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DRAMAS IN MINIATURE.

THE RUSSIAN STUDENT’S TALE.

• THE midnight sun with phantom glare
• Shone on the soundless thoroughfare
• Whose shuttered houses, closed and still,
• Seemed bodies without heart or will;
• Yea, all the stony city lay
• Impassive in that phantom day,
• As amid livid wastes of sand
• The sphinxes of the desert stand.

* * * * *

• And we, we two, turned night to day,
• As, whistling many a student’s lay,
• We sped along each ghostly street,
• With girls whose lightly tripping feet
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• Well matched our longer, stronger stride,
• In hurrying to the water‐side.
• We took a boat; each seized an oar,
• Until on either hand the shore
• Slipped backwards, as our voices woke
• Far echoes, mingling like a dream
• With swirl and tumult of the stream.
• On—on—away, beneath the ray
• Of midnight in the mask of day;
• By great wharves where the masts at peace
• Look like the ocean’s barren trees;
• Past palaces and glimmering towers,
• And gardens fairy‐like with flowers,
• And parks of twilight green and closes,
• The very Paradise of roses.
• The waters flow; on, on we row,
• Now laughing loud, now whispering low;
• And through the splendour of the white
• Electrically glowing night,
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• Wind‐wafted from some perfumed dell,
• Tumultuously there loudly rose
• Above the Neva’s surge and swell,
• With amorous ecstasies and throes,
• And lyric spasms of wildest wail,
• The love‐song of a nightingale.

* * * * *

• I see her still beside me. Yea,
• As if it were but yesterday,
• I see her—see her as she smiled;
• Her face that of a little child
• For innocent sweetness undefiled;
• And that pathetic flower‐like blue
• Of eyes which, as they look at you,
• Seemed yet to stab your bosom through.
• I rowed, she steered; oars dipped and flashed,
• The broadening river roared and splashed,
• So that we hardly seemed to hear
• Our comrades’ voices, though so near;
• Their faces seeming far away,
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• As still beneath that phantom day
• I looked at her, she smiled at me!
• And then we landed—I and she.

* * * * *

• There’s an old Café in the wood;
• A students’ haunt on summer eves,
• Round which responsive poplar leaves
• Quiver to each æolian mood
• Like some wild harp a poet smites
• On visionary summer nights.
• I ordered supper, took a room
• Green‐curtained by the tremulous gloom
• Of those fraternal poplar trees
• Shaking together in the breeze;
• My pulse, too, like a poplar tree,
• Shook wildly as she smiled at me.
• Eye in eye, and hand in hand,
• Awake amid the slumberous land,
• I told her all my love that night—
• How I had loved her at first sight;
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• How I was hers, and seemed to be
• Her own to all eternity.
• And through the splendour of the white
• Electrically glowing night,
• Wind‐wafted from some perfumed dell,
• Tumultuously there loudly rose
• Above the Neva’s surge and swell
• With amorous ecstasies and throes,
• And lyric spasms of wildest wail,
• The love‐song of the nightingale.

* * * * *

• I see her still beside me. Yea,
• As if it were but yesterday,
• I hear her tell with cheek aflame
• Her ineradicable shame—
• So sweet flower in such vile hands!
• Oh, loved and lost beyond recall!
• Like one who hardly understands,
• I heard the story of her fall.
• The odious barter of her youth,
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• Of beauty, innocence and truth,
• Of all that honest women hold
• Most sacred—for the sake of gold.
• A weary seamstress seampstress , half a child,
• Left unprotected in the street,
• Where, when so hungry, you would meet
• All sorts of tempters that beguiled.
• Oh, infamous and senseless clods,
• Basely to taint so pure a heart,
• And make a maid fit for the gods
• A creature of the common mart!
• She spoke quite simply of things vile—
• Of devils with an angel’s face;
• It seemed the sunshine of her smile
• Must purify the foulest place.
• She told me all—she would be true—
• Told me things too sad, too bad;
• And, looking in her eyes’ clear blue
• My passion nearly drove me mad!
• I tried to speak, but tried in vain;
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• A sob rose to my throat as dry
• As ashes—for between us twain
• A murdered virgin seemed to lie.
• And through the splendour of the white
• Electrically glowing night.
• Wind‐wafted from some perfumed dell,
• Tumultuously there loudly rose
• Above the Neva’s surge and swell,
• With amorous ecstasies and throes,
• And lyric spasms of wildest wail,
• The love‐song of a nightingale.

* * * * *

• Poor craven creature! What was I,
• To sit in judgment on her life,
• Who dared not make this child my wife,
• And life her up to love’s own sky?
• This poor lost child we all—yes, all—
• Had helped to hurry to her fall,
• Making a social leper of
• God’s creature consecrate to love.
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• I looked at her—she smiled no more;
• She understood it all before
• A syllable had passed my lips;
• And like a horrible eclipse,
• Which blots the sunlight from the skies,
• A blankness overspread her eyes—
• The blankness as of one who dies.
• I knew how much she loved me—knew
• How pure and passionately true
• Her love for me, which made her tell
• What scorched her like the flames of hell.
• And I, I loved her too, so much,
• So dearly, that I dared not touch
• Her lips that had been kissed in sin;
• But with a reverential thrill
• I took her work‐worn hand and thin,
• And kissed her fingers, showing still
• Where needle‐pricks had marred the skin.
• And, ere I knew, a hot tear fell,
• Scalding the place which I had kissed,
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• As between clenching teeth I hissed
• Our irretrievable farewell.
• And through the smouldering glow of night,
• Mixed with the shining morning light
• Wind‐wafted from some perfumed dell,
• Above the Neva’s surge and swell,
• With lyric spasms, as from a throat
• Which dying breathes a faltering note,
• There faded o’er the silent vale
• The last sob of a nightingale.

THE MYSTIC’S VISION.

I.

• AH! I shall kill myself with dreams!
• These dreams that softly lap me round
• Through trance‐like hours, in which, meseems,
• That I am swallowed up and drowned;
• Drowned in your love which flows o’er me
• As o’er the seaweed flows the sea.

II.

• In watches of the middle night,
• ’Twixt vesper and ’twixt matin bell,
• With rigid arms and straining sight,
• I wait within my narrow cell;
• With muttered prayers, suspended will,
• I wait your advent—statue‐still.

III.

• Across the Convent garden walls
• The wind blows from the silver seas;
• Black shadow of the cypress falls
• Between the moon‐meshed olive trees;
• Sleep‐walking from their golden bowers,
• Flit disembodied orange flowers.

IV.

• And in God’s consecrated house,
• All motionless from head to feet,
• My heart awaits her heavenly Spouse,
• As white I lie on my white sheet;
• With body lulled and soul awake,
• I watch in anguish for your sake.

V.

• And suddenly, across the gloom,
• The naked moonlight sharply swings;
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• A Presence stirs within the room,
• A breath of flowers and hovering wings:
• Your Presence without form and void,
• Beyond all earthly joys enjoyed.

VI.

• My heart is hushed, my tongue is mute,
• My life is centred in your will;
• You play upon me like a lute
• Which answers to its master’s skill,
• Till passionately vibrating,
• Each nerve becomes a throbbing string.

VII.

• Oh, incommunicably sweet!
• No longer aching and apart,
• As rain upon the tender wheat,
• You pour upon my thirsty heart;
• As scent is bound up in the rose,
• Your love within my bosom glows.

VIII.

• Unseen, untouched, unheard, unknown,
• You take possession of your bride;
• I lose myself to live alone
• In you, who once were crucified
• For me, that now would die in you,
• As in the sun a drop of dew.

IX.

• Fish may not perish in the deep,
• Nor sparrow fall though yielding air,
• Pure gold in hottest flame will keep;
• How should I fail and falter where
• You are, O Lord, in whose control
• For ever lies my living soul?

X.

• Ay, break through every wall of sense,
• And pierce my flesh as nails did pierce
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• Your bleeding limbs in anguish tense,
• And torture me with bliss so fierce,
• That self dies out, as die it must,
• Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

XI.

• Thus let me die, so loved and lost,
• Annihilated in my dreams!
• Nor force me, an unwilling ghost,
• To face the loud day’s brutal beams;
• The noisy world’s inanities,
• All vanities of vanities.

THE MESSAGE.

• FROM side to side the sufferer tossed
• With quick impatient sighs;
• Her face was bitten as by frost,
• The look as of one hunted crossed
• The fever of her eyes.

• All seared she seemed with life and woe,
• Yet scarcely could have told
• More than a score of springs or so;
• Her hair had girlhood’s morning glow,
• And yet her mouth looked old.

• Not long for her the sun would rise,
• Nor that young slip of moon,
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• Wading through London’s smoky skies,
• Would dwindling meet those dwindling eyes,
• Ere May was merged in June.

• May was it somewhere? Who, alas!
• Could fancy it was May?
• For here, instead of meadow grass,
• You saw, through naked panes of glass,
• Bare walls of whitish gray.

• Instead of songs, where in the quick
• Leaves hide the blackbirds’ nests,
• You heard the moaning of the sick,
• And tortured breathings harsh and thick
• Drawn from their labouring chests.

• She muttered, “What’s the odds to me?”
• With an old cynic’s sneer;
• And looking up, cried mockingly,
• “I hate you, nurse! Why, can’t you see
• You’ll make no convert here?”
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• And then she shook her fist at Heaven,
• And broke into a laugh!
• Yes, though her sins were seven times seven,
• Let others pray to be forgiven—
• She scorned such canting chaff.

• Oh, it was dreadful, sir! Far worse
• In one so young and fair;
• Sometimes she’d scoff and swear and curse;
• Call me bad names, and vow each nurse
• A fool for being there.

• And then she’d fall back on her bed,
• And many a weary hour
• Would lie as rigid as one dead;
• Her white throat with the golden head
• Like some torn lily flower.

• We could do nothing, one and all
• How much we might beseech;
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• Her girlish blood had turned to gall:
• Far lower than her body’s fall
• Her soul had sunk from reach.

• Her soul had sunk into a slough
• Of evil past repair.
• The world had been against her; now
• Nothing in heaven or earth should bow
• Her stubborn knees in prayer.

• Yet I felt sorry all the same,
• And sometimes, when she slept,
• With head and hands as hot as flame,
• I watched beside her, half in shame,
• Smoothed her bright hair and wept.

• To die like this—’twas awful, sir!
• To know I prayed in vain;
• And hear her mock me, and aver
• That if her life came back to her
• She’d live her life again.

• Was she a wicked girl? What then?
• She didn’t care a pin!
• She was not worse than all those men
• Who looked so shocked in public, when
• They made and shared her sin.

• “Shut up, nurse, do! Your sermons pall;
• Why can’t you let me be?
• Instead of worrying o’er my fall,
• I wish, just wish, you sisters all
• Turned to the likes of me.”

• I shuddered! I could bear no more,
• And left her to her fate;
• She was too cankered at the core;
• Her heart was like a bolted door,
• Where Love had knocked too late.

• I left her in her savage spleen,
• And hoarsely heard her shout,
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• “What does the cursed sunlight mean
• By shining in upon this scene?
• Oh, shut the sunlight out!”

• Sighing, I went my round once more,
• Full heavy for her sin;
• Just as Big Ben was striking four,
• The sun streamed through the open door,
• As a young girl came in.

• She held a basket full of flowers—
• Cowslip and columbine;
• A lilac bunch from rustic bowers,
• Strong‐scented after morning showers,
• Smelt like some cordial wine.

• There, too, peeped Robin‐in‐the‐hedge,
• There daisies pearled with dew,
• Wild parsley from the meadow’s edge,
• Sweet‐william and the purple vetch,
• And hyacinth’s heavenly blue.

• But best of all the spring’s array,
• Green boughs of milk‐white thorn;
• Their petals on each perfumed spray
• Looked like the wedding gift of May
• On nature’s marriage morn.

• And she who bore those gifts of grace
• To our poor patients there,
• Passed like a sunbeam through the place:
• Dull eyes grew brighter for her face,
• Angelically fair.

• She went the round with elf‐like tread,
• And with kind words of cheer,
• Soothing as balm of Gilead,
• Laid wild flowers on each patient’s bed,
• And made the flowers more dear.

• At last she came where Nellie Dean
• Still moaned and tossed about—
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• “What does the cursed sunlight mean
• By shining in upon this scene?
• Will no one shut it out?”

• And then she swore with rage and pain,
• And moaning tried to rise;
• It seemed her ugly words must stain
• The child who stood with heart astrain,
• And large blue listening eyes.

• Her fair face did not blush or bleach,
• She did not shrink away;
• Alas! she was beyond the reach
• Of sweet or bitter human speech—
• Deaf as the flowers of May.

• Only her listening eyes could hear
• That hardening in despair,
• Which made that other girl, so near
• In age to her, a thing to fear
• Like fever‐tainted air.

• She took green boughs of milk‐white thorn
• And laid them on the sheet,
• Whispering appealingly, “Don’t scorn
• My flowers! I think, when one’s forlorn,
• They’re like a message, Sweet.”

• How heavenly fresh those blossoms smelt,
• Like showers on thirsty ground!
• The sick girl frowned as if repelled,
• And with hot hands began to pelt
• And fling them all around.

• But then some influence seemed to stay
• Her hands with calm control;
• Her stormy passion cleared away,
• The perfume of the breath of May
• Had passed into her soul.

• A nerve of memory had been thrilled,
• And, pushing back her hair,
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• She stretched out hungry arms half filled
• With flower and leaf, and panting shrilled,
• “Where are you, mother, where?”

• And then her eyes shone darkly bright
• Through childhood in a mist,
• As if she suddenly caught sight
• Of some one hidden in the light
• And waited to be kissed.

• “Oh, mother dear!” we heard her moan,
• “Have you not gone away?
• I dreamed, dear mother, you had gone,
• And left me in the world alone,
• In the wild world astray.

• “It was a dream; I’m home again!
• I hear the ivy‐leaves
• Tap‐tapping on the leaded pane!
• Oh, listen! how the laughing rain
• Runs from our cottage eaves!

• “How very sweet the things do smell!
• How bright our pewter shines!
• I am at home; I feel so well:
• I think I hear the evening bell
• Above our nodding pines.

• “The firelight glows upon the brick,
• And pales the rising moon;
• And when your needles flash and click,
• My heart, my heart, that felt so sick,
• Throbs like a hive in June.

• “If only father would not stay
• And gossip o’er his brew;
• Then, reeling homewards, lose his way,
• Come staggering in at break of day
• And beat you black and blue!

• “Yet he can be as good as gold,
• When mindful of the farm,
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• He tills the field and tends the fold:
• But never fear; when I’m grown old
• I’ll keep him out of harm.

• “And then we’ll be as happy here
• As kings upon their throne!
• I dreamed you’d left me, mother dear;
• That you lay dead this many a year
• Beneath the churchyard stone.

• “Mother, I sought you far and wide,
• And ever in my dream,
• Just out of reach you seemed to hide;
• I ran along the streets and cried,
• ’Where are you, mother, where?’

• “Through never‐ending streets in fear
• I ran and ran forlorn;
• And through the twilight yellow‐drear
• I saw blurred masks of loafers leer,
• And point at me in scorn.

• “How tired, how deadly tired, I got;
• I ached through all my bones!
• The lamplight grew one quivering blot,
• And like one rooted to the spot,
• I dropped upon the stones.

• “A hard bed make the stones and cold,
• The mist a wet, wet sheet;
• And in the mud, like molten gold,
• The snaky lamplight blinking rolled
• Like guineas at my feet.

• “Surely there were no mothers when
• A voice hissed in my ear,
• ‘A sovereign! Quick! Come on!’—and then
• A knowing leer! There were but men,
• And not a creature near.

• “I went—I could not help it. Oh,
• I didn’t want to die!
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• With now a kiss and now a blow,
• Strange men would come, strange men would go;
• I didn’t care—not I.

• “Sometimes my life was like a tale
• Read in a story‐book;
• Our blazing nights turned daylight pale,
• Champagne would fizz like ginger‐ale,
• Red wine flow like a brook.

• “Then like a vane my dream would veer:
• I walked the street again;
• And through the twilight yellow‐drear
• Blurred clouds of faces seemed to peer,
• And drift across the rain.”

• She started with a piercing scream
• And wildly rolling eye:
• “Ah me! it was no evil dream
• To pass with the first market‐team—
• That thing of shame am I.

• “Where were you that you could not come?
• Were you so far above—
• Far as the moon above a slum?
• Yet, mother, you were all the sum
• I had of human love.

• “Ah yes! you’ve sent this branch of May.
• A fair light from the past.
• The town is dark—I went astray.
• Forgive me, mother! Lead the way;
• I’m going home at last.”

• In eager haste she tried to rise,
• And struggled up in bed,
• With luminous, transfigured eyes,
• As if they glassed the opening skies,
• Fell back, sir, and was dead.

A MOTHER’S DREAM.

I.

• THE snow was falling thick and fast
• On Christmas Eve;
• Across the heath the distant blast
• Wailed wildly like a soul in grief,
• As waste soul or a windy leaf
• Whirled round and round without reprieve,
• And lost at last.

II.

• Lisa woke shivering from her sleep
• At break of day,
• And felt her flesh begin to creep.
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• “My child, my child!” she cried; “now may
• Our blessed Lord, whose hand doth stay
• The wild‐fowl on their trackless way,
• Thee guard and keep.”

III.

• “Dreams! dreams!” she to herself did say,
• And shook with fright.
• “I saw her plainly where I lay
• Fly past me like a flash of light;
• Fly out into the wintry night,
• Out in the snow as snowy white,
• Far, far away.

IV.

• “Her cage hung empty just above
• Your chair, ma mie;
• Empty as is my heart of love
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• Since you, my child, dwell far from me—
• Dwell in the convent over sea;
• All of you left to love Marie,
• Your darling dove.”

V.

• Hark to that fond, familiar coo!
• Oh, joy untold!
• It falls upon her heart like dew.
• There safely perching as of old,
• The dove is calling through the cold
• And ghastly dawn o’er wood and wold,
• “Coo‐whoo! Coo‐whoo!”

VI.

• The snow fell softly, flake by flake,
• This Christmas Day,
• And whitened every bush and brake;
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• And o’er the hills so ashen gray
• The wind was wailing far away,
• Was wailing like a child astray
• Whose heart must break.

VII.

• “I miss my child,” she wailed; “I miss
• Her everywhere!
• That’s why I have such dreams as this.
• I miss her step upon the stair,
• I miss her laughter in the air,
• I miss her bonnie face and hair,
• And oh—her kiss!

VIII.

• “Christmas! Last Christmas, oh how fleet,
• With lark‐like trill,
• She danced about on fairy feet!
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• Her eyes clear as a mountain rill,
• Where the blue sky is lingering still;
• Her rosebud lips the dove would bill
• For something sweet.

IX.

• “My dove! my dear! my undefiled!
• Oh, heavy doom!
• My life has left me with the child.
• She was a sunbeam in my room,
• She was a rainbow on the gloom,
• She was the wild rose on a tomb
• Where weeds run wild.

X.

• “And yet—’tis better thus! ’Tis best,
• They tell me so.
• Yes, though my heart is like a nest,
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• Whence all the little birds did go—
• And empty nest that’s full of snow—
• Let me take all the wail and woe,
• So she be blest.

XI.

• “Let me take all the sin and shame,
• And weep for two,
• That she may bear no breath of blame.
• ’Sin—sin!’ they say; what sin had you,
• Pure as the dawn upon the dew?
• Child—robbed of a child’s rightful due,
• Her father’s name.

XII.

• “I gave her life to live forlorn!
• Oh, let that day
• Be darkness wherein I was born!
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• Let not God light it, let no ray
• Shine on it; let it turn away
• Its face, because my sin must weigh
• Her down with shame.

XIII.

• “I? I? Was I the sinner? I,
• Not he, they say,
• Who told me, looking eye in eye,
• We’d wed far North where grand and gray
• His fair ancestral castle lay,
• Amid the woods of Darnaway—
• And told a lie.

XIV.

• “But I was young; and in my youth
• I simply thought
• That English gentlemen spoke truth,
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• Even to a Norman maid, who wrought
• The blush‐rose shells the tide had brought
• To fairy toys which children bought
• Before my booth.

XV.

• “‘Those fairy fingers,’ he would say,
• ‘With shell‐pink nails,
• Shall shame the pearls of Darnaway!’
• And in his yacht with swelling sails
• We flew before the favouring gales,
• Where leagues on leagues his woods and vales
• Stretched dim and gray.

XVI.

• “Grim rose his castle o’er the wood;
• Its hoary halls
• Frowned o’er the Findhorn’s roaring flood;
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• Where, winged with spray and water‐galls,
• The headlong torrent leaps and falls
• In thunder through its tunnelled walls,
• Streaked as with blood.”

XVII.

• It all came back in one wild flash
• Of cruel light,
• And memory smote her like a lash:—
• The foolish trust, the fond delight,
• The helpless rage, the fevered flight,
• The feet that dragged on through the night,
• The torrent’s splash.

XVIII.

• The long, long sickness bred of lies
• And lost belief;
• The short, sharp pangs and shuddering sighs;
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• The new‐born babe, that in her grief
• Bore her wrecked spirit such relief
• As the dove‐carried olive‐leaf
• To Noah’s eyes.

XIX.

• It all came back, and lit her soul
• With lurid flame;
• How she—she—she—from whom he stole
• Her virgin love and honest name—
• Must, for the ailing child’s sake, tame
• Her pride, and take—oh, shame of shame!—
• His lordship’s dole.

XX.

• Like one whom grief hath driven wild,
• She cried again,
• “My snowdrop shall not be defiled,
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• Nor catch the faintest soil or stain,
• Reared in the shadow of my pain!
• How should a guilty mother train
• A guiltless child?

XXI.

• “You shall be spotless, you!” said she,
• “Whate’er my woe;
• Even as the snow on yonder lea.
• You shall be spotless!” Faint and low,
• The wind in dying seemed to blow,
• To breathe across the hills of snow,
• “Marie! Marie!”

XXII.

• A voice was calling far away,
• O’er fields and fords,
• Across the Channel veiled and gray;
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• A voice was calling without words,
• Touching her nature’s deepest chords;
• Drawing her, drawing her as with cords—
• She might not stay.

XXIII.

• Uprose the sun and still and round,
• Shorn of his heat,
• Glared bloodshot o’er the frosty ground,
• As down the shuttered village street
• Fast, fast walked Lisa, and her feet
• Left black tracks in earth’s winding‐sheet
• And made no sound.

XXIV.

• Then on, on, by the iron way—
• With whistling scream—
• Piercing hard rocks like potter’s clay,
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• She flashed as in a shifting dream
• Through flying town, o’er flowing stream,
• Borne on by mighty wings of steam,
• Away, away.

XXV.

• A sound of wind, and in the air
• The sea‐gull’s screech,
• And waves lap‐lapping everywhere;
• A rush of ropes and volleyed speech,
• And white cliffs sinking out of reach,
• Then rising on the rival beach,
• Boulogne‐sur‐Mer.

XXVI.

• Above the ramparts on the hill,
• Whence like a chart
• It saw the low land spreading chill,
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• