how wisely and well<BR> +Could Mabel descant on Maternity! tell<BR> +Other women the way to train children to be<BR> +An honor and pride to their parents! Yet she,<BR> +From the first, left her child to the nurses. She found<BR> +'Twas a tax on her nerves to have baby around<BR> +When it worried and cried. The nurse knew what to do,<BR> +And a block down the street lived Mama! 'twixt the two<BR> +Little Roger would surely be cared for. She must<BR> +Keep her strength and be worthy the love and the trust<BR> +Of the poor, who were yearly increasing, and not<BR> +Bestow on her own all the care and the thought—<BR> +That were selfishness, surely.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">Well, the babe grew apace,</SPAN><BR> +But yesterday morning a flush on its face<BR> +And a look in its eye worried Roger. The mother<BR> +Was due at some sort of convention or other<BR> +In Boston—I think 'twas a grand federation<BR> +Of clubs formed by women to rescue the Nation<BR> +From man's awful clutches; and Mabel was made<BR> +The head delegate of the Bay Bend Brigade.<BR> +Once drop in a small, selfish nature the seed<BR> +Of ambition for place, and it grows like a weed.<BR> +The fair village angel we called Mabel Lee,<BR> +As Mrs. Montrose, has developed, you see,<BR> +To a full fledged Reformer. It quite turned her head<BR> +To be sent to the city of beans and brown bread<BR> +As a delegate! (Delegate! magical word!<BR> +The heart of the queer modern woman is stirred<BR> +Far more by its sound than by aught she may hear<BR> +In the phrases poor Cupid pours into her ear.)<BR> +Mabel chirped to the baby a dozen good-byes,<BR> +And laughed at the trouble in Roger's grave eyes,<BR> +As she leaned o'er the lace ruffled crib of her son<BR> +And talked baby-talk: "Now be good, 'ittle one,<BR> +While Mama is away, and don't draw a long breath,<BR> +Unless 'oo would worry Papa half to death.<BR> +And don't cough, and, of all things, don't <I>sneeze</I>, 'ittle dear,<BR> +Or Papa will be thrown into spasms of fear.<BR> +Now, good-bye, once again, 'ittle man; mother knows<BR> +There is no other baby like Roger Montrose<BR> +In the whole world to-day."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">So she left him. That night</SPAN><BR> +The nurse sent a messenger speeding in fright<BR> +For the Doctor; a second for Grandmama Lee<BR> +And Roger despatched still another for me.<BR> +All in vain! through the gray chilly paths of the dawn<BR> +The soul of the beautiful baby passed on<BR> +Into Mother-filled lands.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">Ah! my God, the despair</SPAN><BR> +Of seeing that agonized sufferer there;<BR> +To stand by his side, yet denied the relief<BR> +Of sharing, as wife, and as mother, his grief.<BR> +Enough! I have borne all I can bear. The role<BR> +Of friend to a lover pulls hard on the soul<BR> +Of a sensitive woman. The three words in life<BR> +Which have meaning to me are home, mother and wife—<BR> +Or, rather, wife, mother and home. Once I thought<BR> +Men cared for the women who found home the spot<BR> +Next to heaven for happiness; women who knew<BR> +No ambition beyond being loyal and true,<BR> +And who loved all the tasks of the housewife. I learn,<BR> +Instead, that from women of that kind men turn,<BR> +With a yawn, unto those who are useless; who live<BR> +For the poor hollow world and for what it can give,<BR> +And who make home the spot where, when other joys cease,<BR> +One sleeps late when one wishes.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">You left me Maurice</SPAN><BR> +Left the home I have kept since our dear Mother died,<BR> +With such sisterly love and such housewifely pride,<BR> +And you wandered afar, and for what cause, forsooth?<BR> +Oh! because a vain, self-loving woman, in truth,<BR> +Had been faithless. The man whom I worshiped, ignored<BR> +The love and the <I>comfort</I> my woman's heart stored<BR> +In its depths for his taking, and sought Mabel Lee.<BR> +Well, I'm done with the role of the housewife. I see<BR> +There is nothing in being domestic. The part<BR> +Is unpicturesque, and at war with all art.<BR> +The senile old Century leers with dim eyes<BR> +At our sex and demands that we shock or surprise<BR> +His thin blood into motion. The home's not the place<BR> +To bring a pleased smile to his wicked old face.<BR> +To the mandate I bow; since all strive for that end,<BR> +I must join the great throng! I am leaving Bay Bend<BR> +This day week. I will see you in town as I pass<BR> +To the college at C——, where I enter the class<BR> +Of medical students—I fancy you will<BR> +Like to see my name thus—Dr. Ruth Somerville."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Maurice dropped the long, closely written epistle,<BR> +Stared hard at the wall, and gave vent to a whistle.<BR> +A Doctor! his sweet, little home-loving sister.<BR> +A Doctor! one might as well prefix a Mister<BR> +To Ruth Somerville, that most feminine name.<BR> +And then in the wake of astonishment came<BR> +Keen pity for all she had suffered. "Poor Ruth,<BR> +She writes like an agonized woman, in truth,<BR> +And like one torn with jealousy. Ah, I can see,"<BR> +He mused, "how the pure soul of sweet Mabel Lee<BR> +Revolts at the bondage and shrinks from the ban<BR> +That lies in the love of that sensual man.<BR> +He is of the earth, earthy. He loves but her beauty,<BR> +He cares not for conscience, or honor or duty.<BR> +Like a moth she was dazzled and lured by the flame<BR> +Of a light she thought love, till she learned its true name;<BR> +When she found it mere passion, it lost all its charms.<BR> +No wonder she flies from his fettering arms!<BR> +God pity you, Mabel! poor ill mated wife;<BR> +But my love, like a planet, shall watch o'er your life,<BR> +Though all other light from your skies disappear,<BR> +Like a sun in the darkness my love shall appear.<BR> +Unselfish and silent, it asks no return,<BR> +But while the great firmament lasts it shall burn."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Muse, muse, awake, and sing thy loneliest strain,<BR> +Song, song, be sad with sorrow's deepest pain,<BR> +Heart, heart, bow down and never bound again,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">My Lady grieves, she grieves.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Night, night, draw close thy filmy mourning veil,<BR> +Moon, moon, conceal thy beauty sweet and pale,<BR> +Wind, wind, sigh out thy most pathetic wail,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">My Lady grieves, she grieves.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Time, time, speed by, thou art too slow, too slow,<BR> +Grief, grief, pass on, and take thy cup of woe,<BR> +Life, life, be kind, ah! do not wound her so,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">My Lady grieves, she grieves.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Sleep, sleep, dare not to touch mine aching eyes,<BR> +Love, love, watch on, though fate thy wish denies,<BR> +Heart, heart, sigh on, since she, my Lady, sighs,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">My Lady grieves, she grieves.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I> +The flower breathes low to the bee,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">"Behold, I am ripe with bloom.</SPAN><BR> +Let Love have his way with me,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Ere I fall unwed in my tomb."</SPAN><BR> +</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I> +The rooted plant sighs in distress<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">To the winds by the garden walk</SPAN><BR> +"Oh, waft me my lover's caress,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Or I shrivel and die on my stalk."</SPAN><BR> +</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I> +The whippoorwill utters her love<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">In a passionate "Come, oh come,"</SPAN><BR> +To the male in the depths of the grove,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">But the heart of a woman is dumb.</SPAN><BR> +</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I> +The lioness seeks her mate,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The she-tiger calls her own—</SPAN><BR> +Who made it a woman's fate<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">To sit in the silence alone?</SPAN><BR> +</I> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VI.<BR> +</H3> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Wooed, wedded and widowed ere twenty. The life<BR> +Of Zoe Travers is told in that sentence. A wife<BR> +For one year, loved and loving; so full of life's joy<BR> +That death, growing jealous, resolved to destroy<BR> +The Eden she dwelt in. Five desolate years<BR> +She walked robed in weeds, and bathed ever in tears,<BR> +Through the valley of memory. Locked in love's tomb<BR> +Lay youth in its glory and hope in its bloom.<BR> +At times she was filled with religious devotion,<BR> +Again crushed to earth with rebellious emotion<BR> +And unresigned sorrow.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">Ah, wild was her grief!</SPAN><BR> +And the years seemed to bring her no balm of relief.<BR> +When a heart from its sorrow time cannot estrange,<BR> +God sends it another to alter and change<BR> +The current of feeling. Zoe's mother, her one<BR> +Tie to earth, became ill. When the doctors had done<BR> +All the harm which they dared do with powder and pill,<BR> +They ordered a trial of Dame Nature's skill.<BR> +Dear Nature! what grief in her bosom must stir<BR> +When she sees us turn everywhere save unto her<BR> +For the health she holds always in keeping; and sees<BR> +Us at last, when too late, creeping back to her knees,<BR> +Begging that she at first could have given!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">'Twas so</SPAN><BR> +Mother Nature's heart grieved o'er the mother of Zoe,<BR> +Who came but to die on her bosom. She died<BR> +Where the mocking bird poured out its passionate tide<BR> +Of lush music; and all through the dark days of pain<BR> +That succeeded, and over and through the refrain<BR> +Of her sorrow, Zoe heard that wild song evermore.<BR> +It seemed like a blow which pushed open a door<BR> +In her heart. Something strange, sweet and terrible stirred<BR> +In her nature, aroused by the song of that bird.<BR> +It rang like a voice from the future; a call<BR> +That came not from the past; yet the past held her all.<BR> +To the past she had plighted her vows; in the past<BR> +Lay her one dream of happiness, first, only, last.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Alone in the world now, she felt the unrest<BR> +Of an unanchored boat on the wild billow's breast.<BR> +Two homes had been shattered; the West held but tombs.<BR> +She drifted again where the magnolia blooms<BR> +And the mocking bird sings. Oh! that song, that wild strain,<BR> +Whose echoes still haunted her heart and her brain!<BR> +How she listened to hear it repeated! It came<BR> +Through the dawn to her heart, and the sound was like flame.<BR> +It chased all the shadows of night from her room,<BR> +And burst the closed bud of the day into bloom.<BR> +It leaped to the heavens, it sank to the earth<BR> +It gave life new rapture and love a new birth.<BR> +It ran through her veins like a fiery stream,<BR> +And the past and its sorrow—was only a dream.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The call of a bird in the spring for its lover<BR> +Is the voice of all Nature when winter is over.<BR> +The heart of the woman re-echoed the strain,<BR> +And its meaning, at last, to her senses was plain.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Grief's winter was over, the snows from her heart<BR> +Were melted; hope's blossoms were ready to start.<BR> +The spring had returned with its siren delights,<BR> +And her youth and emotions asserted their rights.<BR> +Then memory struggled with passion. The dead<BR> +Seemed to rise from the grave and accuse her. She fled<BR> +From her thoughts as from lepers; returned to old ways,<BR> +And strove to keep occupied, filling her days<BR> +With devotional duties. But when the night came<BR> +She heard through her slumber that song like a flame,<BR> +And her dreams were sweet torture. She sought all too soon<BR> +To chill the warm sun of her youth's ardent noon<BR> +With the shadows of premature evening. Her mind<BR> +Lacked direction and purpose. She tried in a blind,<BR> +Groping fashion to follow an early ideal<BR> +Of love and of constancy, starving the real<BR> +Affectional nature God gave her. She prayed<BR> +For God's help in unmaking the woman He made,<BR> +As if He repented the thing He had done.<BR> +With the soul of a Sappho, she lived like a nun,<BR> +Hid her thoughts from all women, from men kept apart,<BR> +And carefully guarded the book of her heart<BR> +From the world's prying eyes. Yet men read through the cover,<BR> +And knew that the story was food for a lover.<BR> +(The dullest of men seemed possessed of the art<BR> +To read what the passions inscribe on the heart.<BR> +Though written in cipher and sealed from the sight,<BR> +Yet masculine eyes will interpret aright.)<BR> +Worn out with the unceasing conflict at last,<BR> +Zoe fled from herself and her sorrowful past,<BR> +And turned to new scenes for diversion from thought.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +New York! oh, what magic encircles that spot<BR> +In the feminine mind of the West! There, it seems,<BR> +Waits the realization of beautiful dreams.<BR> +There the waters of Lethe unceasingly roll,<BR> +With blessed forgetfulness free to each soul,<BR> +While the doorways that lead to success open wide,<BR> +With Fame in the distance to beckon and guide.<BR> +Mirth lurks in each byway, and Folly herself<BR> +Wears the look of a semi-respectable elf,<BR> +And is to be courted and trusted when met,<BR> +For she teaches one how to be gay and forget,<BR> +And to start new account books with life.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">It was so,</SPAN><BR> +Since she first heard the name of the city, that Zoe<BR> +Dreamed of life in New York. It was thither she turned<BR> +To smother the heart that with restlessness burned,<BR> +And to quiet and calm an unsatisfied mind.<BR> +Her plans were but outlines, crude, vague, undefined,<BR> +Of distraction and pleasure. A snug little home,<BR> +With seclusion and comfort; full freedom to roam<BR> +Where her fancy and income permitted; new faces,<BR> +New scenes, new environments, far from the places<BR> +Where brief joy and long sorrow had dwelt with her; free<BR> +From the curious eyes that seemed ever to be<BR> +Bent upon her. She passed like a ship from the port,<BR> +Without chart or compass; the plaything and sport<BR> +Of the billows of Fate.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">The parks were all gay</SPAN><BR> +And busy with costuming duties of May<BR> +When Zoe reached New York. The rain and the breeze<BR> +Had freshened the gowns of the Northern pine trees<BR> +Till they looked bright as new; all the willows were seen<BR> +In soft dainty garments of exquisite green.<BR> +Young buds swelled with life, and reached out to invite<BR> +And to hold the warm gaze of the wandering light.