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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4e510bd --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #64783 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/64783) diff --git a/old/64783-0.txt b/old/64783-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index e80219a..0000000 --- a/old/64783-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2027 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Mortal Summer, by Mark Van Doren - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. 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. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Mortal Summer - -Author: Mark Van Doren - -Release Date: March 10, 2021 [eBook #64783] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Tim Lindell, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was - produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital - Library.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MORTAL SUMMER *** - - - - -_MORTAL SUMMER_ - - - - - MORTAL - SUMMER - - _by_ - Mark Van Doren - - [Illustration] - - The Prairie Press - IOWA CITY - - - - -_Copyright 1953 by Mark Van Doren_ - -_Printed in the United States of America_ - - - - -MORTAL SUMMER - - - - - I - - [Illustration] - - - The cave they slept in, halfway down Olympus - On the eastern slope, toward Asia, whence the archangels - Even then were coming--even then - Bright Michael, and tall Gabriel, and the dark-faced - Raphael, healer of men’s wounds, were flying, - Flying toward the ship all ten would take-- - The cave they slept in sparkled as their eyelids - Opened; burned as they rose and stood; hummed - And trembled as the seven, the beautiful gods - Gazed at each other, wonderful again. - The sweet sleep of centuries was over, - If only as in dream; if only a mortal - Summer woke them out of endless death. - - The grey eyes of Athene, flashing slowly, - Demanded of Hermes more than he could tell. - - “It was not I that roused you.” Hermes pondered, - Tightening his sandals. “All at once, - And equally, we woke. Apollo there--” - The musical man-slayer listened and frowned-- - “And Ares, and foam-loving Aphrodite - Yawned at the very instant Artemis did, - With me, and swart Hephaestus.” The lame smith, - Stroking his leather apron, blinked at the others, - Worshipful of brilliance. Even in Ares, - Scowling, and more quietly in her - The huntress, whose green robe the animals knew, - He found it; and of course in Aphrodite, - Wife to him once, he found it, a relentless - Laughter filling her eyes and her gold limbs. - “It was not I,” said Hermes. - Thunder sounded, - Weakly and far away. And yet no distance - Wrapped it. It was here in the lit cavern: - Here, or nowhere. And the trembling seven - Turned to the rock that sealed a deeper room. - There Zeus, there Hera sat, the feasted prisoners - Of a still greater person, one who changed - The world while there they mourned, remembering Ida. - Some day they too would sleep, but now weak thunder - Witnessed their remnant glory; which appalled - As ever the proud seven, until Hermes - Listened and leaned, then spoke. - “It was the king - Our father. He has willed that we should wander, - Even as in a dream, and be the gods - Of strangers. Somewhere west of the ocean stream - He sends us, to a circle of small hills-- - Come, for I see the place!” - That suffered thunder - Sounded again, agreeing; and they went. - Out of the cave they poured, into spring sun - Whose warmth they yet increased, for the falling light - Was less than theirs was, moving as they moved. - No soldier and no shepherd, climbing here, - Would have discovered deity. The brambles - Hid as they ever had this stony hole - Whence seven had been wakened, and where still, - Enormous in dark chains, their parents wept. - - Invisible to suns, the seven gathered - Round a white rock and gazed. The sea was there, - The Aegean, and a ship without a sail - Plied southward, trailing smoke; at which Hephaestus - Squinted. Then he slapped his thigh and smiled, - And waved for six to follow as down world - He leapt. - They landed, all of them, as lightly - As a fair flock of gulls upon the prow - Of the tramp _Jonathan B. Travis_, bound - Tomorrow for Gibraltar, then northwest, - Northwest, both night and day, till the ocean stream - Was conquered. Not a god had ever gone there, - Not one of these high seven, in the old - Dark sail time. Now, invisible to waves, - To men and birds, they watched twelve grimy sailors - Washing their clothes on deck; and wondered still - At the two wakes behind them, foam and funnel. - - But who were these arriving, these gaunt three - On giant wings that folded as they fell - And staggered, then stood upright? Even now - Michael had dropped among them, with his archangel - Brethren, bony Gabriel and lank Raphael. - From nearer Asia, lonely a long while, - They had come flying, sick of the desert silence, - Sick of the centuries through which no lord, - No king of the host, had blessed them with command. - As orphaned eagles, missing their ancient’s cry, - They had come hither, hopeful of these seven, - Hopeful of noble company, of new act. - Now on the prow they gathered, and no sailor - Saw them; but Apollo did, and Artemis-- - Fingering their bows--as Hermes reared - On tiptoe, smiling welcome. Aphrodite, - Slipping to lee of Ares, feigned a fear - More beautiful than truth was; while Hephaestus, - Curious, near-sighted, fingered those wing-joints - Athene only studied where she stood. - - “Whoever you are,” said Hermes, “and whatever-- - Pardon this--you were, sail now as we do, - And be the gods of strangers far to west. - If only as in dream the vessel draws us, - Zeus our sire consenting. Your own sire--” - But the three stared so sadly over the waves - That Hermes paused, and beckoning to Gabriel - Whispered with him alone while dolphins played - As lambs do on dry land, and fishes scattered. - - Alone to Hermes, while the dolphins heaved - Grey backs above green water, Gabriel murmured: - “Your sire. We had one too. And have Him still, - Though silent. It is listening for his thunder - That leans us. He is busy with new folk, - New, humble folk he speaks to in a low voice. - We have not learned that language--humble words, - With never death or danger in the message. - A star stood still above a stable once, - And a weak infant wept. And there He left us.” - “Our sire,” said Hermes, “--he too sleeps away - Our centuries. We have the selfsame fortune. - Sail westward with us then.” And Gabriel nodded. - - The steel that sliced the water swung at length, - And in three days they nosed between the Pillars; - Past which--and the ten all shuddered--monsters once - Made chaos of the world’s end. But no fangs - Closed over the black prow, and mile on mile - Slid under them, familiar as a meadow - To the small men they watched amid the smoke. - Mile on mile, by hundreds and by thousands, - The Atlantic sloped away. Then lands and harbors, - And a deep whistle groaning. - “Now!” said Hermes, - “Now!” So nine to one they lifted wing, - Or no-wing like their leader, and went on, - High over chimneys and chill rivers, north - By west till it was there--the rounded valley, - Green with new spring, where cattle bawled in barns - And people, patient, waited for hot June. - - - - - II - - - Daniel was mending fence, for it was May, - And early rains had painted the drear pastures. - He walked, testing the wire, and wished again - For his old pipe. He missed it, and grew moody. - Berrien would never notice it on the shelf; - Berrien would never bring it. A good wife, - But scornful of the comforts. A good woman, - Who never guessed the outrage he had done her. - New Year’s Eve, and Dora. He remembered-- - And set his jaw, missing the pipe stem there. - He pulled at a slack strand of the barbed wire, - And snagged himself--here, in the palm of his hand. - A little blood came which he wiped away. - He did miss that tobacco. And he did, - He did loathe simple Dora--warm and simple, - Who with her dark head nodding close to his, - On New Year’s Eve, had done with him this outrage. - He would forget her if he could; and old - Darius, her profane, her grizzled father. - So proud of her he was, and kept so neat - The mountain shack they lived in, he and his one - Sweet chick he swore was safe as in State’s prison. - Daniel counted the months. Was the child showing? - Darius--did he guess? And Doctor Smith-- - Would she have gone to him? Daniel looked off, - Unmindful of the beautiful May morning. - Bruce Hanna, that poor boy. Was he suspicious? - He had been born for Dora, she for him; - And then last New Year’s Eve, when the sleigh bells rang - So slyly, writing ruin in cold air! - Daniel, wiping his hand again, looked back - At the wild barb that bit him. - Who was that? - For a quizzical, small stranger stood by the fence, - Feeling its rust, its toughness. He was swarthy - And lame, and had bright eyes. And in his hand - A pipe--for all the township Daniel’s own! - - “Here, have you need of this? I’m on my way - Northeast awhile, repairing peoples’ ranges. - It gave itself to me, but you can have it.” - - Then he was gone, unless he walked and waved-- - For someone did--Daniel could not distinguish-- - From the far border of the field. The small - Stranger was gone, and all that Daniel held - Was a filled pipe bowl, comforting his palm. - - He must ask Berrien, he said at noon, - If a lame dwarf had come to mend the cook stove. - He must ask Berrien, who wouldn’t listen, - How a man’s pipe could vanish from its shelf. - For so it had, into his very pocket. - - “Berrien!” he called. But she was busy - With her own bother. - “Daniel, a woman’s here-- - Wants to stay and board all summer--wants - To rest. A theater woman. I’ve said no, - But maybe--” - Who was the gold one, listening there - And smiling? Looking over Berrien’s shoulder - And lighting the front room with little smiles? - A faded gold one, well beyond her prime, - But the true substance, glistening. Berrien frowned - And her head shook. But Daniel, fascinated, - Said he would think, would figure. - In the end - She stayed, the theater woman; and that night - Daniel had dreams of her. She came to his bed - In beauty; stood beside him and said “Dora.” - How could she know of Dora? It was a dream, - Yet how could she know so much? And how had she fathomed, - All in one day, the longing he denied? - There was no loathing. Anywhere in his heart-- - That sweetened as he said it--there was no hate - For Dora, whom he thought he saw there too, - Standing beside the theater woman and weeping, - And holding her simple hands out so he could say: - “Tomorrow, little sweetheart half my years, - Tomorrow I will tell the world about us. - You must be mine to keep. I have been cruel; - I have been absent, darling, from your pain. - Tomorrow I will put my two arms round you, - And bear if I can the--pleasure.” - Then he woke, - And none but Berrien watched him in the room-- - Berrien, who ever after watched him, - Night and day detesting this pale witch - Who came and went and charmed him. - So she thought, - Said Daniel, never answering her eyes. - For him there were no hours now save those dark ones - When the pair came. At midnight they would be there, - Faithful as moths; and every sunny morning, - Starting from his pillow, he would mutter: - “Tomorrow is today. Then I must go - To Dora, I must tell her.” Yet he waited - Always upon another secret midnight; - And witnessed every noon how the gold woman, - Smiling her light smile, seemed not to know - Of Dora; was no witch at all; was no one. - - - - - III - - - Meanwhile a little mountain house was murmurous - With his own name--evil, could he but hear it. - Darius had discovered his sweet daughter’s - Swelling, and had pressed her for the cause; - And yesterday, in terror, Dora yielded. - Now Bruce was there, with the old badger watching - How sick one word could make him. So it was spoken-- - “Daniel.” And the kill was on. - A soldier, - Footing it home from Canada, stood by - With a gourd dipper, dripping as he drank. - He listened, lounging, and his bushy eyes - Burned at the accusation. When Bruce faltered-- - And he did falter, for his hate of Daniel, - Less than the sore so sudden in his breast, - So hopeless, so beyond all thought of cure, - Was a weak thing at first--this brawny witness - Shone like a savior in the old one’s eyes, - The little old one, dancing in his fury - As he repeated “Daniel”; and made doubly - Sure that Dora’s corner room was bolted. - Afterwards, remembering how the knuckled - Soldier had spat curses on that name, - “Daniel,” and had spun a scheme for them-- - Perfection, he declared it, of revenge-- - Darius called him blessed. “You’d have failed me, - Bruce, you would have wobbled like a calf - And licked this devil’s hand, but for that sergeant. - Who sent him here, I wonder?” - “I don’t know,” - Said Bruce, his mind on Dora’s room. “Is she--” - “Yes, she’s in there. And stays there till we’ve finished. - When do we go and do it? Think of that-- - Think only of that thing, my boy, that needful - Thing.” Darius nudged him, and they dropped - Their voices. - Dora, listening, heard little, - Crouched by her door. Bruce--he mustn’t do it. - Bruce--he was the only thing she wanted - In the poor world. A poor one too for Daniel; - But she shut out the thought. Bruce mustn’t do it, - Whatever it was. She beat on the thick wood - And cried to him; but only heard Darius - Coaxing him outdoors; then only silence. - - “When shall it be, my boy? What dark of the moon - Does best for our good purpose--damn his bones! - Two shotguns--that’s enough--then home, then here-- - That’s it, and neither knows of it next day. - We’ll even shed a hot tear, being told! - When do we do it, boy?” - But Bruce was slow: - Angry and sick, but slow. And once when Dora - Found him, deep in the woods between their cabins, - He almost lost his purpose as she held him, - Wetting his face with tears. - “Listen!” she whispered. - “I have been down to Doctor, and his new nurse - Knows--I can’t guess how--knows everything. - A beautiful, tall woman, and her friend - The teacher--she is like her. Colder, though, - With different, with grey eyes. The new nurse says--” - “What, Dora, what does she say?” - “Oh, no, I can’t-- - I’ll never, never tell you.” - As she ran - He followed, farther into the still woods; - Then stopped as she did, startled. For those two-- - It must be those two new ones, those tall women-- - Pondered the carcass of a fawn, a spotted - Three-months fawn that dogs had torn at the throat. - - It was the nurse that knelt, lifting brown eyes - In sorrow, scarcely knowing Dora there. - The other one bent down to her. - “Stand up. - They both are here. The boy, too.” - Level voiced, - The teacher touched her friend’s hair. - “Stand up, stand up. - The fawn is dead. These others--” - “Yes, I know. - I heard, I saw them. But consider death. - Consider this young death awhile, and say-- - But softly--of what it is the paradigm. - Do not disdain one death, one single death; - And when we can, prevent.” - The grey eyes cooled, - Consenting. So the sorrowful one arose. - “Come here,” she said to Dora, and to Bruce - Behind her. “We were walking in the woods, - My visitor and I; we saw this sight.” - - But Bruce and Dora stared at only her, - So beautiful, so tall, and at the other - Strange one by her side. - “We had been talking, - Children, of you two. No matter if Daniel - Loves you, little girl of the dark eyes--” - - “He doesn’t!” Dora shuddered. “If he could, - He’d have it that I never lived on earth. - He hates it, having to remember me. - And that’s all right. I want it so. But Bruce--” - - “Will be, my dear, the father of your--listen, - Listen! You start away.” - For both had broken - Breath, as if with running, and only the hands - Of the grey-eyed, the firm one, held them there. - “I mean,” and the tall beautiful one blinked, - Twitching the green selvage of her skirt, - “The foster father. He is young for that; - Yet he is to be, my child, the chosen one - Who saves you, and saves it--the life you carry. - Your husband. Nothing less. And not in dream.” - - Bruce turned his head in fear that old Darius - Listened--was it he among the hemlocks, - Stepping so lightly? - But the foliage opened - For a fair, smiling face, and the broad shoulders, - Burdened with straps, of one who tramped these hills - By summer, following signs. A brilliance round him, - Caused by no sun, for none came through the branches, - Struck silence from all four; until the nurse, - Nodding as if she knew him, said: “Due north, - Pilgrim, is there. Your compass--have you lost it? - Well, north is that way”--pointing--“but stand here - In patience for some seconds; then we two - Will guide you back to town for better bearing. - Can you be patient?” - “Thank you, yes.” The giant - Smiled at her once again. - “You see, my small one, - Bruce there by your side would break and run, - Fearing his sweet fate. He even wonders - Whether some partner, deep in another plan, - Listens and chides him.” - Staring, the boy blushed. - Then, fearful, he looked up and met her eyes, - The nurse’s distant eyes, that fixed him gently. - “My friend here--she will tell you more than I can - Of the black folly born of feud. Attend her.” - - But the still teacher only parted wide - Her capable cool lids, and let him see - Agreement flash between them. - “Someone’s death”-- - She forced the words at last--“is cheap to buy. - A minute of man’s time, and breathing stops. - The cost is in the echo; for to cease - Makes sound. So you will hear it coming home, - The rumor of that death. My friend is right. - Marry the maiden.” - But the words came strangely, - Out of some older earth, and even she - The speaker knew their failure; for she frowned. - Bruce turned his head again, fearing the hemlock - Heard. Yet no one listened there; no fourth one - Followed this lofty fellow who in patience - Folded his arms and smiled--as if he too - Had knowledge, and agreed with the grey eyes. - As Dora did, said Bruce. And yet Darius-- - He paled at the grim image, and remembered, - Suddenly, that soldier; whose disgust - If the dear purpose foundered was itself - A death, along with Dora’s yesterday. - Daniel. Who but Daniel was the father - Of a whole world’s confusion? - And his anger, - Running before him, took him from this place, - This glade where three, left thoughtful, were as figures - Molded of shadow. Dora was gone with Bruce, - Gasping and crying “Wait!” - But the three tall ones - Listened to nothing human. Hermes came. - - - - - IV - - - Hermes came, and hailing his three peers, - Spoke Aphrodite’s name; whose beautiful laughter - Answered as she glistened in their midst-- - No woman now, but goddess. So Hephaestus - Hove into their view, and all of the others, - Manifest together. This was where, - In tulip and oak shade, they pleased to meet, - To sit sometimes and say how the world went, - Mortal and immortal. - “You of the golden - Shoulders,” Hermes said, “bring dreams to one - Who lived in peace without them.” - “Lived in hate, - In loathing of those very limbs he fondled-- - Poor, poor limbs, so lonely!” And her insolent - Laughter shook the listening green leaves. - “Yet he would have forgotten, and his only - Danger been from Ares”--who was there, - Swelling his thick chest, as Hermes spoke-- - “From the two minions, old and young, of Ares. - Such danger can dissolve, for it is wind - And fury; but the damage that you do, - Arrogant bright daughter of the dolphins, - Is endless as waves are, or serpent segments - The impotent keen knife divides. Have mercy, - Goddess.” And he waited. But her lips, - Unmoving, only teased him; and tormented - Artemis. - “The man was free of longing, - And the dark maid of him,” the huntress said, - “Till this one wantoned, wooing him with dreams. - Then Ares--common soldier--fanned the fire - In those you call his minions.” Hermes nodded. - “And so our plan’s perplexed before it ripens. - Athene, Michael--tell them how we stood, - Just here, and heard the boy refuse his function.” - - But it was known among them even then, - And so no witness needed. Aphrodite, - Secure in beauty’s pride, tilted her head - To hear, intending mockery of the tale. - But the wise one withheld it, and majestic - Michael only folded his broad wings - As Gabriel did, as Raphael. - Yet that last one, - Mournful of face and long, had ears for Artemis, - Nurse to all things aborning, as she mused: - - “The young one when he comes--in what men call - The fall of their brief year--the roofless infant-- - It was for him we planned. And still we do--” - She dared the glittering goddess--“still we seek - Safe birth for the small mother, and for him - The wailing, the unwanted.” - Crooked Hephaestus, - Clearing his mild throat, remarked in modesty: - “The man works well and silently. He loves, - In solitude, the comfort of my fire. - And so in a bowl I brought it. As for her-- - He will not have her near him. I was by; - I read his thoughts of this.” - “Absurd contriver! - Artisan of the bellows! Zeus’s butt! - As ever, you know nothing.” Aphrodite - Sparkled with rage, reviling him. “You saw - By daylight, and at labor in the field - One whom that very night I made my slave. - Off to your anvil, ass!” - But Hermes calmed - Their quarrel, lifting his either hand in grace. - “Without our father’s thunder we are fools - And children. Who decides when lesser gods, - When angels disagree? Authority absent, - Silence--a silver silence--that is best.” - And like a song they heard it, and they wondered, - Measuring its notes. Until Apollo, - Lord of the muses, laughed. - “You heard me humming. - All to myself I sang it--with sealed lips.” - - “What did you sing?” said Hermes. - “Nothing, nothing. - My sisters round the world--a sweet wind brought me, - Sleepily, this air.” - He hummed again, - And this time closed his eyes. “Perhaps I see,” - He said, “some silver moment coming soon-- - Necessity for music. But not now.” - - Nor could those other nine foresee the summer. - Already, in mid June, high long days - Hovered the world, and change, like ripening fruit, - Hung ever, ever plainer. Yet no man, - No god distinguished more in this green time - Than purposes that crossed; and ever tighter. - In Daniel’s house the woman who was resting-- - Daily, in scorn, Berrien spoke the word-- - Still did not spare the beautiful dream body - She sent to him by dark, when Dora too - Lived by his side and loved him: standing there - In the shed radiance of one who smiled - And smiled, and burned his reticence away. - For he would go to Dora--come July, - Said Daniel, lying afterwards and listening - As night died between him and the windows, - He would go there, he would, and say it all; - He would have Dora, small in his long arms, - Forever. Yet the sweetness of this thought - Exhausted him, and hollowed his wild eyes, - So that he never went. - And had he gone, - What Dora would have seen him come and shivered? - One whom as strong a dream--if it was a dream-- - Estranged. It was of having, yet not having, - Bruce for her brave husband. For he mustn’t-- - He mustn’t, she said nightly, shutting away - The vision--Bruce must never let it be. - The nurse--he mustn’t listen. Yet if he did-- - And then she wept. - Darius in the morning, - Seeing her tears, thought only of his purpose. - He should conceal it better. She was afraid, - Was frantic, she might go somewhere and tell. - That boy--he was so hard to keep in anger. - He faltered, and he wilted; he was a fool. - That boy, the center of confusion’s cross, - For still he hated Daniel, still with Darius - Plotted the loud death; yet loved all day, - All night the dream of lying in clear peace - Forever, in dear confidence, with Dora; - That boy was whom the strangers in this valley - Watched while the moments went; while June decayed; - While middle summer dozed; and no leaves fell. - - - - - V - - - A hundred people coming to the barn dance, - The barn dance at MacPherson’s, saw the full moon. - It hung there like a lantern in the low east, - Enormous and blood red, and stationary. - Daniel came, and Berrien, with that woman-- - So fair, she seemed unnatural--between them. - She must have made them bring her, someone said; - And laughed. - But no one laughed when Dora came. - She was so pitiful in her loose coat, - Concealing, healing nothing. Would she dance? - If only with Bruce Hanna, would she dance? - Too late for it, some whispered; and some blamed - The silly boy. To let her show like that! - The nurse, the doctor’s nurse, and her tall friend - The teacher--no one dreamed those two, those two-- - They stood by their grand selves, and no one saw - How Bruce, how Dora lived but in their glances. - - Then all the strangers. When the music started, - Who but a giant--handsome, with tow hair-- - Bowed to the grand ones? And to more - Beyond them? For a pair of unknown farmers, - Lanky and cave-eyed, leaned bony shoulders - Where a great upright shaded the rude floor. - From the next valley, maybe, like this lame - Pedlar; like the soldier; like that lightfoot - Traveller, the one with pointed ears, - The one with cropped hair and a twisted staff, - Who wandered in the crowd, watching and watched. - The shepherd of the strangers? Yet no word - Between them, and no look, Darius said-- - Darius, who had eyes for everything; - And ears, when music started. - “One more couple! - One more couple!” Glendy the clear-caller - Shouted while harmonicas, like locusts, - Shrilled, and while Young Gus tuned his guitar. - “One more couple!” - Here they came. - “Join hands - And circle left!” - Darius heard the words - Above him, in the corner where by Glendy - And the harmonicas he tapped the floor. - His was the curious, the musicians’ corner, - Whence he could see how Dora sat and trembled, - Wondering what next--why she was here. - “The dog!” he growled, catching on Daniel’s face, - In a far corner, hunger and indifference - Fighting. Hunger--damn him--for my child, - My child, Darius said, whom he has changed; - And smothering this, the smoke of a pretence - That nothing here was wrong, nothing at all. - The soldier had come back. Darius saw him. - Red-eyed, drinking water by a droplight, - And his own conscience hurt him. Daniel lived. - If Bruce could only raise his eyes a little-- - But they were hangdog, or were fixed in fear - On those two stranger women. Why in fear? - - The music, though. - “Swing your corner lady!” - Darius, rocking gently on his heels, - Was lost again in that, and in the wild - Mouth organs, going mournful overhead. - “First two gents cross over!” In his thought - He crossed; he took that partner by the hand; - He swung her, swung her, swung her, you know where. - He promenaded, proudly, and he clapped - His palms, that sweated bravely. Then the swinging - Ceased. The set was over. And he sang: - “Good boy, Gus! That was calling, old man Glendy!” - They winked at him, wiping their foreheads off; - Then soon another set. And still he listened - And watched, and still he saw how Dora sat, - Trembling, and never danced. - But once the soldier, - Slouching to her side, made mockery signs - Suggesting that she stand. Darius started - In anger; then he stopped, for Bruce was up, - Explaining--yet avoiding the brute stare; - And Daniel, in his corner, clenched both fists. - Even the strangers knew, for one came over-- - The one with such a neat head on his body, - And the curled stick--as if to beat away - Wild boars escaped here. That was good, was good, - Darius said; then listened as the music - Whispered again. - Whispered. - For the tune - Had altered. Where was Glendy? Who was this - Where Glendy had been standing? And what ailed, - What softened so the clamor of the mouth harps? - - “One more couple!” - Who was the intruder, - Calling in so sweet, so low a voice, - Strange orders? Yet not strange; for the hot crowd, - Heedless of any difference, swirled on, - Loving its evolutions, and no head - Turned hither. - “Take your Dora by the hand--” - Darius, looking up, saw how the silver - Light of the full moon, mature at zenith, - Fell on the singer. Through one gable window - It fell, and on no head but his, the silvery - Singer. He was slender, he was strange; - And the high moon--it burned for none but him. - - “Where’s Glendy, Gus?” - “Took sick.” - The loud guitar, - Hesitating, rallied and persevered; - But modified its note to a new sweetness, - A low, a far-off sweetness, as Gus looked, - Listened, and looked again at the mysterious - Caller on whose mouth the full moon smiled. - - Take your Dora by the hand, - Your little Dora, grown so large. - By another she was manned, - But she is now your loving charge. - - Mercy marries you, my boy, - And mercy--oh, it is unjust. - But it was born of truth and joy, - And lives with misery if it must. - - Darius, and then Daniel, comprehending, - Stared at a hundred dancers who did not. - Heedless of any change, they stamped and swung, - Those hundred, as if Glendy still were here-- - Old Glendy, whose thin throat still mastered them. - Yet Daniel saw how Dora, dropping her eyes, - Sat silent, deathly silent; and how Bruce, - Guardian to her, looked only down-- - Looked everywhere save at the singer, singing: - - Take your Dora by the hand. - There is life within her waist. - And there is woe, unless you stand - And love with bravery is graced. - - So all the world will know her wed, - And all the people call it yours-- - The life within her, small and red; - And wrathful, were it none but hers. - - With you beside her all is well. - She will be tended in her time. - There is more that I could tell, - But Glendy now resumes the rhyme. - - “Circle four!” - Darius, and then Daniel, - Dazed, regarded Glendy once again. - The moonlit one was gone, and only these - Had seen him--these and Dora, and dumb Bruce. - And all of the nine strangers. For they too - Had listened; bending their bodies, they had weighed, - Had witnessed every word as it arrived; - Had watched the boy’s confusion; then the girl’s; - Then both together, as if woe had wed - Already the poor lovers. - “Nelly Gray!” - The hundred dancers, heedless, went right on; - And only Berrien’s boarder, the gold woman - Who stood so close by Daniel--only that one - Kindled. Then she blazed, and Daniel, blushing, - Knew she had found his thought. - So I have lost her-- - This was his thought--have lost her. Then my love - Must die, and no man know it. He was true, - That singer. It is not my life she carries-- - Dora, who was mine for that cold minute; - Dora, whom I never can forget. - - The eyes of the theater woman burned so fiercely, - Punishing his own, that Daniel shook. - How could she guess his trouble? Only in dreams - She knew it, only in dreams, when Dora came. - Only in darkness. “Now she disapproves, - She probes me.” - But the woman looked away, - Suddenly, and signalled to the soldier; - Who, nodding, went to stand before Darius. - Daniel saw him there, gesticulating, - With his feet spread, as if he meant to spring, - To throttle someone. And Darius blinked. - But music and the distance drowned their words. - - And now the tall nurse, bending over Dora, - Whispered to her and Bruce; and the boy, rising, - Reached for a small hand. The singer had said - To take it, and he took it, and pulled up - The girl who still was trying to be free, - To save him. - And the music never stopped. - “Kiss her if you dare!” cried old man Glendy. - And many a dancer did. But neither Bruce - Nor Dora, arm in arm, had present ears. - They listened still to what the other singer, - Gone now as the moon was from the window, - Sang and sang again, as if his silvery - Face never had faded. Arm in arm - They walked among the dancers to the big door; - Arm in arm, sleepwalking, they went forth, - Under the slant moon, and disappeared. - - - - - VI - - - Some whispers, like the wake of blowing leaves - When a swift body passes west, pursued them. - But Daniel never stirred. - Nor old Darius-- - Neither did he listen as the sergeant - Swore, swelling the wrath in his red eyes - Till most of him was fire. “Follow him home, - The fool. He is forgetting it--the purpose. - Tear him free. He softens in her arms - To the sick sound of ‘Father.’” - But Darius, - Lost in the same sound, was thinking softly: - “I had not dreamed of this. She will be friended, - She will not go alone. He is a good boy, - Bruce. I never coupled her with him. - It may be in the cards.” Whereat the soldier - Left him, spitting disgust. - And Daniel saw - How all of the fair strangers followed soon-- - All of them, as if they were a company. - They wouldn’t be, of course. And yet they smiled - In the same grave degree, as if some secret - Bound them. - And he thought the dapper one, - Who tapped the sanded floor and twirled his stick, - His curlicue of a cane--whatever it was-- - Communicated thus to the gold woman - That she too must away. But she was Daniel’s, - Berrien’s; she was not of any company, - Wandering, like this one. She had come - Alone to them, in May, and she would go-- - Would go, said Daniel, taking her dream body, - Her beautiful dream body, that was his, - Was his alone. - And suddenly his sadness - Doubled. For the singer had left living - None of his sweet hope. Dora was gone, - A ghost in outer moonlight, a surrendered - Sweetness, and he stood there like a dead man, - A noble dead man, numbering his loss. - Now, multiplied, it smote him. This one too-- - In fall--he would be losing this one too, - In fall. Or even here, while he stood looking, - Here, with that lithe one calling from the door. - For there he was, the last one to go through, - And Daniel thought the signal came again: - An elbow’s twitch, a twirl of his live staff, - His vine that had the strength to stand alone. - - But she had arms and eyes for only Daniel, - Worshiping her now. She seemed as near, - He whispered to himself, as lamplight must, - At midnight, to poor moths. And yet no brush - Of fingers, such as Berrien might have frowned on. - Simply her brilliance chained him, simply her arms, - Her eyes, took hold of everything in him - And hurt it. - “So you let her go,” she said. - “You shadow of a man, you let her go. - Those limbs of hers, so beautiful in light, - In darkness, and the breast you could have bruised, - Crushing it with yours--and yet you would not, - For it is white, is small, and precious to you-- - Derelict! Oh, shameful! What a shadow - Falls on you for lover--disobedient - Lover of that girl whom still you crave!” - - Did her lips part? Was any of it spoken? - Berrien still watched the weary dancers - Like one whom nothing moved. Then whence the words? - And why? For the gold woman’s only knowledge - Was a dream knowledge, drawn to him by night - When her own body slept in her own bed. - How could she understand? And what untruth - Was working in her, making these sweet sounds? - Their honey was more false for being heard - By him, by only him. That other singer-- - He had been true. And troubling. But his song - Was never to be lost now. Dora was, - Forever. And he said it must be so. - - The woman, though. Her arms. And now her eyes, - Beating upon him, beautiful, imperious, - Not to be contradicted. And her lips. - Lest the unparted lips again deliver - What was so loud, so terrible--though heard - By him, by only him--he spoke of home. - Berrien--wasn’t she tired? And Berrien was. - So with no words they went. - Some dancers saw them, - Picking their way, and winked at one another; - Daniel, with that artificial woman; - Berrien, with her boarder. What a household! - None of them looked happy. Three old-fashioned - People going home. The actress, too-- - An old, old timer, powdered up to kill, - And painted. You could see it--Indian summer - Everywhere. Yet once a pretty world. - - They could not see how beautiful she was. - Only for Daniel was she beautiful, - And for those others, strangers here with her, - Who from the border of MacPherson’s grove, - In their own forms, were watching. - Hermes leaned - Like none but Hermes, graceful as the grass, - On a slim sapling, serpent-shaped, and said: - “She flaunts us. Aphrodite is not Ares, - She is not schooled in victory and defeat, - She is not skilful at surrender--save - The lover’s kind. See? She is bent on that. - She will not let him go, the farmer there, - While any of her poison works in him. - Ares, what if some of your new wisdom-- - You could persuade her, Ares.” - But the sullen - Soldier still was sullen, though a god; - He would not lift his face as Aphrodite, - Smiling at them, catlike, kept her way - With Daniel down the road. - “Apollo’s song,” - Said Hermes, “--it was all we needed then.” - He nodded, and the bright musician bowed. - “It was a potent song. The tough old man, - The tender young, the farmer in his heart-- - All four of them were changed. But now you see--” - He pointed, and they looked where Aphrodite, - Dimming with her companions down the highway, - Walked as a mortal would; though still they knew - The goddess by a smile that lingered somewhere, - Mingling as the moon did with the tops - Of trees, and scenting midnight with its malice. - Artemis, more angry than the rest, - More like the moon, declining now so clear, - So cold, beyond the body of this grove, - Remembered the dead fawn. “So with that child,” - She brooded. “If the farmer man confesses, - Nothing but grief will grow where you and I--” - She took Athene’s hand--“have wisely tilled - And planted. Never then will the boy serve, - With loving care, my cause--the cause of the world, - Of the newborn things whose nurture saves the world. - The farmer would have let the maiden go-- - Sadly, yet Apollo made it sure. - Or so we said who listened. Yet that one, - That laughing one, pursues him now and sings, - And sings--oh, what low song, what tale of the flesh, - What burden that may topple his intention? - Hephaestus, our contriver, you could seal - His ears, his sleeping eyelids, if you would; - Even tonight you could.” - Hephaestus, pacing - Oddly the smooth floor, rested his leg, - The shortened leg Zeus long ago had crippled. - “The farmer--he works well, and loves the fire - I gave him. Let him be.” - But none of them saw - His meaning, if he had one. He was lame - And foolish, and he muttered as he walked, - And turned and walked again, counting the steps - Between two oaks that limited his way. - The great angels watched him with their wings - Folded. Standing deeper in the shade, - They waited with the others while the moon - Sloped to its rest, the music having wearied - And stopped, and all the dancers wandered home. - - - - - VII - - - “Dora, do you take Bruce for your husband, - To cherish him, for better or for worse?” - The justice of the peace, Tobias Hapgood, - Peered over his dim glasses at the pair - Who said “I do, I do” among the dusty - Law books. - And there were three witnesses. - Darius in a white shirt stood between - Two others, old and little like himself: - The father of the groom--roundheaded, fumbling - Miserably at his tie--and full of tears - The mother, full of shame and happy tears. - - Her boy was being married. But to think-- - To think--and then the rest of it was weeping; - Was waiting till the four of them were home; - Was wondering how soon she could forget. - Dora would have his baby in her house. - And then she could forget. She wiped her eyes. - Darius here--now he would be alone, - And that perhaps was harder. So “I do” - Came distantly across the room as she compared - Their griefs; and when the couple, bent to kiss, - Held on to one another, and held on - And on, as if the world would die this way, - She was content again. - But no one saw - Nine more in the brown room, or heard the voice - Of Hermes asking Artemis, who frowned, - What further end she strained for. All but Ares - Stood there, in no space the mortals knew, - The little mortals, mingling their low words - With these unheard, these high ones. Sullen Ares - Sulked on a far hill. But Aphrodite, - Resting her fair side against the law books, - Laughed; and the green goddess answered Hermes: - - “See? There still is mischief in one mind - Among us, there is insolence. The end? - She has not worked it yet. Beware of her - Who hates this thing we witness; it defeats - Her farmer, and she never will forgive.” - - The laughing goddess listened with her eyes - Turned elsewhere--on Hephaestus, whom she taunted, - Teasing him with glances at his broken - Foot, and at the thickness of his wrists. - “Artisan!” she said. “Infernal tinker! - You are not one of us. Then why do you creep - Each morning, crooked fool, and haunt the man? - You do, in the poor likeness of a mender-- - What is it that you mend? What is the word?” - - “Stoves.” - “I’ll not pronounce it. Such a word! - I scorn it. And scorn you. And yet I say-- - Remember my own strength, that can undo - The cunningest contriver. No more haunt - The man. By night, by morning, no more crawl-- - You hear?--and charm his sadness till it sleeps. - You think to cure his longing with some lessons, - Monger, in your art. But my own art - Is ultimate. Remember, and refrain.” - - Hephaestus shifted crabwise on his ankles, - Refusing every glance until the rite - Was finished, and the people in the room - Departed. Then he ducked and disappeared, - Eluding even Hermes, even the sea-grey - Eyes of sage Athene. He was bound - For Daniel, whom he haunted every day - In the same likeness he had first assumed - When Daniel, missing the comfort of his pipe bowl, - Got it again, and wondered. - Bruce and Dora, - Heeled by their elders, one of whom still wept, - Went home another way; and the inaudible - Deities went home--to the green hilltop, - The high glade where Ares, though he heard, - Sent down no shout of welcome. Aphrodite, - Following to where the mountains forked, - Deserted there; dipping away and flying, - Like one of her own doves, to Daniel’s house. - - But Daniel stood with someone in the barn - By the new anvil he had bought, considering - Hot and cold; and how a hammer’s blow - Can bend the iron, not break it. - “When you came, - That day, and brought my pipe--I still am puzzled-- - How did you do it, man?” - “Look here! I take - This strip of ten-gauge, and I heat it thus-- - Pretend the forge is going--then I twist it, - So, until I have a perfect handle - For the fire tongs you need.” - No other answer. - “See? Now when you have the bellows going-- - Watch me--this is what the draft can do.” - No other answer. So the pupil bent, - Considering. - And neither of them saw-- - Or Daniel did not--bright eyes at the door, - Brimming with alien purpose. - “Your good wife,” - The woman said--and Daniel, starting round, - Saw how the gold one narrowed her long lids - Toward him who held the hammer--“sends for you. - She tells you this is wasting time, is wearing - The day out; is pure nothing. And she says-- - Dismiss the tinker. Let him go his way. - He is not wanted here.” - The hammer dropped. - But Daniel shook his head at her. - “She wouldn’t - Know. It isn’t woman’s work. Besides, - It keeps me safe from thinking certain thoughts. - She wouldn’t know that either. Or would you.” - - He flushed, remembering how much she knew - If dreams had body, and if at the dance - It was her own live lips that so rebuked him. - But no, that couldn’t be. He said it again, - And turned to the lame tinker. - “We’ll not stop, - For her or anybody. Tell me now--” - Whereat Hephaestus grinned, and Aphrodite, - Stamping her white foot, that all but showed - Immortal through the slipper, let them be. - - Yet not for long. The lame one in his room, - That night and every night, was pinched awake - By fingers he well knew; and knew as well - How in the darkness, sweating, to endure. - For he was steadfast--like his tossing pupil, - Daniel, in the bed where Berrien lay. - - Hour after hour, that night and every night, - Berrien strove to riddle his strange words, - His mumbled words, that stubbornly kept on - Refusing what was whispered. What was that? - Or was it anything? Was someone by them, - Whispering to him? She lay and wondered, - Doubtful of his mind, that so could mumble, - Endlessly, at nothing, maybe nothing. - - But it was never nothing. Aphrodite, - Going between Hephaestus’ bed and his, - Was a changed goddess, bearing every charm - Of beauty she possessed, that he once more - Might madden. Dora came there too, he thought, - And wept in her first figure, the demure one, - The thin and still one, that was his again-- - “It is, it is!” the whisper at his side - Said tirelessly, “whenever you will reach - And take it. Be the lover you were then, - And take it, take it, take it. Go and be - Her lover; speak the truth as winter once, - As warmness, spoke it for you. Is it late? - Is there a foolish thing that now deforms her? - And for that thing a father? Is it published - That he is the thing’s foolish, foolish father? - Have none of it. Forget these moments since, - And take her. She is yours--see how she weeps - And wishes she had Daniel’s hands forever-- - Forever it could be, if you were bold - And shouted without shame the burning truth-- - Forever, Daniel, ever down her small - Smooth sides; or where her breasts, that breathed for you, - Might breathe again.” - He moaned and turned away, - Tormented. And sometimes the whisper died, - So that he looked again. It was an artful - Death, increasing torment, for the two - Shone there as always. They were never gone, - Those two, while August lasted; and while summer - Saddened on the stalk. - For rust had bent - The hayheads while he dreamed, and far to north - The feet of fall were coming. Daniel rose - Each day a wearier man, yet not apostate - Ever to his black anvil, where with the smith - He lost himself in lessons hot and cold. - And still the woman came to call him in. - And still he could refuse her. - So September, - With speckles on its back, slid like a serpent - Over the cool slopes; and lucky houses, - Filled with a winter’s wood, sat where they were, - Complacent; while upon the homeless highways - Wanderers appeared. - So Dora’s time - Came slowly, slowly on, with few to know - Or care when it should come; except Darius, - Who prowled each afternoon to Bruce’s house, - Consoling himself there for being lonely; - Except the little roundhead and his anxious - Wife; except those strangers up the mountain; - And Bruce himself, awaiting it with Dora. - - - - - VIII - - - It came, the time of Dora, when no man, - No man of all her three, was home for messenger. - Darius snored in his own house--a ball - Of skin beneath the bedclothes--and the night - Was early yet for Bruce, who with his father - Tramped the low road from Brownlee’s where they worked, - And working, thought of Dora--all day long - Of Dora’s time, next week or the week after. - - But it was now, and none of all the three men - Home to be her messenger! The doctor-- - How could he be told the time had come - For pain, for crying out? Then Bruce’s mother, - Moaning, was so helpless at the door, - Calling, calling, calling: “Bruce, where are you? - Go and get the doctor! Hurry, boy!” - But Bruce was on the low road, and the only - Ears that heard were scattered up the sky. - Artemis, on top of Silver Mountain, - Heard; and woke Athene; and the others, - Knowing it was time, went with them both - Like falling stars--all of them, like stars, - To drop and stand in darkness by the door - While Bruce’s mother, moaning, called and called: - “Where are you, boy? Hurry! Get the doctor!” - - And still another heard. But Aphrodite, - Listening while Daniel sat, could smile - And wait; could think and wait. It was the time - For punishing this man who in his dreams - Refused her. She could wait and let it work-- - The punishment she planned. - For she had looked - Last night along the valley, and seen coming, - Hapless on the highway, two small wanderers, - And said: They shall be mine. - She heard the moaning - Cease, and knew that Artemis was there. - The nurse was there, and Dora would be crying - Softly: “Save me, save me! Send for him!” - - So Aphrodite, gathering her sly strength, - Waited no longer. - Where were those poor wanderers-- - That pair? But she had seen them, and she knew. - She saw them even now at the abandoned - Chapel down the old road, trying doors - And windows, and forlornly turning in - Where nothing was but darkness; and in darkness, - Nothing but cobwebs. - Smiling a last smile, - Vindictive, at the sitter, she uprose - And scented the whole night, the outer night - Of fields and barns and houses, as she flew - And flew, tinting earth with a false dawn - As in her brilliant singleness she flew - And flew to be the first where Hermes came. - - For even now the tall nurse--goddess again - In the dooryard where they clustered--told her peers: - “The time! It is the time! Go, two of you-- - Hermes, shall it be? With Gabriel?-- - And bring him here, the man of herbs she cries for. - I could do all alone, for I am skilful, - I am the green deliveress. Yet go-- - Gabriel, with Hermes--while I soothe - And ready her. The horses that he drives-- - You hear them now, drawing the tired one home. - But have no pity. Hurry and intercept him. - Say it is the nurse--say anything-- - But bring him here, the mortal man of herbs, - Between you lest she die.” - The feet of Hermes - Glistened as the staff in his right hand - Touched Gabriel on the nearer wing; then lightly - Touched him again. And so the pair departed. - Before the goddess turned they were a rustle - In the far woods; and Artemis went in - Where Dora lay. - “The doctor--he is sent for. - Child! What are you staring at?” For Dora - Shuddered, and alternately her eyes - Opened and closed in terror, as at brightness - Impossible, brought near. But then she smiled. - “It was my own mistake--the way I am. - You were so different. You shone in the door - Like candles, you were like a statue lady-- - Different from us. I didn’t know you. - Now I do, though.” - She permitted hands - To smooth, to cool her as she lay in fever, - And as the pain returned; while Artemis - Looked gravely, out of eyes she kept in shadow, - At the small face whereon the truth had fallen; - Looked, and wondered fearfully. Had Hermes, - Had Gabriel heard the horses? Found the man? - - But Aphrodite was there first--an ancient - Gypsy, rising out of the dim road - And shrilling between wheels: - “Doctor, Doctor! - Come to the dead church--the one they don’t - Sing songs in any more. A poverty fellow - And his sick queen--not my people, but I pity, - Pity them--they lie in the carriage shed. - Or she does, the queen. In all the world - No friend, and both afraid. They have walked miles - From nowhere, and no house would take them in. - She whimpers with the young thing in her belly, - The babe she has to bear. Come with me, Doctor, - And help her. Be the one man in the world - To help her.” - “Who are you?” His glasses peered - Through the poor light the buggy lamp cast down. - - “Romany.” - “And what’s this? You mean the church--” - - “The old one.” - “Even mice won’t go near that. - Mischief--you mean mischief. Out of the way, - Granny!” - But she seized the reins and said: - “Good doctor! Be the one man in the world--” - - And why it was he knew not, but he went - Where she did, down the sod road toward that moldy - Building where no hymnsong had been heard - Since war days, and where beggars--did she lie?-- - Might be or not be. - So when Hermes came, - And Gabriel, there was silence on the highway-- - Soft as they listened, never the good sound - Of hooves, of whirring felloes. - Long they looked - And listened; then were back in Bruce’s dooryard, - Signalling their presence; so that Artemis, - Stooping at the window, saw them desolate, - And knew herself defeated. - “Aphrodite!” - She only thought the word, but Dora stared - And begged of her: “Has someone--has he come? - The doctor? Bruce? Where’s Bruce?” - “Be patient, dear. - In time, in time. The doctor was not found. - But there is time, and I myself have medicines-- - You trust me?” - Dora nodded. - “Then I’ll go, child, - For certain things--for such help as I need. - Be patient a few minutes. She is here.” - For Bruce’s mother, torturing her hands - As if they were another’s on the rack, - Stood by them, bent and weeping. - All were there - When Artemis, the doorlight shut behind her, - Shouted. Even Aphrodite smiled - And innocently listened, fair as ever - In the fine light that clothed her--no more gypsy, - And no more theater woman. Even Ares-- - All of them were there, with lame Hephaestus - Filling his low place among the pear trees, - When the green goddess called. - “Her breath is going. - Enemy of all”--to Aphrodite-- - “I shall waste none on you. I only say, - The girl inside is going. Which of you - Can help me, and help her? The middle angel-- - Second of you three--immense of wing-- - Raphael--have you knowledge?” - There was mournful - Music in the answer. - “I have mended, - Green one, all the wounds made here on earth-- - Or there--by deed of angels. In the old days - They fell--not such as we are--and their fall, - As of dark stars that burned, corrupted the sons, - The daughters of frail man. If this is such--” - - “It is. Come in with me, shrunk to the likeness - Of a lean passing farmer. I have herbs - And needles. You have strength, and a strange art. - Between us--but come quickly!” - And Darius - Snored in his own house. And Daniel sat - Late by a brass lamp, reading. - And the doctor, - Bending to ask the name of the new mother, - Heard “Mary.” - By the half light of a low - Fire she lay on straw and let her weak hand - Wander. - “But my husband--he is Joe. - There was no work for him. So we went on. - Thank you, Doctor.” - “Quiet. No more talking.” - - And Bruce’s father, panting on the low road, - Wondered why his son would never rest. - - - - - IX - - - The risen sun, sparkling upon their bridles, - Hastened the roan horses; and brought Bruce-- - Brought even the stiff doctor--beams of hope, - Of something like belief; though Bruce remembered, - And groaned as he remembered, how the nurse, - Weeping, had looked afraid when he came home; - How she and the dark man she had for helper, - Bending above the sufferer, grew sad, - Grew guilty as he came, hearing with him - His little mother’s whimpers, and the cry-- - Sudden, as if death were in the room-- - Of Dora when she saw him. And his father’s - Feebleness--now he remembered that, - And groaned. - “But couldn’t the nurse--for she was there-- - Wouldn’t the nurse have known?” - “I tell you, boy, - I have no nurse. Something is stranger here-- - Giddup!--than God is ever going to tell me. - Nurse? There was no such.” - And the horses galloped, - Jingling their bright bridles, till the dooryard - Darkened them, and Bruce’s mother stumbled, - Her apron at her face, among the plum trees. - - “I am alone,” she cried, “except for him--” - She pointed where her husband, on a stone - As grey as he was, sat and held his forehead-- - “We are alone now, my boy. Too late, - Doctor. Even the nurse is gone. The child, - The dear child, is dead. They both are dead-- - Dora, and the other one that never, - Never, never breathed.” - She clutched at Bruce, - Feeling the doctor brush them as he passed, - Then feeling not at all. She only nodded, - Nodded, as her son repeated: “Dead-- - Dora, she is dead.” And bore her in, - A limp superfluous bundle. - “Oh, my boy!”-- - Perceptibly her white lips lived again-- - “Beautiful! One thing about her going, - Oh, my boy, was beautiful. She saw-- - Or thought she saw--ten angels in the room. - She counted them. But only three had wings. - She counted the big wings. And said the nurse - Was queen above all others.” - “Nurse? What nurse?” - The doctor in the doorway shook his head, - Frowning, as if to free it from the cobweb - Sound of that false word. “There was no such--” - - But the small mother never would believe-- - He knew it--and Bruce never would believe. - Who had this tall impostor woman been? - And why? And who the other one? Bruce had said: - “A teacher, too--her friend.” There was no such-- - - The doctor shook his head. Shame on those bunglers-- - Butcherers of girls--who with their knotted - Grass roots and their needles--natural thorns-- - Had poisoned the sweet blood, the delicate place. - Where were they, vagrants, now? Could any law - Catch up with their coarse hands, and cleanse the world - Of meddlers on the march? For they were somewhere - Still, the doctor knew; and looked at Bruce - Bent dumbly over Dora. In good time - The boy would feel. He was so quiet now-- - An animal, playing dead. - Then Daniel stood there-- - Daniel, with Darius at his heels: - An old hound whom giant grief had gentled. - Yet he could move, and did, to where no daughter - Welcomed his hard hand; which nevertheless - Hovered and touched her--touched her, so that tears - Followed, and streamed his face. - “I brought him here,” - Said Daniel. “I was told of it by one-- - By two--but they are gone. They do not matter. - Both of them are gone. They said they knew-- - My lodgers--then they went. But that’s no matter. - I told her father, and he came with me. - Look at him now. And her. We are not enemies. - Who is my enemy?” - “I was,” said Bruce. - - “You were. And I was Dora’s. What I did--” - - “You did. But never tell it. As my friend - In sorrow, never say it. There are ears--” - - He went to where his mother, staring up, - Saw none but that dear face. - Then Daniel’s stillness - Reigned in the room. - Even the doctor, going, - Went as a thought does, thinly; but his mind - Was more with Mary and her living child, - In the lost church, than here. - A living child. - He must go back to that small son; must listen - To the soft mother’s voice. Why had he stopped her? - “Quiet. No more talking.” Was even then - This mystery in his head, this hazy mirror - Of a much older birth? Who was it? When? - What torment not to remember. Just like this, - Yet where? He drove and thought; and was the image - Of a whole people, impotent to see now - The one god it had. - So three old friends, - By death remade, stood looking down at Dora. - - - - - X - - - Already, in this moment before silver - Morning, ten were on their way to sea. - Already, over mountains and rock rivers-- - Tawny with high autumn, yet no sun - Uprisen had revealed it--Hermes sped - And spoke not. At the center of his band, - Encircled, he was thoughtful as he flew - And flew to where a smoking funnel waited, - By a smooth prow whereon the ten would ride, - Would ride the waste Atlantic. - “They were small, - These people, they were pitiful and small,” - Said Hermes, half aloud. “Yet not unworthy, - Nobles, of our regard.” - “They did not guess,” - Said Artemis, “how small.” - “They could not measure,” - Flashed the grey eyes of swift Athene, flying, - “Difference. They were lonely. They had nothing - Past them to compare. They do not move, - These persons, among greater persons still. - The knowledge of the difference is all. - Mortals with art to measure it are never - Pitiful.” - “I thought,” mused Aphrodite, - Beautiful by night as her own star, - Her morning’s mirror, up now in the east, - “I thought I met a presence in that musty - Stable. Felt a power. Yet all so quiet-- - Not even the black beetles crept away. - Queer, if it was a god--their only god, - And none of the fools knew.” - “It was your own - Mind’s darkness,” Ares muttered; and Hephaestus - Laughed--at Aphrodite he could laugh, - Now that his limbs were free. - “Was there a song? - Even a musty music? Where a god is, - Surely the air will sound.” Apollo hummed, - Remembering the barn dance and the moon. - “Did you hear anything to prove a presence?” - - Artemis, her green robe gilded suddenly - By the first beams of sun, was angry still. - “She heard but her own hatefulness, that plotted - Death.” - “I left the living in your hands-- - Yours, and the mighty angel’s. If you erred, - Darling of fawns and virgins, I regret, - As you must, any faltering of skill.” - - “Regret!” The speed of Artemis redoubled - As fury filled her. “Lying, laughing word! - You poison the whole dawn with it, as then - You poisoned--for I know you did--the thorns, - The rare leaves I used.” - But Hermes cried: - “Peace, peace between you, daughters! What is done - Is done. There the ship rides that we take-- - As one we take it, homing to those lands - Where sleep is our best portion. Only sleep.” - - He sighed, and the archangels echoed him: - Those three whose sire, unknown to them last night, - Had dreamed again--a star above a stable. - “Not even sleep,” said Michael. “No, not even - Sleep,” droned weary Gabriel. But Raphael’s - Sadness was for Artemis to see, - And seeing, to have pity on, that no word - Henceforth could express. - For now the ship - Whistled, and the spires above the harbor - Glistened, and the hawsers, letting go, - Dangled in salt. - So easterly they sailed, - And sailed; then south a little. And the crew - Thought only of the Pillars, of the inland - Sea where waves were smaller. But these ten, - Prone on the prow, disdained the autumn danger - Of storm, of the dark swell. Their daily vision-- - Common to them all, since reconciled-- - Was the long night ahead; or over Asia, - Centuries upon centuries of flying, - Flying where no desert, green with the Word, - Blossomed and blessed them. - Now as in a dream - Never to be redreamed the hills behind them, - Huddling that valley, muffled its fine cries - Of people trapped in sorrow. Even its glad souls, - Silenced, were obscure as drops of dew - Hung in the wild Antipodes. No mortal - Summer would be given these again: - These deities, these angels, who as the dark sea - Heaved went on themselves as waves do, - Wearily, yet smiling as in a dream. - - - - - [Illustration: COLOPHON] - - - This book has been designed and printed by Carroll Coleman at The - Prairie Press in Iowa City, Iowa. 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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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Mortal Summer</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Mark Van Doren</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: March 10, 2021 [eBook #64783]</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Tim Lindell, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)</div> - -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MORTAL SUMMER ***</div> - - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/cover.jpg" width="50%" alt="" /></div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<h1><i>MORTAL SUMMER</i></h1> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_title.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> -<div class="titlepage"> - -<p><span class="xxlarge">MORTAL<br /> -SUMMER</span></p> - -<p><i>by</i><br /> -<span class="xlarge">Mark Van Doren</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_titlelogo.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<p><span class="large">The Prairie Press</span><br /> -IOWA CITY</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="center"><i>Copyright 1953 by Mark Van Doren</i><br /> - -<i>Printed in the United States of America</i></p> -</div> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p class="ph1">MORTAL SUMMER</p> -</div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span> -<h2 class="nobreak">I</h2> -</div> - - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_009.jpg" alt="" /></div> - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse"><span class="smcap">The cave</span> they slept in, halfway down Olympus</div> -<div class="verse">On the eastern slope, toward Asia, whence the archangels</div> -<div class="verse">Even then were coming—even then</div> -<div class="verse">Bright Michael, and tall Gabriel, and the dark-faced</div> -<div class="verse">Raphael, healer of men’s wounds, were flying,</div> -<div class="verse">Flying toward the ship all ten would take—</div> -<div class="verse">The cave they slept in sparkled as their eyelids</div> -<div class="verse">Opened; burned as they rose and stood; hummed</div> -<div class="verse">And trembled as the seven, the beautiful gods</div> -<div class="verse">Gazed at each other, wonderful again.</div> -<div class="verse">The sweet sleep of centuries was over,</div> -<div class="verse">If only as in dream; if only a mortal</div> -<div class="verse">Summer woke them out of endless death.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">The grey eyes of Athene, flashing slowly,</div> -<div class="verse">Demanded of Hermes more than he could tell.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“It was not I that roused you.” Hermes pondered,</div> -<div class="verse">Tightening his sandals. “All at once,</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[10]</span> -<div class="verse">And equally, we woke. Apollo there—”</div> -<div class="verse">The musical man-slayer listened and frowned—</div> -<div class="verse">“And Ares, and foam-loving Aphrodite</div> -<div class="verse">Yawned at the very instant Artemis did,</div> -<div class="verse">With me, and swart Hephaestus.” The lame smith,</div> -<div class="verse">Stroking his leather apron, blinked at the others,</div> -<div class="verse">Worshipful of brilliance. Even in Ares,</div> -<div class="verse">Scowling, and more quietly in her</div> -<div class="verse">The huntress, whose green robe the animals knew,</div> -<div class="verse">He found it; and of course in Aphrodite,</div> -<div class="verse">Wife to him once, he found it, a relentless</div> -<div class="verse">Laughter filling her eyes and her gold limbs.</div> -<div class="verse">“It was not I,” said Hermes.</div> -<div class="indent14">Thunder sounded,</div> -<div class="verse">Weakly and far away. And yet no distance</div> -<div class="verse">Wrapped it. It was here in the lit cavern:</div> -<div class="verse">Here, or nowhere. And the trembling seven</div> -<div class="verse">Turned to the rock that sealed a deeper room.</div> -<div class="verse">There Zeus, there Hera sat, the feasted prisoners</div> -<div class="verse">Of a still greater person, one who changed</div> -<div class="verse">The world while there they mourned, remembering Ida.</div> -<div class="verse">Some day they too would sleep, but now weak thunder</div> -<div class="verse">Witnessed their remnant glory; which appalled</div> -<div class="verse">As ever the proud seven, until Hermes</div> -<div class="verse">Listened and leaned, then spoke.</div> -<div class="indent16">“It was the king</div> -<div class="verse">Our father. He has willed that we should wander,</div> -<div class="verse">Even as in a dream, and be the gods</div> -<div class="verse">Of strangers. Somewhere west of the ocean stream</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span> -<div class="verse">He sends us, to a circle of small hills—</div> -<div class="verse">Come, for I see the place!”</div> -<div class="indent14">That suffered thunder</div> -<div class="verse">Sounded again, agreeing; and they went.</div> -<div class="verse">Out of the cave they poured, into spring sun</div> -<div class="verse">Whose warmth they yet increased, for the falling light</div> -<div class="verse">Was less than theirs was, moving as they moved.</div> -<div class="verse">No soldier and no shepherd, climbing here,</div> -<div class="verse">Would have discovered deity. The brambles</div> -<div class="verse">Hid as they ever had this stony hole</div> -<div class="verse">Whence seven had been wakened, and where still,</div> -<div class="verse">Enormous in dark chains, their parents wept.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Invisible to suns, the seven gathered</div> -<div class="verse">Round a white rock and gazed. The sea was there,</div> -<div class="verse">The Aegean, and a ship without a sail</div> -<div class="verse">Plied southward, trailing smoke; at which Hephaestus</div> -<div class="verse">Squinted. Then he slapped his thigh and smiled,</div> -<div class="verse">And waved for six to follow as down world</div> -<div class="verse">He leapt.</div> -<div class="indent5">They landed, all of them, as lightly</div> -<div class="verse">As a fair flock of gulls upon the prow</div> -<div class="verse">Of the tramp <i>Jonathan B. Travis</i>, bound</div> -<div class="verse">Tomorrow for Gibraltar, then northwest,</div> -<div class="verse">Northwest, both night and day, till the ocean stream</div> -<div class="verse">Was conquered. Not a god had ever gone there,</div> -<div class="verse">Not one of these high seven, in the old</div> -<div class="verse">Dark sail time. Now, invisible to waves,</div> -<div class="verse">To men and birds, they watched twelve grimy sailors</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span> -<div class="verse">Washing their clothes on deck; and wondered still</div> -<div class="verse">At the two wakes behind them, foam and funnel.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">But who were these arriving, these gaunt three</div> -<div class="verse">On giant wings that folded as they fell</div> -<div class="verse">And staggered, then stood upright? Even now</div> -<div class="verse">Michael had dropped among them, with his archangel</div> -<div class="verse">Brethren, bony Gabriel and lank Raphael.</div> -<div class="verse">From nearer Asia, lonely a long while,</div> -<div class="verse">They had come flying, sick of the desert silence,</div> -<div class="verse">Sick of the centuries through which no lord,</div> -<div class="verse">No king of the host, had blessed them with command.</div> -<div class="verse">As orphaned eagles, missing their ancient’s cry,</div> -<div class="verse">They had come hither, hopeful of these seven,</div> -<div class="verse">Hopeful of noble company, of new act.</div> -<div class="verse">Now on the prow they gathered, and no sailor</div> -<div class="verse">Saw them; but Apollo did, and Artemis—</div> -<div class="verse">Fingering their bows—as Hermes reared</div> -<div class="verse">On tiptoe, smiling welcome. Aphrodite,</div> -<div class="verse">Slipping to lee of Ares, feigned a fear</div> -<div class="verse">More beautiful than truth was; while Hephaestus,</div> -<div class="verse">Curious, near-sighted, fingered those wing-joints</div> -<div class="verse">Athene only studied where she stood.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“Whoever you are,” said Hermes, “and whatever—</div> -<div class="verse">Pardon this—you were, sail now as we do,</div> -<div class="verse">And be the gods of strangers far to west.</div> -<div class="verse">If only as in dream the vessel draws us,</div> -<div class="verse">Zeus our sire consenting. Your own sire—”</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span> -<div class="verse">But the three stared so sadly over the waves</div> -<div class="verse">That Hermes paused, and beckoning to Gabriel</div> -<div class="verse">Whispered with him alone while dolphins played</div> -<div class="verse">As lambs do on dry land, and fishes scattered.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Alone to Hermes, while the dolphins heaved</div> -<div class="verse">Grey backs above green water, Gabriel murmured:</div> -<div class="verse">“Your sire. We had one too. And have Him still,</div> -<div class="verse">Though silent. It is listening for his thunder</div> -<div class="verse">That leans us. He is busy with new folk,</div> -<div class="verse">New, humble folk he speaks to in a low voice.</div> -<div class="verse">We have not learned that language—humble words,</div> -<div class="verse">With never death or danger in the message.</div> -<div class="verse">A star stood still above a stable once,</div> -<div class="verse">And a weak infant wept. And there He left us.”</div> -<div class="verse">“Our sire,” said Hermes, “—he too sleeps away</div> -<div class="verse">Our centuries. We have the selfsame fortune.</div> -<div class="verse">Sail westward with us then.” And Gabriel nodded.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">The steel that sliced the water swung at length,</div> -<div class="verse">And in three days they nosed between the Pillars;</div> -<div class="verse">Past which—and the ten all shuddered—monsters once</div> -<div class="verse">Made chaos of the world’s end. But no fangs</div> -<div class="verse">Closed over the black prow, and mile on mile</div> -<div class="verse">Slid under them, familiar as a meadow</div> -<div class="verse">To the small men they watched amid the smoke.</div> -<div class="verse">Mile on mile, by hundreds and by thousands,</div> -<div class="verse">The Atlantic sloped away. Then lands and harbors,</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span> -<div class="verse">And a deep whistle groaning.</div> -<div class="indent14">“Now!” said Hermes,</div> -<div class="verse">“Now!” So nine to one they lifted wing,</div> -<div class="verse">Or no-wing like their leader, and went on,</div> -<div class="verse">High over chimneys and chill rivers, north</div> -<div class="verse">By west till it was there—the rounded valley,</div> -<div class="verse">Green with new spring, where cattle bawled in barns</div> -<div class="verse">And people, patient, waited for hot June.</div> -</div></div></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak">II</h2> -</div> - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Daniel was mending fence, for it was May,</div> -<div class="verse">And early rains had painted the drear pastures.</div> -<div class="verse">He walked, testing the wire, and wished again</div> -<div class="verse">For his old pipe. He missed it, and grew moody.</div> -<div class="verse">Berrien would never notice it on the shelf;</div> -<div class="verse">Berrien would never bring it. A good wife,</div> -<div class="verse">But scornful of the comforts. A good woman,</div> -<div class="verse">Who never guessed the outrage he had done her.</div> -<div class="verse">New Year’s Eve, and Dora. He remembered—</div> -<div class="verse">And set his jaw, missing the pipe stem there.</div> -<div class="verse">He pulled at a slack strand of the barbed wire,</div> -<div class="verse">And snagged himself—here, in the palm of his hand.</div> -<div class="verse">A little blood came which he wiped away.</div> -<div class="verse">He did miss that tobacco. And he did,</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span> -<div class="verse">He did loathe simple Dora—warm and simple,</div> -<div class="verse">Who with her dark head nodding close to his,</div> -<div class="verse">On New Year’s Eve, had done with him this outrage.</div> -<div class="verse">He would forget her if he could; and old</div> -<div class="verse">Darius, her profane, her grizzled father.</div> -<div class="verse">So proud of her he was, and kept so neat</div> -<div class="verse">The mountain shack they lived in, he and his one</div> -<div class="verse">Sweet chick he swore was safe as in State’s prison.</div> -<div class="verse">Daniel counted the months. Was the child showing?</div> -<div class="verse">Darius—did he guess? And Doctor Smith—</div> -<div class="verse">Would she have gone to him? Daniel looked off,</div> -<div class="verse">Unmindful of the beautiful May morning.</div> -<div class="verse">Bruce Hanna, that poor boy. Was he suspicious?</div> -<div class="verse">He had been born for Dora, she for him;</div> -<div class="verse">And then last New Year’s Eve, when the sleigh bells rang</div> -<div class="verse">So slyly, writing ruin in cold air!</div> -<div class="verse">Daniel, wiping his hand again, looked back</div> -<div class="verse">At the wild barb that bit him.</div> -<div class="indent15">Who was that?</div> -<div class="verse">For a quizzical, small stranger stood by the fence,</div> -<div class="verse">Feeling its rust, its toughness. He was swarthy</div> -<div class="verse">And lame, and had bright eyes. And in his hand</div> -<div class="verse">A pipe—for all the township Daniel’s own!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“Here, have you need of this? I’m on my way</div> -<div class="verse">Northeast awhile, repairing peoples’ ranges.</div> -<div class="verse">It gave itself to me, but you can have it.”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Then he was gone, unless he walked and waved—</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span> -<div class="verse">For someone did—Daniel could not distinguish—</div> -<div class="verse">From the far border of the field. The small</div> -<div class="verse">Stranger was gone, and all that Daniel held</div> -<div class="verse">Was a filled pipe bowl, comforting his palm.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">He must ask Berrien, he said at noon,</div> -<div class="verse">If a lame dwarf had come to mend the cook stove.</div> -<div class="verse">He must ask Berrien, who wouldn’t listen,</div> -<div class="verse">How a man’s pipe could vanish from its shelf.</div> -<div class="verse">For so it had, into his very pocket.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“Berrien!” he called. But she was busy</div> -<div class="verse">With her own bother.</div> -<div class="indent10">“Daniel, a woman’s here—</div> -<div class="verse">Wants to stay and board all summer—wants</div> -<div class="verse">To rest. A theater woman. I’ve said no,</div> -<div class="verse">But maybe—”</div> -<div class="indent6">Who was the gold one, listening there</div> -<div class="verse">And smiling? Looking over Berrien’s shoulder</div> -<div class="verse">And lighting the front room with little smiles?</div> -<div class="verse">A faded gold one, well beyond her prime,</div> -<div class="verse">But the true substance, glistening. Berrien frowned</div> -<div class="verse">And her head shook. But Daniel, fascinated,</div> -<div class="verse">Said he would think, would figure.</div> -<div class="indent17">In the end</div> -<div class="verse">She stayed, the theater woman; and that night</div> -<div class="verse">Daniel had dreams of her. She came to his bed</div> -<div class="verse">In beauty; stood beside him and said “Dora.”</div> -<div class="verse">How could she know of Dora? It was a dream,</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span> -<div class="verse">Yet how could she know so much? And how had she fathomed,</div> -<div class="verse">All in one day, the longing he denied?</div> -<div class="verse">There was no loathing. Anywhere in his heart—</div> -<div class="verse">That sweetened as he said it—there was no hate</div> -<div class="verse">For Dora, whom he thought he saw there too,</div> -<div class="verse">Standing beside the theater woman and weeping,</div> -<div class="verse">And holding her simple hands out so he could say:</div> -<div class="verse">“Tomorrow, little sweetheart half my years,</div> -<div class="verse">Tomorrow I will tell the world about us.</div> -<div class="verse">You must be mine to keep. I have been cruel;</div> -<div class="verse">I have been absent, darling, from your pain.</div> -<div class="verse">Tomorrow I will put my two arms round you,</div> -<div class="verse">And bear if I can the—pleasure.”</div> -<div class="indent16">Then he woke,</div> -<div class="verse">And none but Berrien watched him in the room—</div> -<div class="verse">Berrien, who ever after watched him,</div> -<div class="verse">Night and day detesting this pale witch</div> -<div class="verse">Who came and went and charmed him.</div> -<div class="indent19">So she thought,</div> -<div class="verse">Said Daniel, never answering her eyes.</div> -<div class="verse">For him there were no hours now save those dark ones</div> -<div class="verse">When the pair came. At midnight they would be there,</div> -<div class="verse">Faithful as moths; and every sunny morning,</div> -<div class="verse">Starting from his pillow, he would mutter:</div> -<div class="verse">“Tomorrow is today. Then I must go</div> -<div class="verse">To Dora, I must tell her.” Yet he waited</div> -<div class="verse">Always upon another secret midnight;</div> -<div class="verse">And witnessed every noon how the gold woman,</div> -<div class="verse">Smiling her light smile, seemed not to know</div> -<div class="verse">Of Dora; was no witch at all; was no one.</div> -</div></div></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="III">III</h2> -</div> - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Meanwhile a little mountain house was murmurous</div> -<div class="verse">With his own name—evil, could he but hear it.</div> -<div class="verse">Darius had discovered his sweet daughter’s</div> -<div class="verse">Swelling, and had pressed her for the cause;</div> -<div class="verse">And yesterday, in terror, Dora yielded.</div> -<div class="verse">Now Bruce was there, with the old badger watching</div> -<div class="verse">How sick one word could make him. So it was spoken—</div> -<div class="verse">“Daniel.” And the kill was on.</div> -<div class="indent15">A soldier,</div> -<div class="verse">Footing it home from Canada, stood by</div> -<div class="verse">With a gourd dipper, dripping as he drank.</div> -<div class="verse">He listened, lounging, and his bushy eyes</div> -<div class="verse">Burned at the accusation. When Bruce faltered—</div> -<div class="verse">And he did falter, for his hate of Daniel,</div> -<div class="verse">Less than the sore so sudden in his breast,</div> -<div class="verse">So hopeless, so beyond all thought of cure,</div> -<div class="verse">Was a weak thing at first—this brawny witness</div> -<div class="verse">Shone like a savior in the old one’s eyes,</div> -<div class="verse">The little old one, dancing in his fury</div> -<div class="verse">As he repeated “Daniel”; and made doubly</div> -<div class="verse">Sure that Dora’s corner room was bolted.</div> -<div class="verse">Afterwards, remembering how the knuckled</div> -<div class="verse">Soldier had spat curses on that name,</div> -<div class="verse">“Daniel,” and had spun a scheme for them—</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span> -<div class="verse">Perfection, he declared it, of revenge—</div> -<div class="verse">Darius called him blessed. “You’d have failed me,</div> -<div class="verse">Bruce, you would have wobbled like a calf</div> -<div class="verse">And licked this devil’s hand, but for that sergeant.</div> -<div class="verse">Who sent him here, I wonder?”</div> -<div class="indent15">“I don’t know,”</div> -<div class="verse">Said Bruce, his mind on Dora’s room. “Is she—”</div> -<div class="verse">“Yes, she’s in there. And stays there till we’ve finished.</div> -<div class="verse">When do we go and do it? Think of that—</div> -<div class="verse">Think only of that thing, my boy, that needful</div> -<div class="verse">Thing.” Darius nudged him, and they dropped</div> -<div class="verse">Their voices.</div> -<div class="indent6">Dora, listening, heard little,</div> -<div class="verse">Crouched by her door. Bruce—he mustn’t do it.</div> -<div class="verse">Bruce—he was the only thing she wanted</div> -<div class="verse">In the poor world. A poor one too for Daniel;</div> -<div class="verse">But she shut out the thought. Bruce mustn’t do it,</div> -<div class="verse">Whatever it was. She beat on the thick wood</div> -<div class="verse">And cried to him; but only heard Darius</div> -<div class="verse">Coaxing him outdoors; then only silence.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“When shall it be, my boy? What dark of the moon</div> -<div class="verse">Does best for our good purpose—damn his bones!</div> -<div class="verse">Two shotguns—that’s enough—then home, then here—</div> -<div class="verse">That’s it, and neither knows of it next day.</div> -<div class="verse">We’ll even shed a hot tear, being told!</div> -<div class="verse">When do we do it, boy?”</div> -<div class="indent12">But Bruce was slow:</div> -<div class="verse">Angry and sick, but slow. And once when Dora</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span> -<div class="verse">Found him, deep in the woods between their cabins,</div> -<div class="verse">He almost lost his purpose as she held him,</div> -<div class="verse">Wetting his face with tears.</div> -<div class="indent13">“Listen!” she whispered.</div> -<div class="verse">“I have been down to Doctor, and his new nurse</div> -<div class="verse">Knows—I can’t guess how—knows everything.</div> -<div class="verse">A beautiful, tall woman, and her friend</div> -<div class="verse">The teacher—she is like her. Colder, though,</div> -<div class="verse">With different, with grey eyes. The new nurse says—”</div> -<div class="verse">“What, Dora, what does she say?”</div> -<div class="indent17">“Oh, no, I can’t—</div> -<div class="verse">I’ll never, never tell you.”</div> -<div class="indent13">As she ran</div> -<div class="verse">He followed, farther into the still woods;</div> -<div class="verse">Then stopped as she did, startled. For those two—</div> -<div class="verse">It must be those two new ones, those tall women—</div> -<div class="verse">Pondered the carcass of a fawn, a spotted</div> -<div class="verse">Three-months fawn that dogs had torn at the throat.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">It was the nurse that knelt, lifting brown eyes</div> -<div class="verse">In sorrow, scarcely knowing Dora there.</div> -<div class="verse">The other one bent down to her.</div> -<div class="indent16">“Stand up.</div> -<div class="verse">They both are here. The boy, too.”</div> -<div class="indent17">Level voiced,</div> -<div class="verse">The teacher touched her friend’s hair.</div> -<div class="indent18">“Stand up, stand up.</div> -<div class="verse">The fawn is dead. These others—”</div> -<div class="indent17">“Yes, I know.</div> -<div class="verse">I heard, I saw them. But consider death.</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span> -<div class="verse">Consider this young death awhile, and say—</div> -<div class="verse">But softly—of what it is the paradigm.</div> -<div class="verse">Do not disdain one death, one single death;</div> -<div class="verse">And when we can, prevent.”</div> -<div class="indent14">The grey eyes cooled,</div> -<div class="verse">Consenting. So the sorrowful one arose.</div> -<div class="verse">“Come here,” she said to Dora, and to Bruce</div> -<div class="verse">Behind her. “We were walking in the woods,</div> -<div class="verse">My visitor and I; we saw this sight.”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">But Bruce and Dora stared at only her,</div> -<div class="verse">So beautiful, so tall, and at the other</div> -<div class="verse">Strange one by her side.</div> -<div class="indent11">“We had been talking,</div> -<div class="verse">Children, of you two. No matter if Daniel</div> -<div class="verse">Loves you, little girl of the dark eyes—”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“He doesn’t!” Dora shuddered. “If he could,</div> -<div class="verse">He’d have it that I never lived on earth.</div> -<div class="verse">He hates it, having to remember me.</div> -<div class="verse">And that’s all right. I want it so. But Bruce—”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“Will be, my dear, the father of your—listen,</div> -<div class="verse">Listen! You start away.”</div> -<div class="indent12">For both had broken</div> -<div class="verse">Breath, as if with running, and only the hands</div> -<div class="verse">Of the grey-eyed, the firm one, held them there.</div> -<div class="verse">“I mean,” and the tall beautiful one blinked,</div> -<div class="verse">Twitching the green selvage of her skirt,</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span> -<div class="verse">“The foster father. He is young for that;</div> -<div class="verse">Yet he is to be, my child, the chosen one</div> -<div class="verse">Who saves you, and saves it—the life you carry.</div> -<div class="verse">Your husband. Nothing less. And not in dream.”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Bruce turned his head in fear that old Darius</div> -<div class="verse">Listened—was it he among the hemlocks,</div> -<div class="verse">Stepping so lightly?</div> -<div class="indent10">But the foliage opened</div> -<div class="verse">For a fair, smiling face, and the broad shoulders,</div> -<div class="verse">Burdened with straps, of one who tramped these hills</div> -<div class="verse">By summer, following signs. A brilliance round him,</div> -<div class="verse">Caused by no sun, for none came through the branches,</div> -<div class="verse">Struck silence from all four; until the nurse,</div> -<div class="verse">Nodding as if she knew him, said: “Due north,</div> -<div class="verse">Pilgrim, is there. Your compass—have you lost it?</div> -<div class="verse">Well, north is that way”—pointing—“but stand here</div> -<div class="verse">In patience for some seconds; then we two</div> -<div class="verse">Will guide you back to town for better bearing.</div> -<div class="verse">Can you be patient?”</div> -<div class="indent10">“Thank you, yes.” The giant</div> -<div class="verse">Smiled at her once again.</div> -<div class="indent12">“You see, my small one,</div> -<div class="verse">Bruce there by your side would break and run,</div> -<div class="verse">Fearing his sweet fate. He even wonders</div> -<div class="verse">Whether some partner, deep in another plan,</div> -<div class="verse">Listens and chides him.”</div> -<div class="indent12">Staring, the boy blushed.</div> -<div class="verse">Then, fearful, he looked up and met her eyes,</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span> -<div class="verse">The nurse’s distant eyes, that fixed him gently.</div> -<div class="verse">“My friend here—she will tell you more than I can</div> -<div class="verse">Of the black folly born of feud. Attend her.”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">But the still teacher only parted wide</div> -<div class="verse">Her capable cool lids, and let him see</div> -<div class="verse">Agreement flash between them.</div> -<div class="indent16">“Someone’s death”—</div> -<div class="verse">She forced the words at last—“is cheap to buy.</div> -<div class="verse">A minute of man’s time, and breathing stops.</div> -<div class="verse">The cost is in the echo; for to cease</div> -<div class="verse">Makes sound. So you will hear it coming home,</div> -<div class="verse">The rumor of that death. My friend is right.</div> -<div class="verse">Marry the maiden.”</div> -<div class="indent10">But the words came strangely,</div> -<div class="verse">Out of some older earth, and even she</div> -<div class="verse">The speaker knew their failure; for she frowned.</div> -<div class="verse">Bruce turned his head again, fearing the hemlock</div> -<div class="verse">Heard. Yet no one listened there; no fourth one</div> -<div class="verse">Followed this lofty fellow who in patience</div> -<div class="verse">Folded his arms and smiled—as if he too</div> -<div class="verse">Had knowledge, and agreed with the grey eyes.</div> -<div class="verse">As Dora did, said Bruce. And yet Darius—</div> -<div class="verse">He paled at the grim image, and remembered,</div> -<div class="verse">Suddenly, that soldier; whose disgust</div> -<div class="verse">If the dear purpose foundered was itself</div> -<div class="verse">A death, along with Dora’s yesterday.</div> -<div class="verse">Daniel. Who but Daniel was the father</div> -<div class="verse">Of a whole world’s confusion?</div> -<div class="indent16">And his anger,</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span> -<div class="verse">Running before him, took him from this place,</div> -<div class="verse">This glade where three, left thoughtful, were as figures</div> -<div class="verse">Molded of shadow. Dora was gone with Bruce,</div> -<div class="verse">Gasping and crying “Wait!”</div> -<div class="indent14">But the three tall ones</div> -<div class="verse">Listened to nothing human. Hermes came.</div> -</div></div></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak">IV</h2> -</div> - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Hermes came, and hailing his three peers,</div> -<div class="verse">Spoke Aphrodite’s name; whose beautiful laughter</div> -<div class="verse">Answered as she glistened in their midst—</div> -<div class="verse">No woman now, but goddess. So Hephaestus</div> -<div class="verse">Hove into their view, and all of the others,</div> -<div class="verse">Manifest together. This was where,</div> -<div class="verse">In tulip and oak shade, they pleased to meet,</div> -<div class="verse">To sit sometimes and say how the world went,</div> -<div class="verse">Mortal and immortal.</div> -<div class="indent10">“You of the golden</div> -<div class="verse">Shoulders,” Hermes said, “bring dreams to one</div> -<div class="verse">Who lived in peace without them.”</div> -<div class="indent17">“Lived in hate,</div> -<div class="verse">In loathing of those very limbs he fondled—</div> -<div class="verse">Poor, poor limbs, so lonely!” And her insolent</div> -<div class="verse">Laughter shook the listening green leaves.</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span> -<div class="verse">“Yet he would have forgotten, and his only</div> -<div class="verse">Danger been from Ares”—who was there,</div> -<div class="verse">Swelling his thick chest, as Hermes spoke—</div> -<div class="verse">“From the two minions, old and young, of Ares.</div> -<div class="verse">Such danger can dissolve, for it is wind</div> -<div class="verse">And fury; but the damage that you do,</div> -<div class="verse">Arrogant bright daughter of the dolphins,</div> -<div class="verse">Is endless as waves are, or serpent segments</div> -<div class="verse">The impotent keen knife divides. Have mercy,</div> -<div class="verse">Goddess.” And he waited. But her lips,</div> -<div class="verse">Unmoving, only teased him; and tormented</div> -<div class="verse">Artemis.</div> -<div class="indent4">“The man was free of longing,</div> -<div class="verse">And the dark maid of him,” the huntress said,</div> -<div class="verse">“Till this one wantoned, wooing him with dreams.</div> -<div class="verse">Then Ares—common soldier—fanned the fire</div> -<div class="verse">In those you call his minions.” Hermes nodded.</div> -<div class="verse">“And so our plan’s perplexed before it ripens.</div> -<div class="verse">Athene, Michael—tell them how we stood,</div> -<div class="verse">Just here, and heard the boy refuse his function.”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">But it was known among them even then,</div> -<div class="verse">And so no witness needed. Aphrodite,</div> -<div class="verse">Secure in beauty’s pride, tilted her head</div> -<div class="verse">To hear, intending mockery of the tale.</div> -<div class="verse">But the wise one withheld it, and majestic</div> -<div class="verse">Michael only folded his broad wings</div> -<div class="verse">As Gabriel did, as Raphael.</div> -<div class="indent13">Yet that last one,</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span> -<div class="verse">Mournful of face and long, had ears for Artemis,</div> -<div class="verse">Nurse to all things aborning, as she mused:</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“The young one when he comes—in what men call</div> -<div class="verse">The fall of their brief year—the roofless infant—</div> -<div class="verse">It was for him we planned. And still we do—”</div> -<div class="verse">She dared the glittering goddess—“still we seek</div> -<div class="verse">Safe birth for the small mother, and for him</div> -<div class="verse">The wailing, the unwanted.”</div> -<div class="indent14">Crooked Hephaestus,</div> -<div class="verse">Clearing his mild throat, remarked in modesty:</div> -<div class="verse">“The man works well and silently. He loves,</div> -<div class="verse">In solitude, the comfort of my fire.</div> -<div class="verse">And so in a bowl I brought it. As for her—</div> -<div class="verse">He will not have her near him. I was by;</div> -<div class="verse">I read his thoughts of this.”</div> -<div class="indent13">“Absurd contriver!</div> -<div class="verse">Artisan of the bellows! Zeus’s butt!</div> -<div class="verse">As ever, you know nothing.” Aphrodite</div> -<div class="verse">Sparkled with rage, reviling him. “You saw</div> -<div class="verse">By daylight, and at labor in the field</div> -<div class="verse">One whom that very night I made my slave.</div> -<div class="verse">Off to your anvil, ass!”</div> -<div class="indent11">But Hermes calmed</div> -<div class="verse">Their quarrel, lifting his either hand in grace.</div> -<div class="verse">“Without our father’s thunder we are fools</div> -<div class="verse">And children. Who decides when lesser gods,</div> -<div class="verse">When angels disagree? Authority absent,</div> -<div class="verse">Silence—a silver silence—that is best.”</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span> -<div class="verse">And like a song they heard it, and they wondered,</div> -<div class="verse">Measuring its notes. Until Apollo,</div> -<div class="verse">Lord of the muses, laughed.</div> -<div class="indent14">“You heard me humming.</div> -<div class="verse">All to myself I sang it—with sealed lips.”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“What did you sing?” said Hermes.</div> -<div class="indent17">“Nothing, nothing.</div> -<div class="verse">My sisters round the world—a sweet wind brought me,</div> -<div class="verse">Sleepily, this air.”</div> -<div class="indent9">He hummed again,</div> -<div class="verse">And this time closed his eyes. “Perhaps I see,”</div> -<div class="verse">He said, “some silver moment coming soon—</div> -<div class="verse">Necessity for music. But not now.”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Nor could those other nine foresee the summer.</div> -<div class="verse">Already, in mid June, high long days</div> -<div class="verse">Hovered the world, and change, like ripening fruit,</div> -<div class="verse">Hung ever, ever plainer. Yet no man,</div> -<div class="verse">No god distinguished more in this green time</div> -<div class="verse">Than purposes that crossed; and ever tighter.</div> -<div class="verse">In Daniel’s house the woman who was resting—</div> -<div class="verse">Daily, in scorn, Berrien spoke the word—</div> -<div class="verse">Still did not spare the beautiful dream body</div> -<div class="verse">She sent to him by dark, when Dora too</div> -<div class="verse">Lived by his side and loved him: standing there</div> -<div class="verse">In the shed radiance of one who smiled</div> -<div class="verse">And smiled, and burned his reticence away.</div> -<div class="verse">For he would go to Dora—come July,</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span> -<div class="verse">Said Daniel, lying afterwards and listening</div> -<div class="verse">As night died between him and the windows,</div> -<div class="verse">He would go there, he would, and say it all;</div> -<div class="verse">He would have Dora, small in his long arms,</div> -<div class="verse">Forever. Yet the sweetness of this thought</div> -<div class="verse">Exhausted him, and hollowed his wild eyes,</div> -<div class="verse">So that he never went.</div> -<div class="indent10">And had he gone,</div> -<div class="verse">What Dora would have seen him come and shivered?</div> -<div class="verse">One whom as strong a dream—if it was a dream—</div> -<div class="verse">Estranged. It was of having, yet not having,</div> -<div class="verse">Bruce for her brave husband. For he mustn’t—</div> -<div class="verse">He mustn’t, she said nightly, shutting away</div> -<div class="verse">The vision—Bruce must never let it be.</div> -<div class="verse">The nurse—he mustn’t listen. Yet if he did—</div> -<div class="verse">And then she wept.</div> -<div class="indent9">Darius in the morning,</div> -<div class="verse">Seeing her tears, thought only of his purpose.</div> -<div class="verse">He should conceal it better. She was afraid,</div> -<div class="verse">Was frantic, she might go somewhere and tell.</div> -<div class="verse">That boy—he was so hard to keep in anger.</div> -<div class="verse">He faltered, and he wilted; he was a fool.</div> -<div class="verse">That boy, the center of confusion’s cross,</div> -<div class="verse">For still he hated Daniel, still with Darius</div> -<div class="verse">Plotted the loud death; yet loved all day,</div> -<div class="verse">All night the dream of lying in clear peace</div> -<div class="verse">Forever, in dear confidence, with Dora;</div> -<div class="verse">That boy was whom the strangers in this valley</div> -<div class="verse">Watched while the moments went; while June decayed;</div> -<div class="verse">While middle summer dozed; and no leaves fell.</div> -</div></div></div> - - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">V</h2> -</div> - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">A hundred people coming to the barn dance,</div> -<div class="verse">The barn dance at MacPherson’s, saw the full moon.</div> -<div class="verse">It hung there like a lantern in the low east,</div> -<div class="verse">Enormous and blood red, and stationary.</div> -<div class="verse">Daniel came, and Berrien, with that woman—</div> -<div class="verse">So fair, she seemed unnatural—between them.</div> -<div class="verse">She must have made them bring her, someone said;</div> -<div class="verse">And laughed.</div> -<div class="indent6">But no one laughed when Dora came.</div> -<div class="verse">She was so pitiful in her loose coat,</div> -<div class="verse">Concealing, healing nothing. Would she dance?</div> -<div class="verse">If only with Bruce Hanna, would she dance?</div> -<div class="verse">Too late for it, some whispered; and some blamed</div> -<div class="verse">The silly boy. To let her show like that!</div> -<div class="verse">The nurse, the doctor’s nurse, and her tall friend</div> -<div class="verse">The teacher—no one dreamed those two, those two—</div> -<div class="verse">They stood by their grand selves, and no one saw</div> -<div class="verse">How Bruce, how Dora lived but in their glances.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Then all the strangers. When the music started,</div> -<div class="verse">Who but a giant—handsome, with tow hair—</div> -<div class="verse">Bowed to the grand ones? And to more</div> -<div class="verse">Beyond them? For a pair of unknown farmers,</div> -<div class="verse">Lanky and cave-eyed, leaned bony shoulders</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span> -<div class="verse">Where a great upright shaded the rude floor.</div> -<div class="verse">From the next valley, maybe, like this lame</div> -<div class="verse">Pedlar; like the soldier; like that lightfoot</div> -<div class="verse">Traveller, the one with pointed ears,</div> -<div class="verse">The one with cropped hair and a twisted staff,</div> -<div class="verse">Who wandered in the crowd, watching and watched.</div> -<div class="verse">The shepherd of the strangers? Yet no word</div> -<div class="verse">Between them, and no look, Darius said—</div> -<div class="verse">Darius, who had eyes for everything;</div> -<div class="verse">And ears, when music started.</div> -<div class="indent15">“One more couple!</div> -<div class="verse">One more couple!” Glendy the clear-caller</div> -<div class="verse">Shouted while harmonicas, like locusts,</div> -<div class="verse">Shrilled, and while Young Gus tuned his guitar.</div> -<div class="verse">“One more couple!”</div> -<div class="indent10">Here they came.</div> -<div class="indent19">“Join hands</div> -<div class="verse">And circle left!”</div> -<div class="indent7">Darius heard the words</div> -<div class="verse">Above him, in the corner where by Glendy</div> -<div class="verse">And the harmonicas he tapped the floor.</div> -<div class="verse">His was the curious, the musicians’ corner,</div> -<div class="verse">Whence he could see how Dora sat and trembled,</div> -<div class="verse">Wondering what next—why she was here.</div> -<div class="verse">“The dog!” he growled, catching on Daniel’s face,</div> -<div class="verse">In a far corner, hunger and indifference</div> -<div class="verse">Fighting. Hunger—damn him—for my child,</div> -<div class="verse">My child, Darius said, whom he has changed;</div> -<div class="verse">And smothering this, the smoke of a pretence</div> -<div class="verse">That nothing here was wrong, nothing at all.</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span> -<div class="verse">The soldier had come back. Darius saw him.</div> -<div class="verse">Red-eyed, drinking water by a droplight,</div> -<div class="verse">And his own conscience hurt him. Daniel lived.</div> -<div class="verse">If Bruce could only raise his eyes a little—</div> -<div class="verse">But they were hangdog, or were fixed in fear</div> -<div class="verse">On those two stranger women. Why in fear?</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">The music, though.</div> -<div class="indent9">“Swing your corner lady!”</div> -<div class="verse">Darius, rocking gently on his heels,</div> -<div class="verse">Was lost again in that, and in the wild</div> -<div class="verse">Mouth organs, going mournful overhead.</div> -<div class="verse">“First two gents cross over!” In his thought</div> -<div class="verse">He crossed; he took that partner by the hand;</div> -<div class="verse">He swung her, swung her, swung her, you know where.</div> -<div class="verse">He promenaded, proudly, and he clapped</div> -<div class="verse">His palms, that sweated bravely. Then the swinging</div> -<div class="verse">Ceased. The set was over. And he sang:</div> -<div class="verse">“Good boy, Gus! That was calling, old man Glendy!”</div> -<div class="verse">They winked at him, wiping their foreheads off;</div> -<div class="verse">Then soon another set. And still he listened</div> -<div class="verse">And watched, and still he saw how Dora sat,</div> -<div class="verse">Trembling, and never danced.</div> -<div class="indent14">But once the soldier,</div> -<div class="verse">Slouching to her side, made mockery signs</div> -<div class="verse">Suggesting that she stand. Darius started</div> -<div class="verse">In anger; then he stopped, for Bruce was up,</div> -<div class="verse">Explaining—yet avoiding the brute stare;</div> -<div class="verse">And Daniel, in his corner, clenched both fists.</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span> -<div class="verse">Even the strangers knew, for one came over—</div> -<div class="verse">The one with such a neat head on his body,</div> -<div class="verse">And the curled stick—as if to beat away</div> -<div class="verse">Wild boars escaped here. That was good, was good,</div> -<div class="verse">Darius said; then listened as the music</div> -<div class="verse">Whispered again.</div> -<div class="indent7">Whispered.</div> -<div class="indent14">For the tune</div> -<div class="verse">Had altered. Where was Glendy? Who was this</div> -<div class="verse">Where Glendy had been standing? And what ailed,</div> -<div class="verse">What softened so the clamor of the mouth harps?</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“One more couple!”</div> -<div class="indent9">Who was the intruder,</div> -<div class="verse">Calling in so sweet, so low a voice,</div> -<div class="verse">Strange orders? Yet not strange; for the hot crowd,</div> -<div class="verse">Heedless of any difference, swirled on,</div> -<div class="verse">Loving its evolutions, and no head</div> -<div class="verse">Turned hither.</div> -<div class="indent6">“Take your Dora by the hand—”</div> -<div class="verse">Darius, looking up, saw how the silver</div> -<div class="verse">Light of the full moon, mature at zenith,</div> -<div class="verse">Fell on the singer. Through one gable window</div> -<div class="verse">It fell, and on no head but his, the silvery</div> -<div class="verse">Singer. He was slender, he was strange;</div> -<div class="verse">And the high moon—it burned for none but him.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“Where’s Glendy, Gus?”</div> -<div class="indent11">“Took sick.”</div> -<div class="indent18">The loud guitar,</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span> -<div class="verse">Hesitating, rallied and persevered;</div> -<div class="verse">But modified its note to a new sweetness,</div> -<div class="verse">A low, a far-off sweetness, as Gus looked,</div> -<div class="verse">Listened, and looked again at the mysterious</div> -<div class="verse">Caller on whose mouth the full moon smiled.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="indent3">Take your Dora by the hand,</div> -<div class="indent3">Your little Dora, grown so large.</div> -<div class="indent3">By another she was manned,</div> -<div class="indent3">But she is now your loving charge.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="indent3">Mercy marries you, my boy,</div> -<div class="indent3">And mercy—oh, it is unjust.</div> -<div class="indent3">But it was born of truth and joy,</div> -<div class="indent3">And lives with misery if it must.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Darius, and then Daniel, comprehending,</div> -<div class="verse">Stared at a hundred dancers who did not.</div> -<div class="verse">Heedless of any change, they stamped and swung,</div> -<div class="verse">Those hundred, as if Glendy still were here—</div> -<div class="verse">Old Glendy, whose thin throat still mastered them.</div> -<div class="verse">Yet Daniel saw how Dora, dropping her eyes,</div> -<div class="verse">Sat silent, deathly silent; and how Bruce,</div> -<div class="verse">Guardian to her, looked only down—</div> -<div class="verse">Looked everywhere save at the singer, singing:</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="indent3">Take your Dora by the hand.</div> -<div class="indent3">There is life within her waist.</div> -<div class="indent3">And there is woe, unless you stand</div> -<div class="indent3">And love with bravery is graced.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span> -<div class="indent3">So all the world will know her wed,</div> -<div class="indent3">And all the people call it yours—</div> -<div class="indent3">The life within her, small and red;</div> -<div class="indent3">And wrathful, were it none but hers.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="indent3">With you beside her all is well.</div> -<div class="indent3">She will be tended in her time.</div> -<div class="indent3">There is more that I could tell,</div> -<div class="indent3">But Glendy now resumes the rhyme.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“Circle four!”</div> -<div class="indent6">Darius, and then Daniel,</div> -<div class="verse">Dazed, regarded Glendy once again.</div> -<div class="verse">The moonlit one was gone, and only these</div> -<div class="verse">Had seen him—these and Dora, and dumb Bruce.</div> -<div class="verse">And all of the nine strangers. For they too</div> -<div class="verse">Had listened; bending their bodies, they had weighed,</div> -<div class="verse">Had witnessed every word as it arrived;</div> -<div class="verse">Had watched the boy’s confusion; then the girl’s;</div> -<div class="verse">Then both together, as if woe had wed</div> -<div class="verse">Already the poor lovers.</div> -<div class="indent12">“Nelly Gray!”</div> -<div class="verse">The hundred dancers, heedless, went right on;</div> -<div class="verse">And only Berrien’s boarder, the gold woman</div> -<div class="verse">Who stood so close by Daniel—only that one</div> -<div class="verse">Kindled. Then she blazed, and Daniel, blushing,</div> -<div class="verse">Knew she had found his thought.</div> -<div class="indent16">So I have lost her—</div> -<div class="verse">This was his thought—have lost her. Then my love</div> -<div class="verse">Must die, and no man know it. He was true,</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span> -<div class="verse">That singer. It is not my life she carries—</div> -<div class="verse">Dora, who was mine for that cold minute;</div> -<div class="verse">Dora, whom I never can forget.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">The eyes of the theater woman burned so fiercely,</div> -<div class="verse">Punishing his own, that Daniel shook.</div> -<div class="verse">How could she guess his trouble? Only in dreams</div> -<div class="verse">She knew it, only in dreams, when Dora came.</div> -<div class="verse">Only in darkness. “Now she disapproves,</div> -<div class="verse">She probes me.”</div> -<div class="indent7">But the woman looked away,</div> -<div class="verse">Suddenly, and signalled to the soldier;</div> -<div class="verse">Who, nodding, went to stand before Darius.</div> -<div class="verse">Daniel saw him there, gesticulating,</div> -<div class="verse">With his feet spread, as if he meant to spring,</div> -<div class="verse">To throttle someone. And Darius blinked.</div> -<div class="verse">But music and the distance drowned their words.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">And now the tall nurse, bending over Dora,</div> -<div class="verse">Whispered to her and Bruce; and the boy, rising,</div> -<div class="verse">Reached for a small hand. The singer had said</div> -<div class="verse">To take it, and he took it, and pulled up</div> -<div class="verse">The girl who still was trying to be free,</div> -<div class="verse">To save him.</div> -<div class="indent6">And the music never stopped.</div> -<div class="verse">“Kiss her if you dare!” cried old man Glendy.</div> -<div class="verse">And many a dancer did. But neither Bruce</div> -<div class="verse">Nor Dora, arm in arm, had present ears.</div> -<div class="verse">They listened still to what the other singer,</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span> -<div class="verse">Gone now as the moon was from the window,</div> -<div class="verse">Sang and sang again, as if his silvery</div> -<div class="verse">Face never had faded. Arm in arm</div> -<div class="verse">They walked among the dancers to the big door;</div> -<div class="verse">Arm in arm, sleepwalking, they went forth,</div> -<div class="verse">Under the slant moon, and disappeared.</div> -</div></div></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak">VI</h2> -</div> - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Some whispers, like the wake of blowing leaves</div> -<div class="verse">When a swift body passes west, pursued them.</div> -<div class="verse">But Daniel never stirred.</div> -<div class="indent12">Nor old Darius—</div> -<div class="verse">Neither did he listen as the sergeant</div> -<div class="verse">Swore, swelling the wrath in his red eyes</div> -<div class="verse">Till most of him was fire. “Follow him home,</div> -<div class="verse">The fool. He is forgetting it—the purpose.</div> -<div class="verse">Tear him free. He softens in her arms</div> -<div class="verse">To the sick sound of ‘Father.’”</div> -<div class="indent15">But Darius,</div> -<div class="verse">Lost in the same sound, was thinking softly:</div> -<div class="verse">“I had not dreamed of this. She will be friended,</div> -<div class="verse">She will not go alone. He is a good boy,</div> -<div class="verse">Bruce. I never coupled her with him.</div> -<div class="verse">It may be in the cards.” Whereat the soldier</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span> -<div class="verse">Left him, spitting disgust.</div> -<div class="indent13">And Daniel saw</div> -<div class="verse">How all of the fair strangers followed soon—</div> -<div class="verse">All of them, as if they were a company.</div> -<div class="verse">They wouldn’t be, of course. And yet they smiled</div> -<div class="verse">In the same grave degree, as if some secret</div> -<div class="verse">Bound them.</div> -<div class="indent6">And he thought the dapper one,</div> -<div class="verse">Who tapped the sanded floor and twirled his stick,</div> -<div class="verse">His curlicue of a cane—whatever it was—</div> -<div class="verse">Communicated thus to the gold woman</div> -<div class="verse">That she too must away. But she was Daniel’s,</div> -<div class="verse">Berrien’s; she was not of any company,</div> -<div class="verse">Wandering, like this one. She had come</div> -<div class="verse">Alone to them, in May, and she would go—</div> -<div class="verse">Would go, said Daniel, taking her dream body,</div> -<div class="verse">Her beautiful dream body, that was his,</div> -<div class="verse">Was his alone.</div> -<div class="indent6">And suddenly his sadness</div> -<div class="verse">Doubled. For the singer had left living</div> -<div class="verse">None of his sweet hope. Dora was gone,</div> -<div class="verse">A ghost in outer moonlight, a surrendered</div> -<div class="verse">Sweetness, and he stood there like a dead man,</div> -<div class="verse">A noble dead man, numbering his loss.</div> -<div class="verse">Now, multiplied, it smote him. This one too—</div> -<div class="verse">In fall—he would be losing this one too,</div> -<div class="verse">In fall. Or even here, while he stood looking,</div> -<div class="verse">Here, with that lithe one calling from the door.</div> -<div class="verse">For there he was, the last one to go through,</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span> -<div class="verse">And Daniel thought the signal came again:</div> -<div class="verse">An elbow’s twitch, a twirl of his live staff,</div> -<div class="verse">His vine that had the strength to stand alone.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">But she had arms and eyes for only Daniel,</div> -<div class="verse">Worshiping her now. She seemed as near,</div> -<div class="verse">He whispered to himself, as lamplight must,</div> -<div class="verse">At midnight, to poor moths. And yet no brush</div> -<div class="verse">Of fingers, such as Berrien might have frowned on.</div> -<div class="verse">Simply her brilliance chained him, simply her arms,</div> -<div class="verse">Her eyes, took hold of everything in him</div> -<div class="verse">And hurt it.</div> -<div class="indent6">“So you let her go,” she said.</div> -<div class="verse">“You shadow of a man, you let her go.</div> -<div class="verse">Those limbs of hers, so beautiful in light,</div> -<div class="verse">In darkness, and the breast you could have bruised,</div> -<div class="verse">Crushing it with yours—and yet you would not,</div> -<div class="verse">For it is white, is small, and precious to you—</div> -<div class="verse">Derelict! Oh, shameful! What a shadow</div> -<div class="verse">Falls on you for lover—disobedient</div> -<div class="verse">Lover of that girl whom still you crave!”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Did her lips part? Was any of it spoken?</div> -<div class="verse">Berrien still watched the weary dancers</div> -<div class="verse">Like one whom nothing moved. Then whence the words?</div> -<div class="verse">And why? For the gold woman’s only knowledge</div> -<div class="verse">Was a dream knowledge, drawn to him by night</div> -<div class="verse">When her own body slept in her own bed.</div> -<div class="verse">How could she understand? And what untruth</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span> -<div class="verse">Was working in her, making these sweet sounds?</div> -<div class="verse">Their honey was more false for being heard</div> -<div class="verse">By him, by only him. That other singer—</div> -<div class="verse">He had been true. And troubling. But his song</div> -<div class="verse">Was never to be lost now. Dora was,</div> -<div class="verse">Forever. And he said it must be so.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">The woman, though. Her arms. And now her eyes,</div> -<div class="verse">Beating upon him, beautiful, imperious,</div> -<div class="verse">Not to be contradicted. And her lips.</div> -<div class="verse">Lest the unparted lips again deliver</div> -<div class="verse">What was so loud, so terrible—though heard</div> -<div class="verse">By him, by only him—he spoke of home.</div> -<div class="verse">Berrien—wasn’t she tired? And Berrien was.</div> -<div class="verse">So with no words they went.</div> -<div class="indent14">Some dancers saw them,</div> -<div class="verse">Picking their way, and winked at one another;</div> -<div class="verse">Daniel, with that artificial woman;</div> -<div class="verse">Berrien, with her boarder. What a household!</div> -<div class="verse">None of them looked happy. Three old-fashioned</div> -<div class="verse">People going home. The actress, too—</div> -<div class="verse">An old, old timer, powdered up to kill,</div> -<div class="verse">And painted. You could see it—Indian summer</div> -<div class="verse">Everywhere. Yet once a pretty world.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">They could not see how beautiful she was.</div> -<div class="verse">Only for Daniel was she beautiful,</div> -<div class="verse">And for those others, strangers here with her,</div> -<div class="verse">Who from the border of MacPherson’s grove,</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span> -<div class="verse">In their own forms, were watching.</div> -<div class="indent17">Hermes leaned</div> -<div class="verse">Like none but Hermes, graceful as the grass,</div> -<div class="verse">On a slim sapling, serpent-shaped, and said:</div> -<div class="verse">“She flaunts us. Aphrodite is not Ares,</div> -<div class="verse">She is not schooled in victory and defeat,</div> -<div class="verse">She is not skilful at surrender—save</div> -<div class="verse">The lover’s kind. See? She is bent on that.</div> -<div class="verse">She will not let him go, the farmer there,</div> -<div class="verse">While any of her poison works in him.</div> -<div class="verse">Ares, what if some of your new wisdom—</div> -<div class="verse">You could persuade her, Ares.”</div> -<div class="indent15">But the sullen</div> -<div class="verse">Soldier still was sullen, though a god;</div> -<div class="verse">He would not lift his face as Aphrodite,</div> -<div class="verse">Smiling at them, catlike, kept her way</div> -<div class="verse">With Daniel down the road.</div> -<div class="indent14">“Apollo’s song,”</div> -<div class="verse">Said Hermes, “—it was all we needed then.”</div> -<div class="verse">He nodded, and the bright musician bowed.</div> -<div class="verse">“It was a potent song. The tough old man,</div> -<div class="verse">The tender young, the farmer in his heart—</div> -<div class="verse">All four of them were changed. But now you see—”</div> -<div class="verse">He pointed, and they looked where Aphrodite,</div> -<div class="verse">Dimming with her companions down the highway,</div> -<div class="verse">Walked as a mortal would; though still they knew</div> -<div class="verse">The goddess by a smile that lingered somewhere,</div> -<div class="verse">Mingling as the moon did with the tops</div> -<div class="verse">Of trees, and scenting midnight with its malice.</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span> -<div class="verse">Artemis, more angry than the rest,</div> -<div class="verse">More like the moon, declining now so clear,</div> -<div class="verse">So cold, beyond the body of this grove,</div> -<div class="verse">Remembered the dead fawn. “So with that child,”</div> -<div class="verse">She brooded. “If the farmer man confesses,</div> -<div class="verse">Nothing but grief will grow where you and I—”</div> -<div class="verse">She took Athene’s hand—“have wisely tilled</div> -<div class="verse">And planted. Never then will the boy serve,</div> -<div class="verse">With loving care, my cause—the cause of the world,</div> -<div class="verse">Of the newborn things whose nurture saves the world.</div> -<div class="verse">The farmer would have let the maiden go—</div> -<div class="verse">Sadly, yet Apollo made it sure.</div> -<div class="verse">Or so we said who listened. Yet that one,</div> -<div class="verse">That laughing one, pursues him now and sings,</div> -<div class="verse">And sings—oh, what low song, what tale of the flesh,</div> -<div class="verse">What burden that may topple his intention?</div> -<div class="verse">Hephaestus, our contriver, you could seal</div> -<div class="verse">His ears, his sleeping eyelids, if you would;</div> -<div class="verse">Even tonight you could.”</div> -<div class="indent12">Hephaestus, pacing</div> -<div class="verse">Oddly the smooth floor, rested his leg,</div> -<div class="verse">The shortened leg Zeus long ago had crippled.</div> -<div class="verse">“The farmer—he works well, and loves the fire</div> -<div class="verse">I gave him. Let him be.”</div> -<div class="indent12">But none of them saw</div> -<div class="verse">His meaning, if he had one. He was lame</div> -<div class="verse">And foolish, and he muttered as he walked,</div> -<div class="verse">And turned and walked again, counting the steps</div> -<div class="verse">Between two oaks that limited his way.</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span> -<div class="verse">The great angels watched him with their wings</div> -<div class="verse">Folded. Standing deeper in the shade,</div> -<div class="verse">They waited with the others while the moon</div> -<div class="verse">Sloped to its rest, the music having wearied</div> -<div class="verse">And stopped, and all the dancers wandered home.</div> -</div></div></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak">VII</h2> -</div> - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“Dora, do you take Bruce for your husband,</div> -<div class="verse">To cherish him, for better or for worse?”</div> -<div class="verse">The justice of the peace, Tobias Hapgood,</div> -<div class="verse">Peered over his dim glasses at the pair</div> -<div class="verse">Who said “I do, I do” among the dusty</div> -<div class="verse">Law books.</div> -<div class="indent6">And there were three witnesses.</div> -<div class="verse">Darius in a white shirt stood between</div> -<div class="verse">Two others, old and little like himself:</div> -<div class="verse">The father of the groom—roundheaded, fumbling</div> -<div class="verse">Miserably at his tie—and full of tears</div> -<div class="verse">The mother, full of shame and happy tears.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Her boy was being married. But to think—</div> -<div class="verse">To think—and then the rest of it was weeping;</div> -<div class="verse">Was waiting till the four of them were home;</div> -<div class="verse">Was wondering how soon she could forget.</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span> -<div class="verse">Dora would have his baby in her house.</div> -<div class="verse">And then she could forget. She wiped her eyes.</div> -<div class="verse">Darius here—now he would be alone,</div> -<div class="verse">And that perhaps was harder. So “I do”</div> -<div class="verse">Came distantly across the room as she compared</div> -<div class="verse">Their griefs; and when the couple, bent to kiss,</div> -<div class="verse">Held on to one another, and held on</div> -<div class="verse">And on, as if the world would die this way,</div> -<div class="verse">She was content again.</div> -<div class="indent11">But no one saw</div> -<div class="verse">Nine more in the brown room, or heard the voice</div> -<div class="verse">Of Hermes asking Artemis, who frowned,</div> -<div class="verse">What further end she strained for. All but Ares</div> -<div class="verse">Stood there, in no space the mortals knew,</div> -<div class="verse">The little mortals, mingling their low words</div> -<div class="verse">With these unheard, these high ones. Sullen Ares</div> -<div class="verse">Sulked on a far hill. But Aphrodite,</div> -<div class="verse">Resting her fair side against the law books,</div> -<div class="verse">Laughed; and the green goddess answered Hermes:</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“See? There still is mischief in one mind</div> -<div class="verse">Among us, there is insolence. The end?</div> -<div class="verse">She has not worked it yet. Beware of her</div> -<div class="verse">Who hates this thing we witness; it defeats</div> -<div class="verse">Her farmer, and she never will forgive.”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">The laughing goddess listened with her eyes</div> -<div class="verse">Turned elsewhere—on Hephaestus, whom she taunted,</div> -<div class="verse">Teasing him with glances at his broken</div> -<div class="verse">Foot, and at the thickness of his wrists.</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span> -<div class="verse">“Artisan!” she said. “Infernal tinker!</div> -<div class="verse">You are not one of us. Then why do you creep</div> -<div class="verse">Each morning, crooked fool, and haunt the man?</div> -<div class="verse">You do, in the poor likeness of a mender—</div> -<div class="verse">What is it that you mend? What is the word?”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“Stoves.”</div> -<div class="indent5">“I’ll not pronounce it. Such a word!</div> -<div class="verse">I scorn it. And scorn you. And yet I say—</div> -<div class="verse">Remember my own strength, that can undo</div> -<div class="verse">The cunningest contriver. No more haunt</div> -<div class="verse">The man. By night, by morning, no more crawl—</div> -<div class="verse">You hear?—and charm his sadness till it sleeps.</div> -<div class="verse">You think to cure his longing with some lessons,</div> -<div class="verse">Monger, in your art. But my own art</div> -<div class="verse">Is ultimate. Remember, and refrain.”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Hephaestus shifted crabwise on his ankles,</div> -<div class="verse">Refusing every glance until the rite</div> -<div class="verse">Was finished, and the people in the room</div> -<div class="verse">Departed. Then he ducked and disappeared,</div> -<div class="verse">Eluding even Hermes, even the sea-grey</div> -<div class="verse">Eyes of sage Athene. He was bound</div> -<div class="verse">For Daniel, whom he haunted every day</div> -<div class="verse">In the same likeness he had first assumed</div> -<div class="verse">When Daniel, missing the comfort of his pipe bowl,</div> -<div class="verse">Got it again, and wondered.</div> -<div class="indent13">Bruce and Dora,</div> -<div class="verse">Heeled by their elders, one of whom still wept,</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span> -<div class="verse">Went home another way; and the inaudible</div> -<div class="verse">Deities went home—to the green hilltop,</div> -<div class="verse">The high glade where Ares, though he heard,</div> -<div class="verse">Sent down no shout of welcome. Aphrodite,</div> -<div class="verse">Following to where the mountains forked,</div> -<div class="verse">Deserted there; dipping away and flying,</div> -<div class="verse">Like one of her own doves, to Daniel’s house.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">But Daniel stood with someone in the barn</div> -<div class="verse">By the new anvil he had bought, considering</div> -<div class="verse">Hot and cold; and how a hammer’s blow</div> -<div class="verse">Can bend the iron, not break it.</div> -<div class="indent15">“When you came,</div> -<div class="verse">That day, and brought my pipe—I still am puzzled—</div> -<div class="verse">How did you do it, man?”</div> -<div class="indent12">“Look here! I take</div> -<div class="verse">This strip of ten-gauge, and I heat it thus—</div> -<div class="verse">Pretend the forge is going—then I twist it,</div> -<div class="verse">So, until I have a perfect handle</div> -<div class="verse">For the fire tongs you need.”</div> -<div class="indent14">No other answer.</div> -<div class="verse">“See? Now when you have the bellows going—</div> -<div class="verse">Watch me—this is what the draft can do.”</div> -<div class="verse">No other answer. So the pupil bent,</div> -<div class="verse">Considering.</div> -<div class="indent6">And neither of them saw—</div> -<div class="verse">Or Daniel did not—bright eyes at the door,</div> -<div class="verse">Brimming with alien purpose.</div> -<div class="indent14">“Your good wife,”</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span> -<div class="verse">The woman said—and Daniel, starting round,</div> -<div class="verse">Saw how the gold one narrowed her long lids</div> -<div class="verse">Toward him who held the hammer—“sends for you.</div> -<div class="verse">She tells you this is wasting time, is wearing</div> -<div class="verse">The day out; is pure nothing. And she says—</div> -<div class="verse">Dismiss the tinker. Let him go his way.</div> -<div class="verse">He is not wanted here.”</div> -<div class="indent11">The hammer dropped.</div> -<div class="verse">But Daniel shook his head at her.</div> -<div class="indent16">“She wouldn’t</div> -<div class="verse">Know. It isn’t woman’s work. Besides,</div> -<div class="verse">It keeps me safe from thinking certain thoughts.</div> -<div class="verse">She wouldn’t know that either. Or would you.”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">He flushed, remembering how much she knew</div> -<div class="verse">If dreams had body, and if at the dance</div> -<div class="verse">It was her own live lips that so rebuked him.</div> -<div class="verse">But no, that couldn’t be. He said it again,</div> -<div class="verse">And turned to the lame tinker.</div> -<div class="indent15">“We’ll not stop,</div> -<div class="verse">For her or anybody. Tell me now—”</div> -<div class="verse">Whereat Hephaestus grinned, and Aphrodite,</div> -<div class="verse">Stamping her white foot, that all but showed</div> -<div class="verse">Immortal through the slipper, let them be.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Yet not for long. The lame one in his room,</div> -<div class="verse">That night and every night, was pinched awake</div> -<div class="verse">By fingers he well knew; and knew as well</div> -<div class="verse">How in the darkness, sweating, to endure.</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span> -<div class="verse">For he was steadfast—like his tossing pupil,</div> -<div class="verse">Daniel, in the bed where Berrien lay.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Hour after hour, that night and every night,</div> -<div class="verse">Berrien strove to riddle his strange words,</div> -<div class="verse">His mumbled words, that stubbornly kept on</div> -<div class="verse">Refusing what was whispered. What was that?</div> -<div class="verse">Or was it anything? Was someone by them,</div> -<div class="verse">Whispering to him? She lay and wondered,</div> -<div class="verse">Doubtful of his mind, that so could mumble,</div> -<div class="verse">Endlessly, at nothing, maybe nothing.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">But it was never nothing. Aphrodite,</div> -<div class="verse">Going between Hephaestus’ bed and his,</div> -<div class="verse">Was a changed goddess, bearing every charm</div> -<div class="verse">Of beauty she possessed, that he once more</div> -<div class="verse">Might madden. Dora came there too, he thought,</div> -<div class="verse">And wept in her first figure, the demure one,</div> -<div class="verse">The thin and still one, that was his again—</div> -<div class="verse">“It is, it is!” the whisper at his side</div> -<div class="verse">Said tirelessly, “whenever you will reach</div> -<div class="verse">And take it. Be the lover you were then,</div> -<div class="verse">And take it, take it, take it. Go and be</div> -<div class="verse">Her lover; speak the truth as winter once,</div> -<div class="verse">As warmness, spoke it for you. Is it late?</div> -<div class="verse">Is there a foolish thing that now deforms her?</div> -<div class="verse">And for that thing a father? Is it published</div> -<div class="verse">That he is the thing’s foolish, foolish father?</div> -<div class="verse">Have none of it. Forget these moments since,</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span> -<div class="verse">And take her. She is yours—see how she weeps</div> -<div class="verse">And wishes she had Daniel’s hands forever—</div> -<div class="verse">Forever it could be, if you were bold</div> -<div class="verse">And shouted without shame the burning truth—</div> -<div class="verse">Forever, Daniel, ever down her small</div> -<div class="verse">Smooth sides; or where her breasts, that breathed for you,</div> -<div class="verse">Might breathe again.”</div> -<div class="indent10">He moaned and turned away,</div> -<div class="verse">Tormented. And sometimes the whisper died,</div> -<div class="verse">So that he looked again. It was an artful</div> -<div class="verse">Death, increasing torment, for the two</div> -<div class="verse">Shone there as always. They were never gone,</div> -<div class="verse">Those two, while August lasted; and while summer</div> -<div class="verse">Saddened on the stalk.</div> -<div class="indent10">For rust had bent</div> -<div class="verse">The hayheads while he dreamed, and far to north</div> -<div class="verse">The feet of fall were coming. Daniel rose</div> -<div class="verse">Each day a wearier man, yet not apostate</div> -<div class="verse">Ever to his black anvil, where with the smith</div> -<div class="verse">He lost himself in lessons hot and cold.</div> -<div class="verse">And still the woman came to call him in.</div> -<div class="verse">And still he could refuse her.</div> -<div class="indent14">So September,</div> -<div class="verse">With speckles on its back, slid like a serpent</div> -<div class="verse">Over the cool slopes; and lucky houses,</div> -<div class="verse">Filled with a winter’s wood, sat where they were,</div> -<div class="verse">Complacent; while upon the homeless highways</div> -<div class="verse">Wanderers appeared.</div> -<div class="indent10">So Dora’s time</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span> -<div class="verse">Came slowly, slowly on, with few to know</div> -<div class="verse">Or care when it should come; except Darius,</div> -<div class="verse">Who prowled each afternoon to Bruce’s house,</div> -<div class="verse">Consoling himself there for being lonely;</div> -<div class="verse">Except the little roundhead and his anxious</div> -<div class="verse">Wife; except those strangers up the mountain;</div> -<div class="verse">And Bruce himself, awaiting it with Dora.</div> -</div></div></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak">VIII</h2> -</div> - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">It came, the time of Dora, when no man,</div> -<div class="verse">No man of all her three, was home for messenger.</div> -<div class="verse">Darius snored in his own house—a ball</div> -<div class="verse">Of skin beneath the bedclothes—and the night</div> -<div class="verse">Was early yet for Bruce, who with his father</div> -<div class="verse">Tramped the low road from Brownlee’s where they worked,</div> -<div class="verse">And working, thought of Dora—all day long</div> -<div class="verse">Of Dora’s time, next week or the week after.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">But it was now, and none of all the three men</div> -<div class="verse">Home to be her messenger! The doctor—</div> -<div class="verse">How could he be told the time had come</div> -<div class="verse">For pain, for crying out? Then Bruce’s mother,</div> -<div class="verse">Moaning, was so helpless at the door,</div> -<div class="verse">Calling, calling, calling: “Bruce, where are you?</div> -<div class="verse">Go and get the doctor! Hurry, boy!”</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span> -<div class="verse">But Bruce was on the low road, and the only</div> -<div class="verse">Ears that heard were scattered up the sky.</div> -<div class="verse">Artemis, on top of Silver Mountain,</div> -<div class="verse">Heard; and woke Athene; and the others,</div> -<div class="verse">Knowing it was time, went with them both</div> -<div class="verse">Like falling stars—all of them, like stars,</div> -<div class="verse">To drop and stand in darkness by the door</div> -<div class="verse">While Bruce’s mother, moaning, called and called:</div> -<div class="verse">“Where are you, boy? Hurry! Get the doctor!”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">And still another heard. But Aphrodite,</div> -<div class="verse">Listening while Daniel sat, could smile</div> -<div class="verse">And wait; could think and wait. It was the time</div> -<div class="verse">For punishing this man who in his dreams</div> -<div class="verse">Refused her. She could wait and let it work—</div> -<div class="verse">The punishment she planned.</div> -<div class="indent14">For she had looked</div> -<div class="verse">Last night along the valley, and seen coming,</div> -<div class="verse">Hapless on the highway, two small wanderers,</div> -<div class="verse">And said: They shall be mine.</div> -<div class="indent15">She heard the moaning</div> -<div class="verse">Cease, and knew that Artemis was there.</div> -<div class="verse">The nurse was there, and Dora would be crying</div> -<div class="verse">Softly: “Save me, save me! Send for him!”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">So Aphrodite, gathering her sly strength,</div> -<div class="verse">Waited no longer.</div> -<div class="indent7">Where were those poor wanderers—</div> -<div class="verse">That pair? But she had seen them, and she knew.</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span> -<div class="verse">She saw them even now at the abandoned</div> -<div class="verse">Chapel down the old road, trying doors</div> -<div class="verse">And windows, and forlornly turning in</div> -<div class="verse">Where nothing was but darkness; and in darkness,</div> -<div class="verse">Nothing but cobwebs.</div> -<div class="indent10">Smiling a last smile,</div> -<div class="verse">Vindictive, at the sitter, she uprose</div> -<div class="verse">And scented the whole night, the outer night</div> -<div class="verse">Of fields and barns and houses, as she flew</div> -<div class="verse">And flew, tinting earth with a false dawn</div> -<div class="verse">As in her brilliant singleness she flew</div> -<div class="verse">And flew to be the first where Hermes came.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">For even now the tall nurse—goddess again</div> -<div class="verse">In the dooryard where they clustered—told her peers:</div> -<div class="verse">“The time! It is the time! Go, two of you—</div> -<div class="verse">Hermes, shall it be? With Gabriel?—</div> -<div class="verse">And bring him here, the man of herbs she cries for.</div> -<div class="verse">I could do all alone, for I am skilful,</div> -<div class="verse">I am the green deliveress. Yet go—</div> -<div class="verse">Gabriel, with Hermes—while I soothe</div> -<div class="verse">And ready her. The horses that he drives—</div> -<div class="verse">You hear them now, drawing the tired one home.</div> -<div class="verse">But have no pity. Hurry and intercept him.</div> -<div class="verse">Say it is the nurse—say anything—</div> -<div class="verse">But bring him here, the mortal man of herbs,</div> -<div class="verse">Between you lest she die.”</div> -<div class="indent13">The feet of Hermes</div> -<div class="verse">Glistened as the staff in his right hand</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span> -<div class="verse">Touched Gabriel on the nearer wing; then lightly</div> -<div class="verse">Touched him again. And so the pair departed.</div> -<div class="verse">Before the goddess turned they were a rustle</div> -<div class="verse">In the far woods; and Artemis went in</div> -<div class="verse">Where Dora lay.</div> -<div class="indent7">“The doctor—he is sent for.</div> -<div class="verse">Child! What are you staring at?” For Dora</div> -<div class="verse">Shuddered, and alternately her eyes</div> -<div class="verse">Opened and closed in terror, as at brightness</div> -<div class="verse">Impossible, brought near. But then she smiled.</div> -<div class="verse">“It was my own mistake—the way I am.</div> -<div class="verse">You were so different. You shone in the door</div> -<div class="verse">Like candles, you were like a statue lady—</div> -<div class="verse">Different from us. I didn’t know you.</div> -<div class="verse">Now I do, though.”</div> -<div class="indent9">She permitted hands</div> -<div class="verse">To smooth, to cool her as she lay in fever,</div> -<div class="verse">And as the pain returned; while Artemis</div> -<div class="verse">Looked gravely, out of eyes she kept in shadow,</div> -<div class="verse">At the small face whereon the truth had fallen;</div> -<div class="verse">Looked, and wondered fearfully. Had Hermes,</div> -<div class="verse">Had Gabriel heard the horses? Found the man?</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">But Aphrodite was there first—an ancient</div> -<div class="verse">Gypsy, rising out of the dim road</div> -<div class="verse">And shrilling between wheels:</div> -<div class="indent15">“Doctor, Doctor!</div> -<div class="verse">Come to the dead church—the one they don’t</div> -<div class="verse">Sing songs in any more. A poverty fellow</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span> -<div class="verse">And his sick queen—not my people, but I pity,</div> -<div class="verse">Pity them—they lie in the carriage shed.</div> -<div class="verse">Or she does, the queen. In all the world</div> -<div class="verse">No friend, and both afraid. They have walked miles</div> -<div class="verse">From nowhere, and no house would take them in.</div> -<div class="verse">She whimpers with the young thing in her belly,</div> -<div class="verse">The babe she has to bear. Come with me, Doctor,</div> -<div class="verse">And help her. Be the one man in the world</div> -<div class="verse">To help her.”</div> -<div class="indent6">“Who are you?” His glasses peered</div> -<div class="verse">Through the poor light the buggy lamp cast down.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“Romany.”</div> -<div class="indent5">“And what’s this? You mean the church—”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“The old one.”</div> -<div class="indent6">“Even mice won’t go near that.</div> -<div class="verse">Mischief—you mean mischief. Out of the way,</div> -<div class="verse">Granny!”</div> -<div class="indent5">But she seized the reins and said:</div> -<div class="verse">“Good doctor! Be the one man in the world—”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">And why it was he knew not, but he went</div> -<div class="verse">Where she did, down the sod road toward that moldy</div> -<div class="verse">Building where no hymnsong had been heard</div> -<div class="verse">Since war days, and where beggars—did she lie?—</div> -<div class="verse">Might be or not be.</div> -<div class="indent9">So when Hermes came,</div> -<div class="verse">And Gabriel, there was silence on the highway—</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span> -<div class="verse">Soft as they listened, never the good sound</div> -<div class="verse">Of hooves, of whirring felloes.</div> -<div class="indent15">Long they looked</div> -<div class="verse">And listened; then were back in Bruce’s dooryard,</div> -<div class="verse">Signalling their presence; so that Artemis,</div> -<div class="verse">Stooping at the window, saw them desolate,</div> -<div class="verse">And knew herself defeated.</div> -<div class="indent13">“Aphrodite!”</div> -<div class="verse">She only thought the word, but Dora stared</div> -<div class="verse">And begged of her: “Has someone—has he come?</div> -<div class="verse">The doctor? Bruce? Where’s Bruce?”</div> -<div class="indent18">“Be patient, dear.</div> -<div class="verse">In time, in time. The doctor was not found.</div> -<div class="verse">But there is time, and I myself have medicines—</div> -<div class="verse">You trust me?”</div> -<div class="indent6">Dora nodded.</div> -<div class="indent14">“Then I’ll go, child,</div> -<div class="verse">For certain things—for such help as I need.</div> -<div class="verse">Be patient a few minutes. She is here.”</div> -<div class="verse">For Bruce’s mother, torturing her hands</div> -<div class="verse">As if they were another’s on the rack,</div> -<div class="verse">Stood by them, bent and weeping.</div> -<div class="indent17">All were there</div> -<div class="verse">When Artemis, the doorlight shut behind her,</div> -<div class="verse">Shouted. Even Aphrodite smiled</div> -<div class="verse">And innocently listened, fair as ever</div> -<div class="verse">In the fine light that clothed her—no more gypsy,</div> -<div class="verse">And no more theater woman. Even Ares—</div> -<div class="verse">All of them were there, with lame Hephaestus</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span> -<div class="verse">Filling his low place among the pear trees,</div> -<div class="verse">When the green goddess called.</div> -<div class="indent16">“Her breath is going.</div> -<div class="verse">Enemy of all”—to Aphrodite—</div> -<div class="verse">“I shall waste none on you. I only say,</div> -<div class="verse">The girl inside is going. Which of you</div> -<div class="verse">Can help me, and help her? The middle angel—</div> -<div class="verse">Second of you three—immense of wing—</div> -<div class="verse">Raphael—have you knowledge?”</div> -<div class="indent16">There was mournful</div> -<div class="verse">Music in the answer.</div> -<div class="indent10">“I have mended,</div> -<div class="verse">Green one, all the wounds made here on earth—</div> -<div class="verse">Or there—by deed of angels. In the old days</div> -<div class="verse">They fell—not such as we are—and their fall,</div> -<div class="verse">As of dark stars that burned, corrupted the sons,</div> -<div class="verse">The daughters of frail man. If this is such—”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“It is. Come in with me, shrunk to the likeness</div> -<div class="verse">Of a lean passing farmer. I have herbs</div> -<div class="verse">And needles. You have strength, and a strange art.</div> -<div class="verse">Between us—but come quickly!”</div> -<div class="indent16">And Darius</div> -<div class="verse">Snored in his own house. And Daniel sat</div> -<div class="verse">Late by a brass lamp, reading.</div> -<div class="indent15">And the doctor,</div> -<div class="verse">Bending to ask the name of the new mother,</div> -<div class="verse">Heard “Mary.”</div> -<div class="indent7">By the half light of a low</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span> -<div class="verse">Fire she lay on straw and let her weak hand</div> -<div class="verse">Wander.</div> -<div class="indent4">“But my husband—he is Joe.</div> -<div class="verse">There was no work for him. So we went on.</div> -<div class="verse">Thank you, Doctor.”</div> -<div class="indent10">“Quiet. No more talking.”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">And Bruce’s father, panting on the low road,</div> -<div class="verse">Wondered why his son would never rest.</div> -</div></div></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak">IX</h2> -</div> - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">The risen sun, sparkling upon their bridles,</div> -<div class="verse">Hastened the roan horses; and brought Bruce—</div> -<div class="verse">Brought even the stiff doctor—beams of hope,</div> -<div class="verse">Of something like belief; though Bruce remembered,</div> -<div class="verse">And groaned as he remembered, how the nurse,</div> -<div class="verse">Weeping, had looked afraid when he came home;</div> -<div class="verse">How she and the dark man she had for helper,</div> -<div class="verse">Bending above the sufferer, grew sad,</div> -<div class="verse">Grew guilty as he came, hearing with him</div> -<div class="verse">His little mother’s whimpers, and the cry—</div> -<div class="verse">Sudden, as if death were in the room—</div> -<div class="verse">Of Dora when she saw him. And his father’s</div> -<div class="verse">Feebleness—now he remembered that,</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span> -<div class="verse">And groaned.</div> -<div class="indent6">“But couldn’t the nurse—for she was there—</div> -<div class="verse">Wouldn’t the nurse have known?”</div> -<div class="indent16">“I tell you, boy,</div> -<div class="verse">I have no nurse. Something is stranger here—</div> -<div class="verse">Giddup!—than God is ever going to tell me.</div> -<div class="verse">Nurse? There was no such.”</div> -<div class="indent14">And the horses galloped,</div> -<div class="verse">Jingling their bright bridles, till the dooryard</div> -<div class="verse">Darkened them, and Bruce’s mother stumbled,</div> -<div class="verse">Her apron at her face, among the plum trees.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“I am alone,” she cried, “except for him—”</div> -<div class="verse">She pointed where her husband, on a stone</div> -<div class="verse">As grey as he was, sat and held his forehead—</div> -<div class="verse">“We are alone now, my boy. Too late,</div> -<div class="verse">Doctor. Even the nurse is gone. The child,</div> -<div class="verse">The dear child, is dead. They both are dead—</div> -<div class="verse">Dora, and the other one that never,</div> -<div class="verse">Never, never breathed.”</div> -<div class="indent12">She clutched at Bruce,</div> -<div class="verse">Feeling the doctor brush them as he passed,</div> -<div class="verse">Then feeling not at all. She only nodded,</div> -<div class="verse">Nodded, as her son repeated: “Dead—</div> -<div class="verse">Dora, she is dead.” And bore her in,</div> -<div class="verse">A limp superfluous bundle.</div> -<div class="indent13">“Oh, my boy!”—</div> -<div class="verse">Perceptibly her white lips lived again—</div> -<div class="verse">“Beautiful! One thing about her going,</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span> -<div class="verse">Oh, my boy, was beautiful. She saw—</div> -<div class="verse">Or thought she saw—ten angels in the room.</div> -<div class="verse">She counted them. But only three had wings.</div> -<div class="verse">She counted the big wings. And said the nurse</div> -<div class="verse">Was queen above all others.”</div> -<div class="indent14">“Nurse? What nurse?”</div> -<div class="verse">The doctor in the doorway shook his head,</div> -<div class="verse">Frowning, as if to free it from the cobweb</div> -<div class="verse">Sound of that false word. “There was no such—”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">But the small mother never would believe—</div> -<div class="verse">He knew it—and Bruce never would believe.</div> -<div class="verse">Who had this tall impostor woman been?</div> -<div class="verse">And why? And who the other one? Bruce had said:</div> -<div class="verse">“A teacher, too—her friend.” There was no such—</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">The doctor shook his head. Shame on those bunglers—</div> -<div class="verse">Butcherers of girls—who with their knotted</div> -<div class="verse">Grass roots and their needles—natural thorns—</div> -<div class="verse">Had poisoned the sweet blood, the delicate place.</div> -<div class="verse">Where were they, vagrants, now? Could any law</div> -<div class="verse">Catch up with their coarse hands, and cleanse the world</div> -<div class="verse">Of meddlers on the march? For they were somewhere</div> -<div class="verse">Still, the doctor knew; and looked at Bruce</div> -<div class="verse">Bent dumbly over Dora. In good time</div> -<div class="verse">The boy would feel. He was so quiet now—</div> -<div class="verse">An animal, playing dead.</div> -<div class="indent12">Then Daniel stood there—</div> -<div class="verse">Daniel, with Darius at his heels:</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span> -<div class="verse">An old hound whom giant grief had gentled.</div> -<div class="verse">Yet he could move, and did, to where no daughter</div> -<div class="verse">Welcomed his hard hand; which nevertheless</div> -<div class="verse">Hovered and touched her—touched her, so that tears</div> -<div class="verse">Followed, and streamed his face.</div> -<div class="indent16">“I brought him here,”</div> -<div class="verse">Said Daniel. “I was told of it by one—</div> -<div class="verse">By two—but they are gone. They do not matter.</div> -<div class="verse">Both of them are gone. They said they knew—</div> -<div class="verse">My lodgers—then they went. But that’s no matter.</div> -<div class="verse">I told her father, and he came with me.</div> -<div class="verse">Look at him now. And her. We are not enemies.</div> -<div class="verse">Who is my enemy?”</div> -<div class="indent10">“I was,” said Bruce.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“You were. And I was Dora’s. What I did—”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“You did. But never tell it. As my friend</div> -<div class="verse">In sorrow, never say it. There are ears—”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">He went to where his mother, staring up,</div> -<div class="verse">Saw none but that dear face.</div> -<div class="indent14">Then Daniel’s stillness</div> -<div class="verse">Reigned in the room.</div> -<div class="indent10">Even the doctor, going,</div> -<div class="verse">Went as a thought does, thinly; but his mind</div> -<div class="verse">Was more with Mary and her living child,</div> -<div class="verse">In the lost church, than here.</div> -<div class="indent15">A living child.</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span> -<div class="verse">He must go back to that small son; must listen</div> -<div class="verse">To the soft mother’s voice. Why had he stopped her?</div> -<div class="verse">“Quiet. No more talking.” Was even then</div> -<div class="verse">This mystery in his head, this hazy mirror</div> -<div class="verse">Of a much older birth? Who was it? When?</div> -<div class="verse">What torment not to remember. Just like this,</div> -<div class="verse">Yet where? He drove and thought; and was the image</div> -<div class="verse">Of a whole people, impotent to see now</div> -<div class="verse">The one god it had.</div> -<div class="indent9">So three old friends,</div> -<div class="verse">By death remade, stood looking down at Dora.</div> -</div></div></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak">X</h2> -</div> - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Already, in this moment before silver</div> -<div class="verse">Morning, ten were on their way to sea.</div> -<div class="verse">Already, over mountains and rock rivers—</div> -<div class="verse">Tawny with high autumn, yet no sun</div> -<div class="verse">Uprisen had revealed it—Hermes sped</div> -<div class="verse">And spoke not. At the center of his band,</div> -<div class="verse">Encircled, he was thoughtful as he flew</div> -<div class="verse">And flew to where a smoking funnel waited,</div> -<div class="verse">By a smooth prow whereon the ten would ride,</div> -<div class="verse">Would ride the waste Atlantic.</div> -<div class="indent15">“They were small,</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span> -<div class="verse">These people, they were pitiful and small,”</div> -<div class="verse">Said Hermes, half aloud. “Yet not unworthy,</div> -<div class="verse">Nobles, of our regard.”</div> -<div class="indent11">“They did not guess,”</div> -<div class="verse">Said Artemis, “how small.”</div> -<div class="indent13">“They could not measure,”</div> -<div class="verse">Flashed the grey eyes of swift Athene, flying,</div> -<div class="verse">“Difference. They were lonely. They had nothing</div> -<div class="verse">Past them to compare. They do not move,</div> -<div class="verse">These persons, among greater persons still.</div> -<div class="verse">The knowledge of the difference is all.</div> -<div class="verse">Mortals with art to measure it are never</div> -<div class="verse">Pitiful.”</div> -<div class="indent5">“I thought,” mused Aphrodite,</div> -<div class="verse">Beautiful by night as her own star,</div> -<div class="verse">Her morning’s mirror, up now in the east,</div> -<div class="verse">“I thought I met a presence in that musty</div> -<div class="verse">Stable. Felt a power. Yet all so quiet—</div> -<div class="verse">Not even the black beetles crept away.</div> -<div class="verse">Queer, if it was a god—their only god,</div> -<div class="verse">And none of the fools knew.”</div> -<div class="indent14">“It was your own</div> -<div class="verse">Mind’s darkness,” Ares muttered; and Hephaestus</div> -<div class="verse">Laughed—at Aphrodite he could laugh,</div> -<div class="verse">Now that his limbs were free.</div> -<div class="indent15">“Was there a song?</div> -<div class="verse">Even a musty music? Where a god is,</div> -<div class="verse">Surely the air will sound.” Apollo hummed,</div> -<div class="verse">Remembering the barn dance and the moon.</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span> -<div class="verse">“Did you hear anything to prove a presence?”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Artemis, her green robe gilded suddenly</div> -<div class="verse">By the first beams of sun, was angry still.</div> -<div class="verse">“She heard but her own hatefulness, that plotted</div> -<div class="verse">Death.”</div> -<div class="indent4">“I left the living in your hands—</div> -<div class="verse">Yours, and the mighty angel’s. If you erred,</div> -<div class="verse">Darling of fawns and virgins, I regret,</div> -<div class="verse">As you must, any faltering of skill.”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">“Regret!” The speed of Artemis redoubled</div> -<div class="verse">As fury filled her. “Lying, laughing word!</div> -<div class="verse">You poison the whole dawn with it, as then</div> -<div class="verse">You poisoned—for I know you did—the thorns,</div> -<div class="verse">The rare leaves I used.”</div> -<div class="indent12">But Hermes cried:</div> -<div class="verse">“Peace, peace between you, daughters! What is done</div> -<div class="verse">Is done. There the ship rides that we take—</div> -<div class="verse">As one we take it, homing to those lands</div> -<div class="verse">Where sleep is our best portion. Only sleep.”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">He sighed, and the archangels echoed him:</div> -<div class="verse">Those three whose sire, unknown to them last night,</div> -<div class="verse">Had dreamed again—a star above a stable.</div> -<div class="verse">“Not even sleep,” said Michael. “No, not even</div> -<div class="verse">Sleep,” droned weary Gabriel. But Raphael’s</div> -<div class="verse">Sadness was for Artemis to see,</div> -<div class="verse">And seeing, to have pity on, that no word</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span> -<div class="verse">Henceforth could express.</div> -<div class="indent13">For now the ship</div> -<div class="verse">Whistled, and the spires above the harbor</div> -<div class="verse">Glistened, and the hawsers, letting go,</div> -<div class="verse">Dangled in salt.</div> -<div class="indent7">So easterly they sailed,</div> -<div class="verse">And sailed; then south a little. And the crew</div> -<div class="verse">Thought only of the Pillars, of the inland</div> -<div class="verse">Sea where waves were smaller. But these ten,</div> -<div class="verse">Prone on the prow, disdained the autumn danger</div> -<div class="verse">Of storm, of the dark swell. Their daily vision—</div> -<div class="verse">Common to them all, since reconciled—</div> -<div class="verse">Was the long night ahead; or over Asia,</div> -<div class="verse">Centuries upon centuries of flying,</div> -<div class="verse">Flying where no desert, green with the Word,</div> -<div class="verse">Blossomed and blessed them.</div> -<div class="indent14">Now as in a dream</div> -<div class="verse">Never to be redreamed the hills behind them,</div> -<div class="verse">Huddling that valley, muffled its fine cries</div> -<div class="verse">Of people trapped in sorrow. Even its glad souls,</div> -<div class="verse">Silenced, were obscure as drops of dew</div> -<div class="verse">Hung in the wild Antipodes. No mortal</div> -<div class="verse">Summer would be given these again:</div> -<div class="verse">These deities, these angels, who as the dark sea</div> -<div class="verse">Heaved went on themselves as waves do,</div> -<div class="verse">Wearily, yet smiling as in a dream.</div> -</div></div></div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">C O L O<img src="images/i_064.jpg" alt="" />P H O N</h2> -</div> - - -<p class="center">This book has been designed and printed by Carroll Coleman<br /> -at The Prairie Press in Iowa City, Iowa. 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