<BR> +The turf exhaled fragrance; among the green boughs<BR> +The unabashed city birds plighted their vows,<BR> +Or happy young house hunters chirped of the best<BR> +And most suitable nook to establish a nest.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +There was love in the sunshine, and love in the air;<BR> +Youth, hope, home, companionship, spring, everywhere.<BR> +There was youth, there was spring in her blood; yet she only,<BR> +In all the great city, seemed loveless and lonely.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The trim little flat, facing north on the park,<BR> +Was not homelike; the rooms seemed too sombre and dark<BR> +To her eyes, sun-accustomed; the neighbors too near<BR> +And too noisy. The medley of sounds hurt her ear.<BR> +Sudden laughter; the cry of an infant; the splash<BR> +Of a tenant below in his bath-tub; the crash<BR> +Of strong hands on a keyboard above, and the light,<BR> +Merry voice of the lady who lived opposite,<BR> +The air intertwined in a tangled sound ball,<BR> +And flung straight at her ear through the court and the hall.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Ah, what loneliness dwelt in the rush and the stir<BR> +Of the great pushing throngs that were nothing to her,<BR> +And to whom she was nothing! Her heart, on its quest<BR> +For distraction, seemed eating itself in her breast.<BR> +She longed for a comrade, a friend. In the church<BR> +Which she frequented no one abetted her search,<BR> +For the faces of people she met in its aisle<BR> +Gazed calmly beyond her, without glance or smile.<BR> +The look in their eyes, when translated, read thus,<BR> +"We worship God here, what are people to us?"<BR> +In some masculine eyes she read more, it is true.<BR> +What she read made her gaze at the floor of her pew.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The blithe little blonde who lived over the hall,<BR> +In the opposite rooms, was the first one to call<BR> +Or to show friendly feeling. She seemed sweet and kind,<BR> +But her infantile face hid a mercantile mind.<BR> +Her voice had the timbre of metal. Each word<BR> +Clinked each word like small change in a purse; and you heard,<BR> +In the rustling silk of her skirts, just a hint<BR> +Of new bills freshly printed and right from the mint.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +There was that in her airs and her chatter which made<BR> +Zoe question and ponder, and turn half afraid<BR> +From her proffers of friendship. When one July day<BR> +The fair neighbor called for a moment to say,<BR> +"I am off to Long Branch for the summer, good-bye,"<BR> +Zoe seemed to breathe freer—she scarcely knew why,<BR> +But she reasoned it out as alone in the gloom<BR> +Of the soft summer evening she sat in her room.<BR> +"The woman is happy," she said; "at the least,<BR> +Her heart is not starving in life's ample feast.<BR> +She lives while she lives, but I only exist,<BR> +And Fate laughs in my face for the things I resist."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +New York in the midsummer seems like the gay<BR> +Upper servant who rules with the mistress away.<BR> +She entertains friends from all parts of the earth;<BR> +Her streets are alive with a fictitious mirth.<BR> +She flaunts her best clothes with a devil-may-care<BR> +Sort of look, and her parks wear a riotous air.<BR> +There is something unwholesome about her at dusk;<BR> +Her trees, and her gardens, seem scented with musk;<BR> +And you feel she has locked up the door of the house<BR> +And, half drunk with the heat, wanders forth to carouse,<BR> +With virtue, ambition and industry all<BR> +Packed off (moth-protected) with garments for Fall.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Zoe felt out of step with the town. In the song<BR> +Which it sang, where each note was a soul of the throng,<BR> +She seemed the one discord. Books gave no distraction.<BR> +She cared not for study, her heart longed for action,<BR> +For pleasure, excitement. Wild impulses, new<BR> +To her mind, came like demons and urged her to do<BR> +All sorts of mad things. Mischief breathed through the air.<BR> +One could do as one liked in New York—who would care—<BR> +Who would know save the God who had left her alone<BR> +In his world, unprotected, unloved? From her own<BR> +Restless mind and sick heart she attempted once more<BR> +To escape. One reads much of gay life at the shore—<BR> +Narragansett, she fancied, would suit her. The sea<BR> +Would at least prove a friend; and, perchance, there might be<BR> +Some heart, like her own, seeking comradeship there.<BR> +The days brought no friend. But the moist, salty air<BR> +Was a stimulant, giving existence new charms.<BR> +The sea was a lover who opened his arms<BR> +Every day to embrace her. And life in this place<BR> +Held something of pleasure, and sweetness and grace,<BR> +Though the eyes of the men were too ardent and bold,<BR> +And the eyes of the women suspicious and cold,<BR> +She yet had the sea—the sea, strong and mighty,<BR> +Both father and mother of fair Aphrodite.<BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VII.<BR> +</H3> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Mabel grieved for her child with a sorrow sincere,<BR> +But she bowed to the will of her Maker. No tear<BR> +Came to soften the hard, stony look in the eye<BR> +Of her husband; she heard no complaint and no sigh<BR> +From his lips, but he turned with impatience whenever<BR> +She spoke of religion, or made one endeavor<BR> +To lead his thoughts up from the newly turned sod<BR> +Where the little form slept, to its spirit with God.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Long hours by that grave, Roger passed, and alone.<BR> +The woes of her neighbors his wife made her own,<BR> +But her husband she pointed to Christ; and in grief<BR> +Prayed for light to be cast on his dark unbelief.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +She flung herself into good works more and more,<BR> +And saw not that the look which her husband's face wore<BR> +Was the look of a man starved for love. In the mold<BR> +Of a nun she was fashioned, chaste, passionless, cold.<BR> +(Such women sin more when they take marriage ties<BR> +Than the love-maddened creature who lawlessly lies<BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +In the arms of the man whom she worships. The child<BR> +Not conceived in true love leaves the mother defiled.<BR> +Though an army of clergymen sanction her vows,<BR> +God sees "illegitimate" stamped on the brows<BR> +Of her offspring. Love only can legalize birth<BR> +In His eyes—all the rest is but spawn of the earth.)<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Mabel Lee, as the maid, had been flattered and pleased<BR> +By the passion of Roger; his wild wooing teased<BR> +That inquisitive sense, half a fault, half a merit,<BR> +Which the daughters of Eve, to a woman, inherit.<BR> +His love fanned her love for herself to a glow;<BR> +She was stirred by the thought she could stir a man so.<BR> +That was all. She had nothing to give in return.<BR> +One can't light a fire with no fuel to burn;<BR> +And the love Roger dreamed he could rouse in her soul<BR> +Was not there to be wakened. He stood at his goal<BR> +As the Arctic explorer may finally stand,<BR> +To see all about him an ice prisoned land,<BR> +White, beautiful, useless.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">Some women are chaste,</SPAN><BR> +Like the snows which envelop the bleak arid waste<BR> +Of the desert; once melted, alas! what remains<BR> +But the poor, unproductive, dry soil of the plains?<BR> +The flora of Cupid will never be found,<BR> +However he toil there, to thrive in such ground.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Mabel Montrose was held in the highest esteem<BR> +By her neighbors; I think neighbors everywhere deem<BR> +Such women to be all that's noble. They sighed<BR> +When they spoke of her husband; they told how she tried<BR> +To convert him, and how they had thought for a season<BR> +His mind was bent Christ-ward; and then, with no reason,<BR> +He seemed to drift back to the world, and grew jealous<BR> +Of Mabel, and thought her too faithful and zealous<BR> +In duty to others.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">The death of his child</SPAN><BR> +Only hardened his heart against God. He grew wild,<BR> +Took to drink; spent a week at a time in the city,<BR> +Neglecting his saint of a wife—such a pity.<BR> +It was true. Our friends keep a sharp eye on our deeds<BR> +But the fine interlining of causes—who heeds?<BR> +The long list of heartaches which lead to rash acts<BR> +Would bring pity, not blame, if the world knew the facts.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +There are women so terribly free from all evil,<BR> +They discourage a man, and he goes to the devil.<BR> +There are people whose virtues result in appalling,<BR> +And they prove a great aid to his majesty's calling.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Roger's wife rendered goodness so dreary and cold,<BR> +His tendril-like will lost its poor little hold<BR> +On the new better life he was longing to reach,<BR> +And slipped back to the dust. Oh! to love, not to preach.<BR> +Is a woman's true method of helping mankind.<BR> +The sinner is won through his heart, not his mind.<BR> +As the sun loves the seed up to life through the sod,<BR> +So the patience of love brings a soul to its God.<BR> +But when love is lacking, the devil is sure<BR> +To stand in the pathway with some sort of lure.<BR> +Roger turned to the world for distraction. The world<BR> +Smiled a welcome, and then like an octopus curled<BR> +All its tentacles 'round him, and dragged him away<BR> +Into deep, troubled waters.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">One late summer day</SPAN><BR> +He awoke with a headache, which will not surprise,<BR> +When you know that his bedtime had been at sunrise,<BR> +And that gay Narraganset, the world renowned "Pier,"<BR> +Was the scene. Through the lace curtained window the clear<BR> +Yellow rays of the hot August sun touched his bed<BR> +And proclaimed it was mid-day. He rose, and his head<BR> +Seemed as large and as light as an air filled balloon<BR> +While his limbs were like lead.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">In the glare of the noon,</SPAN><BR> +The follies of night show their makeup, and seem<BR> +Like hideous monsters evoked by some dream.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The sea called to Roger: "Come, lie on my breast<BR> +And forget the dull world. My unrest shall give rest<BR> +To your turbulent feelings; the dregs of the wine<BR> +On your lips shall be lost in the salt touch of mine.<BR> +Come away, come away. Ah! the jubilant mirth<BR> +Of the sea is not known by the stupid old earth."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The beach swarmed with bathers—to be more exact,<BR> +Swarmed with people in costumes of bathers. In fact,<BR> +Many beautiful women bathed but in the light<BR> +Of men's eyes; and their costumes were made for the sight,<BR> +Not the sea. From the sea's lusty outreaching arms<BR> +They escaped with shrill shrieks, while the men viewed their charms<BR> +And made mental notes of them. Yet, at this hour,<BR> +The waves, too, were swelling sea meadows, a-flower<BR> +With faces of swimmers. All dressed for his bath,<BR> +Roger paused in confusion, because in his path<BR> +Surged a crowd of the curious; all eyes were bent<BR> +On the form of a woman who leisurely went<BR> +From her bathing house down to the beach. "There she goes,"<BR> +Roger heard a dame cry, as she stepped on his toes<BR> +With her whole ample weight. "What, the one with red hair?<BR> +Why, she isn't as pretty as Maude, I declare."<BR> +A man passing by with his comrade, cried: "Ned,<BR> +Look! there is La Travers, the one with the red<BR> +Braid of hair to her knees. She's a mystery here,<BR> +And at present the topic of talk at the Pier."<BR> +Roger followed their glances in time to behold<BR> +For a second a head crowned with braids of bright gold,<BR> +And a form like a Venus, all costumed in white.<BR> +Then she plunged through a billow and vanished from sight.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +It was half an hour afterward, possibly more,<BR> +As Roger swam farther and farther from shore,<BR> +With new life in his limbs and new force in his brain,<BR> +That he heard, just behind him, a sharp cry of pain.<BR> +Ten strokes in the rear on the crest of a wave<BR> +Shone a woman's white face. "Keep your courage; be brave;<BR> +I am coming," he shouted. "Turn over and float."<BR> +His strong shoulder plunged like the prow of a boat<BR> +Through the billows. Six overhand strokes brought him close<BR> +To the woman, who lay like a wilted white rose<BR> +On the waves. "Now, be careful," he cried; "lay your hand<BR> +Well up on my shoulder; my arms, understand,<BR> +Must be free; do not touch them—-please follow my wishes,<BR> +Unless you are anxious to fatten the fishes."<BR> +The woman obeyed him. "You need not fear me,"<BR> +She replied, "I am wholly at home in the sea.<BR> +I knew all the arts of the swimmer, I thought,<BR> +But confess I was frightened when suddenly caught<BR> +With a cramp in my knee at this distance from shore."<BR> +With slow even breast strokes the strong swimmer bore<BR> +His fair burden landward. She lay on the billows<BR> +As lightly as if she were resting on pillows<BR> +Of down. She relinquished herself to the sea<BR> +And the man, and was saved; though God knows both can be<BR> +False and fickle enough; yet resistance or strife,<BR> +On occasions like this, means the forfeit of life.<BR> +The throng of the bathers had scattered before<BR> +Roger carried his burden safe into the shore<BR> +And saw her emerge from the water, a place<BR> +Where most women lose every vestige of grace<BR> +Or of charm. But this mermaid seemed fairer than when<BR> +She had challenged the glances of women and men<BR> +As she went to her bath. Now her clinging silk suit<BR> +Revealed every line, from the throat to the foot,<BR> +Of her beautiful form. Her arms, in their splendor,<BR> +Gleamed white like wet marble. The round waist was slender,<BR> +And yet not too small. From the twin perfect crests<BR> +And the virginlike grace of her beautiful breasts<BR> +To the exquisite limbs and the curve of her thigh,<BR> +And the arch of her proud little instep, the eye<BR> +Drank in beauty. Her face was not beautiful; yet<BR> +The gaze lingered on it, for Eros had set<BR> +His seal on her features. The mouth full and weak,<BR> +The blue shadow drooping from eyelid to cheek<BR> +Like a stain of crushed grapes, and the pale, ardent skin,<BR> +All spoke of volcanic emotions within.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +By her tip tilted nose and low brow, it was plain<BR> +To read how her impulses ruled o'er her brain.<BR> +She had given the chief role of life to her heart,<BR> +And her intellect played but a small minor part.<BR> +Her eyes were the color the sunlight reveals<BR> +When it pierces the soft, furry coat of young seals.<BR> +The thickly fringed lids seemed unwilling to rise,<BR> +But drooped, half concealing them; wonderful eyes,<BR> +Full of secrets and bodings of sorrow. As coarse<BR> +And as thick as the mane of a finely groomed horse<BR> +Was her bright mass of hair. The sea, with rough hands,<BR> +Had made free with the braids, and unloosened the strands<BR> +Till they hung in great clusters of curls to her knees.<BR> +Her voice, when she spoke, held the breadth and the breeze<BR> +Of the West in its tones; and the use of the <I>R</I><BR> +Made the listener certain her home had been far<BR> +From New England. Long after she vanished from view<BR> +The eye and the ear seemed to sense her anew.<BR> +There was that in her voice and her presence which hung<BR> +In the air like a strain of a song which is sung<BR> +By a singer, and then sings itself the whole day,<BR> +And will hot be silenced.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">As birds flock away</SPAN><BR> +From meadow to tree branch, now there and now here,<BR> +So, from beach to Casino, each day at the Pier<BR> +Flock the gay pleasure seekers. The balconies glow<BR> +With beauty and color. The belle and the beau<BR> +Promenade in the sunlight, or sit tete-a-tete,<BR> +While the chaperons gossip together. Bands play,<BR> +Glasses clink; and 'neath sheltering lace parasols<BR> +There are plans made for meeting at drives or at balls.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Roger gat at a table alone, with his glass<BR> +Of mint julep before him, and watched the crowd pass.<BR> +There were all sorts of people from all sorts of places.<BR> +He thought he liked best the fair Baltimore faces.<BR> +The South was the land of fair women, he mused,<BR> +Because they were indolent. Women who used<BR> +Mind or body too freely. Changed curves into angles,<BR> +For beauty forever with intellect wrangles.<BR> +The trend of the fair sex to-day must alarm<BR> +Every lover of feminine beauty and charm.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +As he mused Roger watched with a keen interest<BR> +For a sight of his Undine. "All coiffured and drest,<BR> +With her wonderful body concealed, and her hair<BR> +Knotted up, well, I doubt if she seem even fair,"<BR> +He soliloquized. "Ah!" the word burst from his lips,<BR> +For he saw her approaching. She walked from the hips<BR> +With an undulous motion. As graceful and free<BR> +From all effort as waves swinging in from the sea<BR> +Were her movements. Her full molded figure seemed slight<BR> +In its close fitting gown of black cloth; and the white<BR> +Of her cheek seemed still whiter by contrast. Her clothes<BR> +Were tasteful and quiet; yet Roger Montrose<BR> +Knew in some subtle manner he could not express<BR> +('Tis an instinct men have in the matters of dress)<BR> +That they never were made in New York. By her hat<BR> +One can oft read a woman's whole character. That<BR> +Which our fair Undine wore was a thing of rich lace,<BR> +Flowers and ribbons like others one saw in the place.<BR> +Yet the width of the brim, or the twist of its bows,<BR> +Or the way it was worn made it different from those.<BR> +As it drooped o'er the eyes full of mystery there,<BR> +It seemed, all at once, both a menace and dare;<BR> +A menace to women, a dare to the men.<BR> +She bowed as she passed Roger's table; and then<BR> +Took a chair opposite, spread her shade of red silk,<BR> +Called a waiter and ordered a cup of hot milk,<BR> +Which she leisurely sipped. She seemed unaware<BR> +Of the curious eyes she attracted. Her air<BR> +Was of one quite at home, and entirely at ease<BR> +With herself, the sole person she studied to please.<BR> +She had been for three weeks at the Pier, and alone,<BR> +Without maid or escort, and nothing was known<BR> +Of her there, save the name which the register bore,<BR> +"Mrs. Travers, New York." Men were mad to learn more<BR> +But the women were distant. One can't, at such places,<BR> +Accept as credentials good figures or faces.<BR> +There was an unnameable <I>something</I> about<BR> +Mrs. Travers which filled other women with doubt<BR> +And all men with interest. Roger, blasé,<BR> +Disillusioned with life as he was, felt the sway<BR> +Of her strong personality, there as she sat<BR> +Looking out 'neath the rim of her coquettish hat<BR> +With dark eyes on the sea. Few people had power<BR> +To draw his gray thoughts from himself for an hour<BR> +As this woman had done; she was food for his mind,<BR> +And he sought by his inner perceptions to find<BR> +in what class she belonged. "An adventuress? No,<BR> +Though I fancy three-fourths of the women think so<BR> +And one-half of the men; but that role leaves a trace,<BR> +An expression, I fail to detect in her face.<BR> +Her past is not shadowed; my judgment would say<BR> +That her sins lie before her, and not far away.<BR> +She's a puzzle, I think, to herself; and grim Fate<BR> +Will aid her in solving the riddle too late.<BR> +Her soul dreams of happiness; but in her eyes<BR> +The sensuous foe to all happiness lies.<BR> +As the rain is drawn up by some moods of the sun,<BR> +Some natures draw trouble from life; her's is one."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +She rose and passed by him again, and her gown<BR> +Brushed his knee. A light tremor went shivering down<BR> +His whole body. She left on the air as she went<BR> +A subtle suggestion of perfume; the scent<BR> +Which steals out of some fans, or old laces, and seems<BR> +Full of soft fragrant fancies and languorous dreams.<BR> +She haunted the mind, though she passed from the sight.<BR> +When Roger Montrose sought his pillow that night,<BR> +'Twas to dream of La Travers. He thought she became<BR> +A burning red rose, with each leaf like a flame.<BR> +He stooped down and plucked it, and woke with a start,<BR> +As it turned to an adder and struck at his heart.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The dream left its impress, as certain dreams should,<BR> +For, as warnings of evil, precursors of good,<BR> +They are sent to our souls o'er a mystical line,<BR> +Night messages, couched in a cipher divine.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Roger knew much of life, much of women, and knew<BR> +Even more of himself and his weaknesses. Few<BR> +Of us mortals look inward; our gaze is turned out<BR> +To watch what the rest of the world is about,<BR> +While the rest of the world watches us.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">Roger's reason</SPAN><BR> +And logic were clear. But his will played him treason.<BR> +If you looked at his hand, you would see it. Hands speak<BR> +More than faces. His thumb (the first phalanx) was weak,<BR> +Undeveloped; the second, firm jointed and long,<BR> +Which showed that the reasoning powers were strong,<BR> +But the will, from disuse, had grown feeble.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">That morning</SPAN><BR> +He looked on his dream in the light of a warning<BR> +And made sudden plans for departure. "To go<BR> +Is to fly from some folly," he said, "for I know<BR> +What salt air and dry wine, and the soft siren eyes<BR> +Of a woman, can do under midsummer skies<BR> +With a man who is wretched as I am. Unrest<BR> +Is a tramp, who goes picking the locks on one's breast<BR> +That a whole gang of vices may enter. A thirst<BR> +For strong drink and chance games, those twin comrades accursed,<BR> +Are already admitted. Oh Mabel, my wife,<BR> +Reach, reach out your arms, draw me into the life<BR> +That alone is worth living. I need you to-day,<BR> +Have pity, and love me, oh love me, I pray.<BR> +I will turn once again from the bad world to you.<BR> +Though false to myself, to my vows I am true."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +When a soul strives to pull itself up out of sin<BR> +The devil tries harder to push it back in.<BR> +And the man who attempts to retrace the wrong track<BR> +Needs his God and his will to stand close at his back.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Through what are called accidents, Roger was late<BR> +At the train. Are not accidents servants of Fate?<BR> +The first coach was filled; he passed on to the second.<BR> +That, too, seemed complete, but a gentleman beckoned<BR> +And said, "There's a seat, sir; the third from the last<BR> +On your left." Roger thanked him and leisurely passed<BR> +Down the aisle, with his coat on his arm, to the place<BR> +Indicated. The seat held a lady, whose face<BR> +Was turned to the window. "Pray pardon me, miss"<BR> +(For he judged by her back she was youthful), "is this<BR> +Seat engaged?" As he spoke, the face turned in surprise,<BR> +And Roger looked into the long, languid eyes<BR> +Of La Travers. She smiled, moved her wraps from the seat,<BR> +And he sat down beside her. The same subtle, sweet<BR> +Breath of perfume exhaled from her presence, and made<BR> +The place seem a boudoir. The deep winey shade<BR> +'Neath her eyes had grown larger, as if she had wept<BR> +Or a late, lonely vigil with memory kept.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +A man who has rescued a woman from danger<BR> +Or death, does not seem to her wholly a stranger<BR> +When next she encounters him; yet both essayed<BR> +To be formal and proper; and each of them made<BR> +The effort a failure. The jar of a train<BR> +At times holds a mesmeric spell for the brain<BR> +And a tense excitation for nerves; and the shriek<BR> +Of the engine compels one to lean near to speak<BR> +Or to list to his neighbor. Formality flies<BR> +With the smoke of the train and floats off to the skies.<BR> +Roger led his companion to talk; and the theme<BR> +Which he chose, was herself, her life story. The dream<BR> +Of the previous night was forgotten. The charm<BR> +Of the woman outweighed superstitious alarm.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +When the sunlight began to play peek-a-boo<BR> +Through the tunnels, which told them the journey was through,<BR> +Roger looked at his time-piece; the train for Bay Bend<BR> +Left in just twenty minutes; but what a rude end<BR> +To the day's pleasant comradeship—rushing away<BR> +With a hurried good-bye! He decided to stay<BR> +Over night in the city. He was not expected<BR> +At home. Mrs. Travers was quite unprotected,<BR> +And almost a stranger in Gotham. He ought<BR> +To see her safe into her doorway, he thought.<BR> +At the doorway she gave him her hand, with a smile;<BR> +"I have known you," she said, "such a brief little while,<BR> +Yet you seem like a friend of long standing; I say<BR> +Good-bye with reluctance."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">"Perhaps, then, I may</SPAN><BR> +Call and see you to-morrow?" the words seemed to fall<BR> +Of themselves from his lips; words he longed to recall<BR> +When once uttered, for deep in his conscience he knew<BR> +That the one word for him to speak now, was adieu.<BR> +The lady's soft, cushion-like hand rested still<BR> +In his own, and the contact was pleasant. A thrill<BR> +From the finger tips quickened his pulses.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">"You may</SPAN><BR> +Call to-morrow at four." The soft hand slipped away<BR> +And left his palm lonely.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">"The call must be brief,"</SPAN><BR> +He said to himself, with a sense of relief,<BR> +As he ran down the steps, "for at five my train goes."<BR> +Yet the five o'clock train bore no Roger Montrose<BR> +From New York. Mrs. Travers had asked him to dine.<BR> +A tete-a-tete dinner with beauty and wine,<BR> +To stir the man's senses and deaden his brain.<BR> +(The devil keeps always good chefs in his train.)<BR> +It was ten when he rose for departure. The room<BR> +Seemed a garden of midsummer fragrance and bloom.<BR> +The lights with their soft rosy coverings made<BR> +A glow like late sunsets, in some tropic glade.<BR> +The world seemed afar, with its dullness and duty,<BR> +And life was a rapture of love and of beauty.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +God knows how it happened; they never knew how.<BR> +He turned with a formal conventional bow,<BR> +And some well chosen words of politeness, to go.<BR> +Her mouth was a rose Love had dropped in the snow<BR> +Of her face. It smiled up to him, luscious and sweet.<BR> +In the tip of each finger he felt his heart beat,<BR> +Like five hearts all in one, as her hand touched his own.<BR> +She murmured "good-night," in a tremulous tone.<BR> +White, intense, through the soft golden mist which the wine<BR> +Had cast over his vision, he saw her face shine.<BR> +Her low lidded eyes held a lion-like glow.<BR> +You have seen sudden storms lash the ocean? You know<BR> +How the cyclone, unheralded, rises in wrath,<BR> +And leaves devastation and death in its path?<BR> +So swift, sudden passion may rise in its power,<BR> +And ruin and blight a whole life in an hour.<BR> +Two unanchored souls in its maelstrom were whirled,<BR> +Drawn down by love's undertow, lost to the world.<BR> +The dark, solemn billows of night shut them in.<BR> +Like corpses afloat on the ocean of sin<BR> +They must seem to their true, better selves, when again<BR> +The tide drifts them back to the notice of men.<BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I> +Forget me, dear; forget and cease to love me,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">I am not worth one memory, kind or true,</SPAN><BR> +Let silent, pale Oblivion spread above me<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Her winding sheet, for I am dead to you.</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">Forget, forget.</SPAN><BR> +</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I> +Sin has resumed its interrupted story;<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">I am enslaved, who dreamed of being free.</SPAN><BR> +Say for my soul, in life's dark purgatory,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">One little prayer, then cease to think of me.</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">Forget, forget.</SPAN><BR> +</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I> +I ask you not to pity or to pardon;<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">I ask you to forget me. Tear my name</SPAN><BR> +From out your heart; the wound will heal and harden.<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Death does not dig so deep a grave as shame.</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">Forget, forget.</SPAN><BR> +</I> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VIII.<BR> +</H3> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Roger's Letter to Mabel.</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Farewell! I shall never again seek your side;<BR> +I will stay with my sins and leave you with your pride.<BR> +Let the swift flame of scorn dry the tears of regret,<BR> +Shut me out of your life, lock the door and forget.<BR> +I shall pass from your skies as a vagabond star<BR> +Passes out of the great solar system afar<BR> +Into blackness and gloom; while the heavens smile on,<BR> +Scarce knowing the poor erring creature is gone.<BR> +Say a prayer for the soul sunk in sinning; I die<BR> +To you, and to all who have known me. Good-bye.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Mabel's Letter to Maurice.</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +I break through the silence of years, my old friend,<BR> +To beg for a favor; oh, grant it! I send<BR> +Roger's letter in confidence to you, and ask,<BR> +In the name of our sweet early friendship, a task,<BR> +Which, however painful, I pray you perform.<BR> +Poor Roger! his bark is adrift in the storm.<BR> +He has veered from the course; with no compass of faith<BR> +To point to the harbor, he goes to his death.<BR> +You are giving your talents and time, I am told,<BR> +To aiding the poor; let this victim of gold<BR> +Be included. His life has not learned self-control,<BR> +And luxury stunted the growth of his soul.<BR> +In blindness of spirit he took the wrong track,<BR> +But he sees his great error and longs to come back.<BR> +Oh, help me to reach him and save him, Maurice.<BR> +My heart yearns to show him the infinite peace<BR> +Found but in God's love. Let us pity, forgive<BR> +And help him, dear friend, to seek Christ and to live<BR> +In the light of His mercy. I know you will do<BR> +What I ask, you were ever so loyal and true.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Maurice to Mabel.</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Though bitter the task (why, your heart must well know),<BR> +Your wish shall be ever my pleasure. I go<BR> +On the search for the prodigal. Not for his sake,<BR> +But because you have asked me, I willingly make<BR> +This effort to find him. Sometimes, I contend,<BR> +It is kinder to let a soul speed to the end<BR> +Of its swift downward course than to check it to-day,<BR> +But to see it to-morrow pursue the same way.<BR> +The man who could wantonly stray from your side<BR> +Into folly and sin has abandoned all pride.<BR> +There is little to hope from him. Yet, since his name<BR> +Is the name you now bear, I will save him from shame,<BR> +God permitting. To serve and obey you is still<BR> +Held an honor, Madame, by Maurice Somerville.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Maurice to Mabel Ten Days Later.</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The search for your husband is finished. Oh, pray<BR> +Tear all love and all hope from your heart ere I say<BR> +What I must say. The man has insulted your trust;<BR> +He has dragged the most sacred of ties in the dust,<BR> +And ruined the fame of a woman who wore,<BR> +Until now, a good name. He has gone. Close the door<BR> +Of your heart in his face if he seeks to come back.<BR> +The sleuth hounds of justice were put on his track,<BR> +And his life since he left you lies bare to my gaze.<BR> +He sailed yesterday on the "Paris." For days<BR> +Preceding the journey he lived as the guest<BR> +Of one Mrs. Zoe Travers, who comes from the West!<BR> +A widow, young, fair, well-connected. I hear<BR> +He followed her back to New York from the Pier,<BR> +And now he has taken the woman abroad.<BR> +My letter sounds brutal and harsh. Would to God<BR> +I might soften the facts in some measure; but no,<BR> +In matters like this the one thing is to know<BR> +The whole truth, and at once. Though the pain be intense<BR> +It pulls less on the soul than the pangs of suspense.<BR> +Like a surgeon of fate, with my pen for a knife,<BR> +I cut out false hopes which endanger your life.<BR> +Let the law, like a nurse, cleanse the wound—there is shame<BR> +And disgrace for you now in the man's very name.<BR> +Though justice is blindfolded, yet she can hear<BR> +When the chink of gold dollars sounds close in her ear.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +One needs but to give her this musical hint<BR> +To save you the sight of your sorrows in print.<BR> +Closed doors, private hearing; a sentence or two<BR> +In the journals; then dignified freedom for you.<BR> +When love, truth and loyalty vanish, the tie<BR> +Which binds man to woman is only a lie.<BR> +Undo it! remember at all times I stand<BR> +As a friend to rely on—a serf to command.<BR> +</P> + +<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="20%"> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Some women there are who would willingly barter<BR> +A queen's diadem for the crown of a martyr.<BR> +They want to be pitied, not envied. To know<BR> +That the world feels compassion makes joy of their woe;<BR> +And the keenest delight in their misery lies,<BR> +If only their friends will look on with wet eyes.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +In fact, 'tis the prevalent weakness, I find,<BR> +Of the sex. As a mass, women seem disinclined<BR> +To be thought of as happy; they like you to feel<BR> +That their bright smiling faces are masks which conceal<BR> +A dead hope in their hearts. The strange fancy clings<BR> +To the mind of the world that the rarest of things—<BR> +Contentment—is commonplace; and, that to shine<BR> +As something superior, one must repine,<BR> +Or seem to be hiding an ache in the breast.<BR> +Yet the commonest thing in the world is unrest,<BR> +If you want to be really unique, go along<BR> +And act as if Fate had not done you a wrong,<BR> +And declare you have had your deserts in this life.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The part of the patient, neglected young wife<BR> +Contained its attractions for Mabel Montrose.<BR> +She was one of the women who live but to pose<BR> +In the eyes of their friends; and she so loved her art<BR> +That she really believed she was living the part.<BR> +The suffering martyr who makes no complaint<BR> +Was a role more important, by far, than the saint<BR> +Or reformer. As first leading lady in grief,<BR> +Her pride in herself found a certain relief.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The ardent and love-selfish husband had not<BR> +Been so dear to her heart, or so close to her thought,<BR> +As this weak, reckless sinner, who woke in her soul<BR> +Its dominant wish—to reform and control.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +(How often, alas, the reformers of earth,<BR> +If they studied their purpose, would find it had birth<BR> +In this thirst to control; in the poor human passion<BR> +The minds and the manners of others to fashion!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +We sigh o'er the heathen, we weep o'er his woes,<BR> +While forcing him into our creeds and our clothes.<BR> +If he adds our diseases and vices as well,<BR> +Still, at least we have guided him into <I>our</I> hell<BR> +And away from his own heathen hades. The pleasure<BR> +Derived from that thought but reformers can measure.)<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The thing Mabel Montrose loved best on this earth<BR> +Was a sinner, and Roger but doubled his worth<BR> +In her eyes when he wrote her that letter. And still<BR> +When the last message came from Maurice Somerville<BR> +And the bald, ugly facts, unsuspected, unguessed,<BR> +Lay before her, the <I>woman</I> awoke in her breast,<BR> +And the patient reformer gave way to the wife,<BR> +Who was torn with resentment and jealousy's strife.<BR> +Ah, jealousy! vain is the effort to prove<BR> +Your right in the world as the offspring of love;<BR> +For oftener far, you are spawned by a heart<BR> +Where Cupid has never implanted a dart.<BR> +Love knows you, indeed, for you serve in his train,<BR> +But crowned like a monarch you royally reign<BR> +Over souls wherein love is a stranger.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">No thought</SPAN><BR> +Came to Mabel Montrose that her own life was not<BR> +Free from blame. (How few women, indeed, think of this<BR> +When they grieve o'er the ruin of marital bliss!)<BR> +She was shocked and indignant. Pain gave her a new<BR> +Role to play without study; she missed in her cue<BR> +And played badly at first, was resentful and cried<BR> +Against Fate for the blow it had dealt to her pride<BR> +(Though she called it her love), and declared her life blighted.<BR> +It is one thing, of course, for a wife to be slighted<BR> +For the average folly the world calls a sin,<BR> +Such as races, clubs, games; when a woman steps in<BR> +The matter assumes a new color, and Mabel,<BR> +Who dearly loved sinners, at first seemed unable<BR> +To pardon, or ask God to pardon, the crime<BR> +Of her husband; an angry disgust for a time<BR> +Drove all charity out of her heart. For a thief,<BR> +For a forger, a murderer, even, her grief<BR> +Had been mingled with pity and pardon; the one<BR> +Thing she could not forgive was the thing he had done.<BR> +It was wicked, indecent, and so unrefined.<BR> +To the lure of the senses her nature was blind,<BR> +And her mantle of charity never had been<BR> +Wide enough to quite cover that one vulgar sin.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +In the letter she sent to Maurice, though she said<BR> +Little more than her thanks for his kindness, he read<BR> +All her tense nervous feelings between its few lines.<BR> +Though we study our words, the keen reader divines<BR> +What we <I>thought</I> while we penned them; thought odors reveal<BR> +What words not infrequently seek to conceal.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Maurice read the grief, the resentment, the shame<BR> +Which Mabel's heart held; to his own bosom came<BR> +Stealing back, masked demurely as friendly regard,<BR> +The hope of a lover—that hope long debarred.<BR> +His letters grew frequent; their tone, dignified,<BR> +Unselfish, and manly, appealed to her pride.<BR> +Sweet sympathy mingled with praise in each line<BR> +(As a gentle narcotic is stirred into wine),<BR> +Soothed pain, stimulated self love, and restored her<BR> +The pleasure of knowing the man still adored her.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Understand, Mabel Montrose was not a coquette,<BR> +She lacked all the arts of the temptress; and yet<BR> +She was young, she was feminine; love to her mind<BR> +Was extreme admiration; it pleased her to find<BR> +She was still, to Maurice, an ideal. A woman<BR> +Must be quite unselfish, almost superhuman,<BR> +And full of strong sympathy, who, in her soul,<BR> +Feels no wrench when she knows she has lost all control<BR> +O'er the heart of a man who once loved her.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">Months passed,</SPAN><BR> +And Mabel accepted her burden at last<BR> +And went back to her world and its duties. Her eyes,<BR> +Seemed to say when she looked at you, "please sympathize,<BR> +On the slight graceful form or the beautiful face.<BR> +Twas a sorrow of mind, not a sorrow of heart,<BR> +And the two play a wholly dissimilar part<BR> +In the life of a woman.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">Maurice Somerville</SPAN><BR> +Kept his place as good friend through sheer force of his will<BR> +But his heart was in tumult; he longed for the time<BR> +When, free once again from the legalized crime<BR> +Of her ties, she might listen to all he would say.<BR> +There was anguish, and doubt, and suspense in delay,<BR> +Yet Mabel spoke never of freedom. At length<BR> +He wrote her, "My will has exhausted its strength.<BR> +Read the song I enclose; though my lips must be mute,<BR> +The muse may at least improvise to her lute."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Song.</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +There was a bird as blithe as free,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">(Summer and sun and song)</SPAN><BR> +She sang by the shores of a laughing sea,<BR> +And oh, but the world seemed fair to me,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And the days were sweet and long.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +There was a hunter, a hunter bold,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">(Autumn and storm and sea)</SPAN><BR> +And he prisoned the bird in a cage of gold,<BR> +And oh, but the world grew dark and cold,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And the days were sad to me.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The hunter has gone; ah, what cares he?<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">(Winter and wind and rain)</SPAN><BR> +And the caged bird pines for the air and the sea,<BR> +And I long for the right to set her free<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">To sing in the sun again.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The hunter has gone with a sneer at fate,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">(Spring and the sea and the sun)</SPAN><BR> +Let the bird fly free to find her mate,<BR> +Ere the year of love grow sere and late.<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Sweet ladye, my song is done.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Mabel's Letter to Maurice.</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +To the song of your muse I have listened. Oh, cease<BR> +To think of me but as a friend, dear Maurice.<BR> +Once a wife, a wife alway. I vowed from my heart,<BR> +"For better, for worse, until death do us part."<BR> +No mention was made in the service that day<BR> +Of breaking my fetters if joy flew away.<BR> +"For better, for worse," a vow lightly spoken,<BR> +When Fate brings the "worse," how lightly 'tis broken!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The "worse," in my case, is the worst fate can give.<BR> +Tho' I shrank from the blow, I must bear it and live,<BR> +Not for self, but for duty; nor strive to evade<BR> +Fulfilling the promise I willingly made.<BR> +While Roger has sinned, and his sinning would be,<BR> +In the eyes of the law, proof to render me free,<BR> +It was God heard my vows and the Church sealed the bond.<BR> +Until one of us passes to death's dim beyond,<BR> +Though seas and though sins may divide us for life,<BR> +We are bound to each other as husband and wife.<BR> +In God's Court of Justice divorce is a word<BR> +Which falls without import or meaning when heard;<BR> +And the women who cast off old fetters that way,<BR> +To give place to the new, on the great Judgment Day<BR> +Must find, in the last summing up, that they stand<BR> +Side by side, in God's eyes, with the Magdalene band.<BR> +Dear Maurice, be my brother, my counselor, friend.<BR> +We are lonely without you and Ruth, at Bay Bend.<BR> +Come sometimes and brighten our lives; put away<BR> +The thoughts which are making you restless to-day<BR> +And give me your strong noble friendship; indeed<BR> +'Tis a friend that I crave, not a lover I need.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Maurice to Mabel.</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +You write like a woman, and one, it is plain,<BR> +Whose sentiment hangs like a cloud o'er her brain.<BR> +You gaze through a sort of traditional mist,<BR> +And behold a mirage of God's laws which exist<BR> +But in fancy. God made but one law—it is love.<BR> +A law for the earth, and the kingdoms above,<BR> +A law for the woman, a law for the man,<BR> +The base and the spire of His intricate plan<BR> +Of existence. All evils the world ever saw<BR> +Had birth in man's breaking away from this law.<BR> +God cancels a marriage when love flies away.<BR> +"Till death do us part" should be altered to say,<BR> +"Till disgust or indifference part us." I know<BR> +You never loved Roger, my heart tells me so.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +He won you, I claim, through a mesmeric spell;<BR> +You dreamed of an Eden, and wakened in hell.<BR> +You pitied his weakness, you struggled to save him,<BR> +He paid with a crime the devotion you gave him.<BR> +And the blackest of insults relentlessly hurled<BR> +At your poor patient heart in the gaze of the world.<BR> +In God's mighty ledger the stroke of a pen<BR> +Has been drawn through your record of marriage. Though men<BR> +Call you wedded I hold you are widowed. Why cling<BR> +To the poor, empty, meaningless form of a thing—<BR> +To the letter, devoid of all spirit? God never<BR> +Intended a woman to hopelessly sever<BR> +Herself from all possible joy, or to make<BR> +True faithfulness suffer for faithlessness' sake.<BR> +When I think of your wrongs, when I think of my woes,<BR> +That black word divorce like a bright planet glows<BR> +In the skies of the future. Oh, Mabel, be fair<BR> +To yourself and to me. For the years of despair<BR> +I have suffered you owe me some recompense, surely.<BR> +The heart that has worshipped so long and so purely<BR> +Ought not to be slighted for mere sentiment.<BR> +We must live as our century bids us. Its bent<BR> +Is away from the worn ruts of thought. Where of old<BR> +The life of a woman was run in the mold<BR> +Of man's wishes and passions, to-day she is free;<BR> +Free to think and to act; free to do and to be<BR> +What she pleases. The poor, pining victim of fate<BR> +And man's cruelty, long ago went out of date.<BR> +In the mansion of Life there were some things askew,<BR> +Which the strong hand of Progress has righted. The new,<BR> +Better plan puts old notions of sex on the shelf.<BR> +Who is true to a knave, is untrue to herself.<BR> +Oh, be true to yourself, and have pity on one<BR> +Who has long dwelt in shadow and pines for the sun.<BR> +Love, starving on memories, begs for one taste<BR> +Of sweet hope, ere the remnant of youth goes to waste.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Mabel to Maurice.</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +You write like a man who sees self as his goal.<BR> +You speak of your woes—yet my travail of soul<BR> +Seems mere sentiment to you. Maurice, pause and think<BR> +Of the black, bitter potion life gave me to drink<BR> +When I dreamed of love's nectar. Too fresh is the taste<BR> +Of its gall on my lip for my heart in such haste<BR> +To reach out for the cup that is proffered anew.<BR> +A certain respect to my sorrows is due.<BR> +I am weary of love as men know it. The calm<BR> +Of a sweet, tranquil friendship would act like a balm<BR> +On the wounds of my heart; that platonic regard,<BR> +Which we read of in books, or hear sung by the bard,<BR> +But so seldom can find when we want it. I thought,<BR> +For a time, you had conquered mere self, and had brought<BR> +Such a friendship to comfort and rest me. But no,<BR> +That dream, like full many another, must go.<BR> +The love that is based on attraction of sex<BR> +Is a love that has brought me but sorrow. Why vex<BR> +My poor soul with the same thing again? If you love<BR> +With a higher emotion, you know how to prove<BR> +And sustain the assertion by conduct. Maurice,<BR> +Love must rise above passion, to infinite peace<BR> +And serenity, ere it is love, to my mind.<BR> +For the women of earth, in the ranks of mankind<BR> +There are too many lovers and not enough friends.<BR> +'Tis the friend who protects, 'tis the lover who rends.<BR> +He who <I>can</I> be a friend while he <I>would</I> be a lover<BR> +Is the rarest and greatest of souls to discover.<BR> +Have I found, dear Maurice, such a treasure in you?<BR> +If not, I must say with this letter—adieu.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +As he finished the letter there seemed but one phrase<BR> +To the heart of the reader. It shone on his gaze<BR> +Bright with promise and hope. "<I>Too fresh is the taste<BR> +Of its gall on my lip for my heart in such haste<BR> +To reach out for the cup that is offered anew.</I>"<BR> +"<I>In such haste.</I>" Ah, how hope into certainty grew<BR> +As he read and re-read that one sentence. "Let fate<BR> +Take the whole thing in charge, I can wait—I can wait.<BR> +I have lived through the night; though the dawn may be gray<BR> +And belated, it heralds the coming of day."<BR> +So he talked with himself, and grew happy at last.<BR> +The five hopeless years of his sorrow were cast<BR> +Like a nightmare behind him. He walked once again<BR> +With a joy in his personal life, among men.<BR> +There seemed to be always a smile on his lip,<BR> +For he felt like a man on the deck of a ship<BR> +Who has sailed through strange seas with a mutinous crew,<BR> +And now in the distance sights land just in view.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The house at Bay Bend was re-opened. Once more,<BR> +Where the waves of the Sound wash the New England shore,<BR> +Walked Maurice; and beside him, young hope, with the tip<BR> +Of his fair rosy fingers pressed hard on his lip,<BR> +Urging silence. If Mabel Montrose saw the boy<BR> +With the pursed prudent mouth and the eyes full of joy<BR> +She said nothing. Grave, dignified (Ah, but so fair!),<BR> +There was naught in her modest and womanly air<BR> +To feed or encourage such hope. Yet love grew<BR> +Like an air plant, with only the night and the dew<BR> +To sustain it; while Mabel rejoiced in the friend,<BR> +Who, in spite of himself, had come back to Bay Bend,<BR> +Yielding all to her wishes. Such people, alone,<BR> +Who gracefully gave up their plans for her own,<BR> +Were congenial to Mabel. Though looking the sweet,<BR> +Fragile creature, with feminine virtues replete,<BR> +Her nature was stubborn. Beneath that fair brow<BR> +Lurked an obstinate purpose to make others bow<BR> +To herself in small matters. She fully believed<BR> +She was right, always right; and her friends were deceived,<BR> +As a rule, into thinking the same; for her eyes<BR> +Held a look of such innocent grief and surprise<BR> +When her will was opposed, that one felt her misused,<BR> +And retired from the field of dispute, self-accused.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The days, like glad children, went hurrying out<BR> +From the schoolhouse of time; months pursued the same route<BR> +More sedately; a year, then two years, passed away,<BR> +Yet hope, unimpaired, in the lover's heart lay,<BR> +As a gem in the bed of a river might lie,<BR> +Unharmed and unmoved while its waters ran by.<BR> +His toil for the poor still continued, but not<BR> +With that fervor of zeal which a dominant thought<BR> +Lends to labor. Fair love gilded dreams filled his mind,<BR> +While the corners were left for his suffering kind.<BR> +He was sorry for sorrow; but love made him glad,<BR> +And nothing in life now seemed hopeless or sad.<BR> +His tete-a-tete visits with Mabel were rare;<BR> +She ordered her life with such prudence and care<BR> +Lest her white name be soiled by the gossips. And yet,<BR> +Though his heart, like a steed checked too closely, would fret<BR> +Sometimes at these creed-imposed fetters, he felt<BR> +Keen delight in her nearness; in knowing she dwelt<BR> +Within view of his high turret window. Each day<BR> +Which gave him a glimpse of her, love laid away<BR> +As a poem in life's precious folio. Night<BR> +Held her face like a picture, dream-framed for his sight.<BR> +So he fed on the crumbs from love's table, the while<BR> +Fate sat looking on with a cynical smile.<BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +IX.<BR> +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +SONGS FROM THE TURRET.<BR> +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +I.<BR> +</H3> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +In the day my thoughts are tender<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">When I muse on my ladye fair.</SPAN><BR> +There is never one to offend her,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">For each is pure as a prayer.</SPAN><BR> +They float like spirits above her,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">About her and always near;</SPAN><BR> +And they scarce dare sigh that they love her,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Because she would blush to hear.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +But in dreams my thoughts grow bolder;<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And close to my lips of fire,</SPAN><BR> +I reach out my arms and enfold her,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">My ladye, my heart's desire.</SPAN><BR> +And she who, in earthly places,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Seems cold as the stars above,</SPAN><BR> +Unmasks in those fair dream spaces<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And gives me love for love.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Oh day, with your thoughts of duty<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Cross over the sunset streams,</SPAN><BR> +And give me the night of beauty<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And love in the Land of Dreams.</SPAN><BR> +For there in the mystic, shady,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Fair isle of the Slumber Sea,</SPAN><BR> +I read the heart of my ladye<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">That here she hides from me.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +II.<BR> +</H3> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Some day, some beauteous day,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Joy will come back again.</SPAN><BR> +Sorrow must fly away.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Hope, on her harp will play<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The old inspiring strain</SPAN><BR> +Some day, some beauteous day.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Through the long hours I say,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">"The night must fade and wane,</SPAN><BR> +Sorrow must fly away."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The morn's bewildering ray<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Shall pierce the night of rain,</SPAN><BR> +Some day, some beauteous day.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Autumn shall bloom like May,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Delight shall spring from pain;</SPAN><BR> +Sorrow must fly away.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Though on my life, grief's gray<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Bleak shadow long hath lain,</SPAN><BR> +Some day, some beauteous day,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Sorrow must fly away.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +III.<BR> +</H3> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +When love is lost, the day sets toward the night.<BR> +Albeit the morning sun may still be bright,<BR> +And not one cloud ship sails across the sky.<BR> +Yet from the places where it used to lie,<BR> +Gone is the lustrous glory of the light.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +No splendor rests on any mountain height,<BR> +No scene spreads fair, and beauteous, to the sight.<BR> +All, all seems dull and dreary to the eye,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">When love is lost.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Love lends to life its grandeur and its might,<BR> +Love goes, and leaves behind it gloom and blight.<BR> +Like ghosts of time the pallid hours drag by,<BR> +And grief's one happy thought is that we die.<BR> +Ah! what can recompense us for its flight,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">When love is lost.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +IV.<BR> +</H3> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Life is a ponderous lesson book, and Fate<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The teacher. When I came to love's fair leaf</SPAN><BR> +My teacher turned the page and bade me wait.<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">"Learn first," she said, "love's grief";</SPAN><BR> +And o'er and o'er through many a long to-morrow<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">She kept me conning that sad page of sorrow.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Cruel the task; and yet it was not vain.<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Now the great book of life I know by heart.</SPAN><BR> +In that one lesson of love's loss and pain<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Fate doth the whole impart.</SPAN><BR> +For, by the depths of woe, the mind can measure<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The beauteous unsealed summits of love's pleasure.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Now, with the book of life upon her knee,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Fate sits! the unread page of love's delight</SPAN><BR> +By her firm hand is half concealed from me,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And half revealed to sight.</SPAN><BR> +Ah Fate! be kind! so well I learned love's sorrow,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Give me its full delight to learn to-morrow.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +V.<BR> +</H3> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +If I were a rain drop, and you were a leaf,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">I would burst from the cloud above you</SPAN><BR> +And lie on your breast in a rapture of rest,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And love you, love you, love you.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +If I were a brown bee, and you were a rose,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">I would fly to you, love, nor miss you;</SPAN><BR> +I would sip and sip from your nectared lip,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And kiss you, kiss you, kiss you.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +If I were a doe, dear, and you were a brook,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Ah, what would I do then, think you?</SPAN><BR> +I would kneel by your bank, in the grasses dank,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And drink you, drink you, drink you.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VI.<BR> +</H3> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Time owes me such a heavy debt,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">How can he ever make things right?</SPAN><BR> +For suns that with no promise set<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">To help me greet the morning light,</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +For dreams that no fruition met,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">For joys that passed from bud to blight,</SPAN><BR> +Time owes me such a heavy debt;<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">How can he ever make things right?</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +For passions balked, with strain and fret<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Of hopes delayed, or perished quite,</SPAN><BR> +For kisses that I did not get<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">On many a love impelling night,</SPAN><BR> +Time owes me such a heavy debt;<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">How can he ever make things right?</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VII.<BR> +</H3> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +As the king bird feeds on the heart of the bee,<BR> +So would I feed on the sweets of thee.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +As the south wind kisses the leaf at will,<BR> +From the leaf of thy lips I would drink my fill.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +As the sun pries into the heart of a rose,<BR> +I would pry in thy heart, and its thoughts disclose.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +As a dewdrop mirrors the loving sky,<BR> +I would see myself in thy tear wet eye.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +As the deep night shelters the day in its arms,<BR> +I would hide thee, dear, from the world's alarms.<BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VIII.<BR> +</H3> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Now do I know how Paradise doth seem,<BR> +Now do I know the deep red depths of hell.<BR> +Swift from those fair supernal heights I fell<BR> +To burning flames of hades, in a dream.<BR> +Methought my ladye rested by a stream<BR> +Which rippled through the verdure of a dell.<BR> +She lay like Eve; dear God, I dare not tell<BR> +Of her perfections; of the glow and gleam<BR> +Of tinted flesh, and undulating hair,<BR> +Of sudden thigh, and sweetly rounded breast.<BR> +Then, like a cloud, he came, from God knows where,<BR> +And on her eyes and mouth mad kisses pressed.<BR> +I fell, and fell, through leagues of scorching space,<BR> +And always saw his lips upon her face.<BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +IX.<BR> +</H3> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Love is the source of all supreme delight,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Love is the bitter fountain of despair;</SPAN><BR> +Who follows Love shall stand upon the height,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Yet through the darkest depths, Love, too, leads there.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Courage needs he who would with bold Love fare,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Let him set forth with all his strength bedight;</SPAN><BR> +Yet in his heart this song to banish care—<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">"Love is the source of all supreme delight."</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +And he must sing this song both day and night,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Though he be led down shadowy pathways where</SPAN><BR> +Black waters moan, through valleys struck with blight,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">"Love is the bitter fountain of despair."</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Let him be brave, and bravely let him dare<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Whate'er betide, and feel no coward fright.</SPAN><BR> +Who shares the worst, the best deserves to share;<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Who follows Love shall stand upon the height.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Ah! sweet is peace to those who faced the fight,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And bright the crown those faithful ones shall wear,</SPAN><BR> +Who whispered, when the shadows veiled their sight,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">"Yet through the darkest depths, Love, too, leads there."</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +To hearts that best know Love, his dark is fair,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">His sorrow gladness, and his wrong is right.</SPAN><BR> +All joys lie waiting on his winding stair;<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">All ways, ail paths of Love lead to the light.</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">Love is the source.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +X.<BR> +</H3> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +My ladye's eyes are wishing wells,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Wherein I gaze with silent yearning;</SPAN><BR> +Deep in their depths my future dwells.<BR> +My ladye's eyes are wishing wells,<BR> +But not one sign my fate foretells,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">While my poor heart with love is burning.</SPAN><BR> +My ladye's eyes are wishing wells,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Wherein I gaze with silent yearning.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XI.<BR> +</H3> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Three things my ladye seemeth like to me—<BR> +She seems like moonlight on a waveless sea.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +And like the delicate fragrance, which exhales,<BR> +When Day's warm garments brush the dewy vales.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +And when my heart grows weary of earth's sound,<BR> +She seems like silence—restful and profound.<BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XII.<BR> +</H3> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The moon flower, grown from a slip so slender,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Has burst in a star bloom, full and white.</SPAN><BR> +The air is filled with a perfume tender,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The breath that blows from that garden height.</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Yet moments lag that should take their flight</SPAN><BR> +On wings, like the wings of a homing dove,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And the world goes wrong where it should go right,</SPAN><BR> +For this is a night that is lost to love.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Again, like a queen, who would rashly spend her<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Dower of wealth in a single night,</SPAN><BR> +The proud moon seems, on her track of splendor,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Enriching the world with her silver light.</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">She flings on the crest of each billow a bright</SPAN><BR> +Pure gem, from the casket of jewels above.<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">But I sigh as I gaze on the glorious sight,</SPAN><BR> +"This is a night that is lost to love."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Oh, I would that the moon might never wend her<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Way through the skies in royal might,</SPAN><BR> +Till the haughty heart of my lady surrender<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And the faithful love of a life requite.</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">For the moon was made for a lover's delight;</SPAN><BR> +And grayer than gloom must its luster prove<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">To the soul that sighs under sorrow's blight,</SPAN><BR> +"This is a night that is lost to love."<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>L'Envoi.</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Fate, have pity upon my plight,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And the heart of my lady to mercy move.</SPAN><BR> +For the saddest words that youth can write<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Are, "This is a night that is lost to love."</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XIII.<BR> +</H3> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +As the waves of the outgoing sea<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Leave the rocks and the drift wood bare,</SPAN><BR> +When your thoughts are for others than me,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">My heart is the strand of despair—</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">Beloved,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Where bleak suns glare,</SPAN><BR> +And Joy, like a desolate mourner, gropes<BR> +In the wrecks of broken hopes.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +As the incoming waves of the sea,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The rocks and the sandbar hide,</SPAN><BR> +When your thoughts flow back to me,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">My heart leaps up on the tide—</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">Beloved,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Where my glad hopes ride</SPAN><BR> +With joy at the wheel, and the sun above<BR> +In a glorious sky of love.<BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XIV.<BR> +</H3> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +There was a bard all in the olden time,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">When bards were men to whom the world gave ear,</SPAN><BR> +And song an art the great gods deemed sublime,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Who sought to make his willful lady hear</SPAN><BR> +By weaving strange new melodies of rhyme,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Which voiced his love, his sorrow, and his fear.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Sweetheart, my soul is heavy now with fear,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Lest thou shalt frown upon me for all time.</SPAN><BR> +Ah! would that I had skill to weave a rhyme<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Worthy to win the favor of thine ear.</SPAN><BR> +Tho' all the world were deaf, if thou didst hear<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And smile, my song would seem to me sublime.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +But ah! too vast, too awful and sublime,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Is my great passion, born of grief and fear,</SPAN><BR> +To clothe in verse. Why, if the world could hear<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And understand my love, then for all time,</SPAN><BR> +So long as there was sound or listening ear,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">All space would ring and echo with my rhyme.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Such passion seems belittled by a rhyme—<BR> +It needs the voice of nature. The sublime,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Loud thunder crash, that hurts the startled ear,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And stirs the heart with awe, akin to fear,</SPAN><BR> +The weird, wild winds of equinoctial time;<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">These voices tell my love, wouldst thou but hear.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +And listening at the flood tides, thou might'st hear<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The love I bear thee surging through the rhyme</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Of breaking billows, many a moon full time.</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Why, I have heard thee call the sea sublime,</SPAN><BR> +When every wave but voiced the anguished fear<BR> +Of my man's heart to thy unconscious ear.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Vain, then, the hope that thou wilt lend thine ear<BR> +To any song of mine, or deign to hear<BR> +My lays of longing or my strains of fear.<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Vain is the hope to weave for thee a rhyme,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Or sweet or sad, or subtle or sublime,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Which wins thy gracious favor for all time.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Oh, cruel time! my lady will not hear,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Though in her ear love sings a song sublime,</SPAN><BR> +And my sad rhyme ends, like my love, in fear.<BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I> +Bright like the comforting blaze on the hearth,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Sweet like the blooms on the young apple tree,</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Fragrant with promise of fruit yet to be</SPAN><BR> +Are the home-keeping maidens of earth.<BR> +</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I> +Better and greater than talent is worth,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And where is the glory of brush or of pen</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Like the glory of mothers and molders of men—</SPAN><BR> +The home-keeping women of earth?<BR> +</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I> +Crowned since the great solar system had birth,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">They reign unsurpassed in their beautiful sphere.</SPAN><BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">They are queens who can look in God's face without fear—</SPAN><BR> +The home-keeping women of earth.<BR> +</I> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +X.<BR> +</H3> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +A man whose mere name was submerged in the sea<BR> +Of letters which followed it, B. A., M. D.,<BR> +And Minerva knows what else, held forth at Bellevue<BR> +On what he believed some discovery new<BR> +In medical Science (though, mayhap, a truth<BR> +That was old in Confucius' earliest youth),<BR> +And a bevy of bright women students sat near,<BR> +Absorbing his wisdom with eye and with ear.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Close by, lay the corpse of a man, half in view.<BR> +Dear shades of our dead and gone grandmamas! you<BR> +Whose modesty hung out red flags on each cheek,<BR> +Danger signals—if some luckless boor chanced to speak<BR> +The words "leg" or "liver" before you, I think<BR> +Your gray ashes, even, would deepen to pink<BR> +Should your ghost happen into a clinic or college<BR> +Where your granddaughters congregate seeking for knowledge.<BR> +Forced to listen to what they are eager to hear,<BR> +No doubt you would fancy the world out of gear,<BR> +And deem modesty dead, with last century belles.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Honored ghosts, you, would err! for true modesty dwells<BR> +In the same breast with knowledge, and takes no offense.<BR> +Truth never harmed anything yet but pretense.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +There are fashions in modesty; what in your time<BR> +Had been deemed little less than an absolute crime<BR> +In matters of dress, or behavior, to-day<BR> +Is the custom. And however daring you may<BR> +Deem our manners and modes, yet, were facts fully known,<BR> +<I>Our morals compare very well with your own.</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The women composing the class at Bellevue<BR> +Were young—under thirty; some pleasing to view,<BR> +Some plain. Roman features prevailed, with brown hair,<BR> +But one was so feminine, soft eyed and fair<BR> +That she seemed out of place in a clinic, as though<BR> +A rose in a vegetable garden should grow.<BR> +While her face was intelligent, none would avow<BR> +That cold intellect dwelt on that fair oval brow,<BR> +Or looked out of the depths of those golden gray eyes,<BR> +The color of smoke against clear, sunny skies.<BR> +'Twas a warm woman face, made for fireside nooks,<BR> +Not a face to be bent over medical books.<BR> +There was nothing aggressive in features or form;<BR> +She was meant for still harbors, and not for the storm<BR> +And the strife of rude waters. The swell of her breast<BR> +Suggested love's sweet downy cushion of rest<BR> +For the cheeks of fair children. Her plump little hands,<BR> +Seemed fashioned for sewing small gussets and bands<BR> +And fussing with laces and ribbons, instead<BR> +Of cutting cold flesh and dissecting the dead.<BR> +And yet, as a student she ranked with the first.<BR> +But conscience, in labor once chosen, not thirst<BR> +For such knowledge, had spurred her to action. This day<BR> +She seemed inattentive, her air was distrait,<BR> +As if thought had slipped free of the bridle and rein<BR> +And galloped away over memory's plain.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +It was true; it was strange, too, but there in the class,<BR> +While the learned man was talking, her mind seemed to pass<BR> +Out, away from the clinic, away from the town,<BR> +To a New England midsummer garden close down<BR> +By the salt water's edge; and she felt the wind blowing<BR> +Among her loose locks as she leaned o'er her sewing,<BR> +While the voice of a man stirred her heart into song.<BR> +She was called from her dream by the clang of the gong<BR> +Which foretells an arrival at Bellevue. The class<BR> +Was dismissed for the day. In the hall, forced to pass<BR> +By the stretcher (low brougham of misery), she<BR> +Whom we know was Ruth Somerville, looked down to see<BR> +The white, haggard face of the man whom her mind<BR> +Had strayed off in a waking day vision to find<BR> +But a moment before.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">The wild, passionate cry</SPAN><BR> +Which arose in her heart, was held back, nor passed by<BR> +The white sentinels set on her lip. The serene,<BR> +Lofty look which deep feeling controlled gives the mien<BR> +Marked her air as she turned to the surgeon and said:<BR> +"This man lying here, either dying or dead,<BR> +Was a classmate, at Yale, of my brother's; my friend<BR> +Is his wife. Let me stay by his side to the end,<BR> +If the end has not come."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">It was Roger Montrose,</SPAN><BR> +Grown old with his sins and grown gaunt with his woes,<BR> +Lying low in his manhood before her.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">His eyes</SPAN><BR> +Opened slowly; a wondering look of surprise<BR> +Met the soft orbs above him. "Ruth—Ruth Somerville,"<BR> +He said feebly. "Tell Mabel"—then sighed, and was still.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +But it was not the stillness of death. There was life<BR> +In that turbulent heart yet; that heart torn with strife,<BR> +Scarred with passion, and wracked by the pangs of remorse.<BR> +"Death's swift leaden messenger missed in its course<BR> +By the breadth of a hair," said the surgeon. "The ball<BR> +Lies in there by the shoulder. His chances are small<BR> +For a new start on earth. While a sober man might<BR> +Hope to conquer grim Death in this hand-to-hand fight,<BR> +Here old Alcohol stands as Death's second, fierce, cruel,<BR> +And stronger than Life's one aid, skill, in the duel.<BR> +You tell me the wife of this man is your friend?<BR> +He was shot by a woman, who then made an end<BR> +Of her own life. I hope it was not——" "Oh, no—no,<BR> +Not his wife," Ruth replied, "for he left her to go<BR> +With this other, his victim—poor creature—they say<BR> +She was good till she met him. Ah! what a black way<BR> +For love's rose scented path to lead down to, and end.<BR> +God pity her, pity her." "Her, not your friend?<BR> +Not his wife?"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">There was gentle reproof in the tone</SPAN><BR> +Of the staid old physician. Ruth's eyes met his own<BR> +In brave, silent warfare; the blue and the gray<BR> +Again faced each other in battle array.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Ruth:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +I pity the woman who suffered. His wife<BR> +Goes her way well contented. Love was in her life<BR> +But an incident; while to this other, dear God,<BR> +It was all; on what sharp, burning ploughshares she trod,<BR> +Down what chasms she leaped, how she tossed the whole world,<BR> +Like a dead rose, behind her, to lie and be whirled<BR> +In the maelstrom of love for one moment. Ah, brief<BR> +Is the rapture such souls find, and long is their grief,<BR> +Black their sin, blurred their record, and scarlet their shame.<BR> +And yet when I think of them, sorrow, not blame,<BR> +Stirs my being. Blind passion is only the weed<BR> +Of fair, beautiful love. Both are sprung from one seed;<BR> +One grows wild, one is trained and directed. Condemn<BR> +The hand that neglected—but ah! pity <I>them</I>.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Surgeon:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +You speak with much feeling. But now, if the friends<BR> +Of this man are to see him before his life ends<BR> +I recommend action on your part. His stay<BR> +On this planet, I fear, will be finished to-day.<BR> +A man who neglects and abuses his wife,<BR> +Who gives her at best but the dregs of his life,<BR> +In the hey day of health, when he's drained his last cup<BR> +Has a fashion of wanting to settle things up.<BR> +Craves forgiveness, and hopes with a few final tears<BR> +To wash out the sins and the insults of years.<BR> +Call your friend; bid her hasten, lest lips that are dumb,<BR> +Having wasted life's feast, shall refuse her death's crumb.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Ruth:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +There are souls to whom crumbs are sufficient, at least<BR> +They seem not to value love's opulent feast.<BR> +They neglect, they ignore, they abuse, or destroy<BR> +What to some poor starved life had been earth's rarest joy.<BR> +'Tis a curious fact that love's banqueting table<BR> +Full often is spread for the guest the least able<BR> +To do the feast justice. The gods take delight<BR> +In offering crusts to the starved appetite<BR> +And rich fruits, to the sated or sickly.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">The eyes</SPAN><BR> +Of the surgeon were fixed on Ruth's face with a wise<BR> +Knowing look in their depths, and he said to himself,<BR> +"There's a mystery here which young Cupid, sly elf,<BR> +Could account for. I judge by her voice and her face<BR> +That the wife of this man holds no very warm place<BR> +In Miss Somerville's heart, though she names her as friend.<BR> +Ah, full many a drama has come to an end<BR> +'Neath the walls of Bellevue, and the curtain will fall<BR> +On one actor to-night; though the audience call,<BR> +He will make no response, once he passes from view,<BR> +For Death is the prompter who gives him the cue."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The wisest minds err. When a clergyman tries<BR> +To tell a man where he will go when he dies,<BR> +Or when a physician makes bold to aver<BR> +Just the length of a life here, both usually err.<BR> +So it is not surprising that Roger, at dawn,<BR> +Sat propped up by pillows, still haggard and wan,<BR> +But seemingly stronger, and eager to tell<BR> +His story to Ruth ere the death shadows fell.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"If I go before Mabel can reach me," he sighed,<BR> +"Tell her this: that my heart was all hers when I died,<BR> +Was all hers while I lived. Ah! I see how you start,<BR> +But that other—God pity her—not with my heart,<BR> +But my sensual senses I loved her. The fire<BR> +Of her glance blinded men to all things save desire.<BR> +It called to the beast chained within us. Her lips<BR> +Held the nectar that makes a man mad when he sips.<BR> +Her touch was delirium. In the fierce joys<BR> +Of her kisses there lurked the fell curse which destroys<BR> +All such rapture—satiety. When passion dies,<BR> +And the mind finds no pleasure, the spirit no ties<BR> +To replace it, disgust digs its grave. Ay! disgust<BR> +Is ever the sexton who buries dead lust.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +When two people wander from virtue's straight track,<BR> +One always grows weary and longs to go back.<BR> +Well, I wearied. God knows how I struggled to hide<BR> +The truth from the poor, erring soul at my side.<BR> +And God knows how I hated my life when I first<BR> +Found that passion's mad potion had palled on my thirst.<BR> +Once false to my virtues, now false to my sin,<BR> +I seemed less to myself than I ever had been.<BR> +We parted. This bullet hole here in my breast<BR> +Proceeds with the story and tells you the rest.<BR> +She smiled, I remember, in saying adieu:<BR> +Then two swift, sharp reports—and I woke in Bellevue<BR> +With one ball in my breast.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Ruth:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">And the other in hers.</SPAN><BR> +No more with wild sorrow that sad bosom stirs.<BR> +She is dead, sir, the woman you led to her ruin.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Roger:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The woman led me. Ah! not all the undoing<BR> +In these matters lies at man's door. In the mind<BR> +Of full many a so-called chaste woman we find<BR> +Unchaste longings. The world heaps on man its abuse<BR> +When he woos without wedding; yet women seduce<BR> +And betray us; they lure us and lead us to shame;<BR> +As they share in the sin, let them share in the blame.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Ruth:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Hush! the woman is dead.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Roger:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">And I dying. But truth</SPAN><BR> +Is not changed by the death of two people! Oh, Ruth,<BR> +Be just ere you judge me! the death of my child<BR> +Half unbalanced my reason; weak, wretched and wild<BR> +With drink and with sorrows, the devil's own chance<BR> +Flung me down by the side of a woman whose glance<BR> +Was an opiate, lulling the conscience. I fell,<BR> +With the woman who tempted me, down to dark hell.<BR> +In the honey of sin hides the sting of the bee.<BR> +The honey soon sated—the sting stayed with me.<BR> +Like a damned soul I looked from my Hades, above<BR> +To the world I had left, and I craved the pure love<BR> +That but late had seemed cold, unresponsive. Her eyes,<BR> +Mabel's eyes, shone in dreams from the far distant skies<BR> +Of the lost world of goodness and virtue. Like one<BR> +Who is burning with thirst 'neath a hot desert sun,<BR> +I longed for her kiss, cool, reluctant, but pure.<BR> +Ah! man's love for good women alone can endure,<BR> +For virtue is God, the Eternal. The rest<BR> +Is but chaos. The worst must give way to the best.<BR> +Tell Mabel—Ruth, Ruth, she is here, oh thank God.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +She stood, like a violet sprung from the sod,<BR> +By his bedside; pale, beautiful, dewy with tears.<BR> +The spectre of death bridged the chasm of years:<BR> +He sighed on her bosom. "Forgive, oh forgive!"<BR> +She kissed his pale forehead and answered him: "Live,<BR> +Live, my husband! oh plead with the angels to stay<BR> +Until God, too, has pardoned your sins. Let us pray."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Ruth slipped from the room all unnoticed. She seemed<BR> +Like a sleeper who wakens and knows he has dreamed<BR> +And is dazed with reality. On, as if led<BR> +By some presence unseen, to the inn of the dead<BR> +She passed swiftly; the pale silent guest whom she sought<BR> +Lay alone on her narrow and unadorned cot.<BR> +No hand had placed blossoms about her; no tear<BR> +Of love or of sorrow had hallowed that bier.<BR> +The desperate smile life had left on her face<BR> +Death retained; but he touched, too, her brow with a grace<BR> +And a radiance, subtle, mysterious. Under<BR> +The half drooping lids lay a look of strange wonder,<BR> +As if on the sight of those sorrowing eyes<BR> +The unexplored country had dawned with surprise.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The pure, living woman leaned over the dead,<BR> +Lovely sinner, and kissed her. "God rest you," she said.<BR> +"Poor suffering soul, you were forged in that Source<BR> +Where the lightnings are fashioned. Love guided, your force<BR> +Would have been like a current of life giving joys,<BR> +And not like the death dealing bolt which destroys.<BR> +Oh, shame to the parents who dared give you birth,<BR> +To live and to love and to suffer on earth,<BR> +With the serious lessons of life unexplained,<BR> +And your passionate nature untaught and untrained.<BR> +You would not lie here in your youth and your beauty<BR> +If your mother had known what was motherhood's duty.<BR> +The age calls to woman, "Go, broaden your lives,"<BR> +While for lack of good mothers the Potter's Field thrives.<BR> +But you, poor unfortunate, you shall not lie<BR> +In that dust heap of death; while the summers roll by<BR> +You shall sleep where green hillsides are kissed by the wave,<BR> +And the soft hand of pity shall care for your grave.<BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XI.<BR> +</H3> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Ruth's Letter to Maurice, Six Months Later.</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The springtime is here in our old home again,<BR> +Which again you have left. Oh, most worthy of men,<BR> +Why grieve for unworthiness? Why waste your life<BR> +For a woman who never was meant for a wife?<BR> +Mabel Lee has no love in her nature. Your heart<BR> +Would have starved in her keeping. She plays her new part,<BR> +As the faithful, forgiving, sweet spouse, with content.<BR> +I think she is secretly glad Roger went<BR> +Astray for a season. She stands up still higher<BR> +On her pedestal, now, for Bay Bend to admire.<BR> +She is pleased with herself. As for Roger, he trots<BR> +Like a lamb in her wake, with the blemishing spots<BR> +Of his sins washed away by the Church. Oh I seem<BR> +To myself, in these days, like one waked from a dream<BR> +To blessed reality. Off in the Bay<BR> +I saw a fair snowy sailed ship yesterday.<BR> +The masts shone like gold, and the furrowed waves laughed,<BR> +To be beat into foam by the beautiful craft.<BR> +But close in the harbor I saw the ship lying;<BR> +What seemed like the wings of a sea gull when flying,<BR> +Were weather stained sheets; there were no masts of gold,<BR> +And the craft was uncleanly, unseaworthy, old.<BR> +Well, the man whom I loved, and loved vainly, and whom<BR> +I fancied had shadowed my whole life with gloom,<BR> +Has been shown to my sight like that ship in the Bay,<BR> +And all my illusions have vanished away.<BR> +The man is by nature weak, selfish, unstable.<BR> +I think if some woman more loving than Mabel,<BR> +More tender, more tactful, less painfully good,<BR> +Had directed his home-life, perchance Roger would<BR> +Have evolved his best self, that pure atom of God,<BR> +Which lies deep in each heart like a seed in the sod.<BR> +'Tis the world's over-virtuous women, ofttimes,<BR> +Who drive men of weak will into sexual crimes.<BR> +I pity him. (God knows I pity, each, all<BR> +Of the poor striving souls who grope blindly and fall<BR> +By the wayside of life.) But the love which unbidden<BR> +Crept into my heart, and was guarded and hidden<BR> +For years, that has vanished. It passed like a breath,<BR> +In the gray Autumn morning when Roger faced death,<BR> +As he thought, and uncovered his heart to my sight.<BR> +Like a corpse, resurrected and brought to the light,<BR> +Which crumbles to ashes, the love of my youth<BR> +Crumbled off into nothingness. Ah, it is truth;<BR> +Love can die! You may hold it is not the true thing,<BR> +Not the genuine passion, which dies or takes wing;<BR> +But the soil of the heart, like the soil of the earth,<BR> +May, at varying times of the seasons, give birth<BR> +To bluebells, and roses, and bright goldenrod.<BR> +Each one is a gift from the garden of God,<BR> +Though it dies when its season is over. Why cling<BR> +To the withered dead stalk of the blossoms of spring<BR> +Through a lifetime, Maurice? It is stubbornness only,<BR> +Not constancy, which makes full many lives lonely.<BR> +They want their own way, and, like cross children, fling<BR> +Back the gifts which, in place of the lost flowers of spring,<BR> +Fate offers them. Life holds in store for you yet<BR> +Better things, dear Maurice, than a dead violet,<BR> +As it holds better things than dead daisies for me.<BR> +To Roger Montrose, let us leave Mabel Lee,<BR> +With our blessing. They seem to be happy; or she<BR> +Seems content with herself and her province; while he<BR> +Has the look of one who, overfed with emotion,<BR> +Tries a diet of spiritual health-food, devotion.<BR> +He is broken in strength, and his face has the hue<BR> +Of a man to whom passion has bidden adieu.<BR> +He has time now to worship his God and his wife.<BR> +She seems better pleased with the dregs of his life<BR> +Than she was with the bead of it.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 7em">Well, let them make</SPAN><BR> +What they will of their future. Maurice, for my sake<BR> +And your own, put them out of your thoughts. All too brief<BR> +And too broad is this life to be ruined by grief<BR> +Over one human atom. Like mellowing rain,<BR> +Which enriches the soil of the soul and the brain,<BR> +Should the sorrow of youth be; and not like the breath<BR> +Of the cyclone, which carries destruction and death.<BR> +Come, Maurice, let philosophy lift you above<BR> +The gloom and despair of unfortunate love.<BR> +Sometimes, if we look a woe straight in the face,<BR> +It loses its terrors and seems commonplace;<BR> +While sorrow will follow and find if we roam.<BR> +Come, help me to turn the old house into home.<BR> +We have youth, health, and competence. Why should we go<BR> +Out into God's world with long faces of woe?<BR> +Let our pleasures have speech, let our sorrows be dumb,<BR> +Let us laugh at despair and contentment will come.<BR> +Let us teach earth's repiners to look through glad eyes,<BR> +For the world needs the happy far more than the wise.<BR> +I am one of the women whose talent and taste<BR> +Lie in home-making. All else I do seems mere waste<BR> +Of time and intention; but no woman can<BR> +Make a house seem a home without aid of a man.<BR> +He is sinew and bone, she is spirit and life.<BR> +Until the veiled future shall bring you a wife,<BR> +Me a mate (and both wait for us somewhere, dear brother),<BR> +Let us bury old corpses and live for each other.<BR> +You will write, and your great heart athrob through your pen<BR> +Shall strengthen earth's weak ones with courage again.<BR> +Where your epigrams fail, I will offer a pill,<BR> +And doctor their bodies with "new woman" skill.<BR> +(Once a wife, I will drop from my name the M. D.<BR> +I hold it the truth that no woman can be<BR> +An excellent wife and an excellent mother,<BR> +And leave enough purpose and time for another<BR> +Profession outside. And our sex was not made<BR> +To jostle with men in the great marts of trade.<BR> +The wage-earning women, who talk of their sphere,<BR> +Have thrown the domestic machine out of gear.<BR> +They point to their fast swelling ranks overjoyed;<BR> +Forgetting the army of men unemployed.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The banner of Feminine "Rights," when unfurled,<BR> +Means a flag of distress to the rest of the world.<BR> +And poor Cupid, depressed by such follies and crimes,<BR> +Sits weeping, alone, in the Land of Hard Times.<BR> +The world needs wise mothers, the world needs good wives,<BR> +The world needs good homes, and yet woman strives<BR> +To be everything else but domestic. God's plan<BR> +Was for woman to rule the whole world, <I>through a man</I>.<BR> +There is nothing a woman of sweetness and tact<BR> +Can not do without personal effort or act.<BR> +She needs but infuse lover, husband or son<BR> +With her own subtle spirit, and lo! it is done.<BR> +Though the man is unconscious, full oft, of the cause,<BR> +And fancies himself the sole maker of laws.<BR> +Well, let him. The cannon, no doubt, is the prouder<BR> +For not knowing its noise is produced by the powder.<BR> +Yet this is the law: <I>Who can love, can command</I>.)<BR> +But I wander too far from the subject in hand,<BR> +Which is, your home coming. Make haste, dear; I find<BR> +More need every day of your counseling mind.<BR> +I work well in harness, but poorly alone.<BR> +Until that bright day when Fate brings us our own,<BR> +Let us labor together. I see many ways,<BR> +Many tasks, for the use of our talents and days.<BR> +Your wisdom shall better the workingmen's lives,<BR> +While I will look after their daughters and wives,<BR> +And teach them to cook without waste; for, indeed,<BR> +It is knowledge like this which the poor people need,<BR> +Not the stuff taught in schools. You shall help them to think,<BR> +While I show them what they can eat and can drink<BR> +With least cost, and most pleasure and benefit. Please<BR> +Write me and say you will come, dear Maurice.<BR> +Home, sister, and duty are all waiting here;<BR> +Who keeps close to duty finds pleasure dwells near.<BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XII.<BR> +</H3> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<I>Maurice's Letter to Ruth:</I><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +No, no. I have gambled with destiny twice,<BR> +And have staked my whole hopes on a home; but the dice<BR> +Thrown by Fate made me loser. Henceforward, I know<BR> +My lot must be homeless. The gods will it so.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +I fought, I rebelled; I was bitter. I strove<BR> +To outwit the great Cosmic Forces, above,<BR> +Or beyond, or about us, who guide and control<BR> +The course of all things from the moat to the soul.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The river may envy the peace of the pond,<BR> +But law drives it out to the ocean beyond.<BR> +If it roars down abysses, or laughs through the land,<BR> +It follows the way which the Forces have planned.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +So man is directed. His only the choice<BR> +To help or to hinder—to weep or rejoice.<BR> +But vain is refusal—and vain discontent,<BR> +For at last he must walk in the way that was meant.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +My way leads through shadow, alone to the end<BR> +I must work out my karma, and follow its trend.<BR> +I must fulfill the purpose, whatever it be,<BR> +And look not for peace till I merge in God's sea.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Though bankrupt in joy, still my life has its gain;<BR> +I have climbed the last round in the ladder of pain.<BR> +There is nothing to dread. I have drained sorrow's cup<BR> +And can laugh as I fling it at Fate bottom up.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +I have missed what I sought; yet I missed not the whole.<BR> +The best part of love is in loving. My soul<BR> +Is enriched by its prodigal gifts. Still, to give<BR> +And to ask no return, is my lot while I live.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Such love may be blindness, but where are love's eyes?<BR> +Such love may be folly, love seldom is wise.<BR> +Such love may be madness, was love ever sane?<BR> +Such love must be sorrow, for all love is pain.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Love goes where it must go, and in its own season.<BR> +Love cannot be banished by will or by reason.<BR> +Love gave back your freedom, it keeps me its slave.<BR> +I shall walk in its fetters, unloved, to my grave.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +So be it. What right has the ant, in the dust,<BR> +To cry that the world is all wrong, and unjust,<BR> +Because the swift foot of a messenger trod<BR> +Down the home, and the hopes, that were built in the sod?<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +What is man but an ant, in this universe scheme?<BR> +Though dear his ambition, and precious his dream,<BR> +God's messengers speed all unseen on their way,<BR> +And the plans of a lifetime go down in a day.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +No matter. The aim of the Infinite mind,<BR> +Which lies back of it all, must be great, must be kind.<BR> +Can the ant or the man, though ingenious and wise,<BR> +Swing the tides of the sea—set a star in the skies?<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Can man fling a million of worlds into space,<BR> +To whirl on their orbits with system and grace?<BR> +Can he color a sunset, or create a seed,<BR> +Or fashion one leaf of the commonest weed?<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Can man summon daylight, or bid the night fall?<BR> +Then how dare he question the Force which does all?<BR> +Where so much is flawless, where so much is grand,<BR> +All, all must be right, could our souls understand.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Ah, man, the poor egotist! Think with what pride<BR> +He boasts his small knowledge of star and of tide.<BR> +But when fortune fails him, or when a hope dies,<BR> +The Maker of stars and of seas he denies!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +I questioned, I doubted. But that is all past;<BR> +I have learned the true secret of living at last.<BR> +It is, to accept what Fate sends, and to know<BR> +That the one thing God wishes of man—is to grow.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Growth, growth out of self, back to him—the First Cause:<BR> +Therein lies the purpose, the law of all laws.<BR> +Tears, grief, disappointment, well, what are all these<BR> +To the Builder of stars and the Maker of seas?<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Does the star long to shine, when He tells it to set,<BR> +As the heart would remember when told to forget?<BR> +Does the sea moan for flood tide, when bid to be low,<BR> +As a soul cries for pleasure when given life's woe?<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +In the Antarctic regions a volcano glows,<BR> +While low at its base lie the up-reaching snows.<BR> +With patient persistence they steadily climb,<BR> +And the flame will be quenched in the passage of time.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +My heart is the crater, my will is the snow,<BR> +Which yet may extinguish its volcanic glow.<BR> +When self is once conquered, the end comes to pain,<BR> +And that is the goal which I seek to attain.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +I seek it in work, heaven planned, heaven sent;<BR> +In the kingdom of toil waits the crown of content.<BR> +Work, work! ah, how high and divine was its birth,<BR> +When God, the first laborer, fashioned the earth.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The world cries for workers; not toilers for pelf,<BR> +But souls who have sought to eliminate self.<BR> +Can the lame lead the race? Can the blind guide the blind?<BR> +We must better ourselves ere we better our kind.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +There are wrongs to be righted; and first of them all,<BR> +Is to lift up the leaners from Charity's thrall.<BR> +Sweet, wisdomless Charity, sowing the seed<BR> +Which it seeks to uproot, of dependence and need.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +For vain is the effort to give man content<BR> +By clothing his body, by paying his rent.<BR> +The garment re-tatters, the rent day recurs;<BR> +Who seeks to serve God by such charity errs.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Give light to the spirit, give strength to the mind,<BR> +And the body soon cares for itself, you will find.<BR> +First, faith in God's wisdom, then purpose and will,<BR> +And, like mist before sunlight, shall vanish each ill.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +To the far realm of Wisdom there lies a short way.<BR> +To find it we need but the password—Obey.<BR> +Obey like the acorn that falls to the sod,<BR> +To rise, through the heart of the oak tree, to God.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Though slow be the rising, and distant the goal,<BR> +Serenity waits at the end for each soul.<BR> +I seek it. Not backward, but onward I go,<BR> +And since sorrow means growth, I will welcome my woe.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +In the ladder of lives we are given to climb,<BR> +Each life counts for only a second of time.<BR> +The one thing to do in the brief little space,<BR> +Is to make the world glad that we ran in the race.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +No soul should be sad whom the Maker deemed worth<BR> +The great gift of song as its dower at birth.<BR> +While I pass on my way, an invisible throng<BR> +Breathes low in my ear the new note of a song.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +So I am not alone; for by night and by day<BR> +These mystical messengers people my way.<BR> +They bid me to hearken, they bid me be dumb<BR> +And to wait for the true inspiration to come.<BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="finis"> +THE END.<BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 STYLE="margin-left: 20%"> +BY ELLA WHEELER WILCOX +</H3> + +<H4 STYLE="margin-left: 20%"> +Poems of Passion. +<BR> +Maurine and Other Poems. +<BR> +Poems of Pleasure. +<BR> +How Salvator Won and Other Poems. +<BR> +Custer and Other Poems. +<BR> +Men, Women and Emotions. (Prose.) +<BR> +The Beautiful Land of Nod. (Poems, songs and stories.) +<BR><BR> +W. B. CONKEY COMPANY, CHICAGO. +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Three Women, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THREE WOMEN *** + +***** This file should be named 27336-h.htm or 27336-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/3/3/27336/ + +Produced by Al Haines + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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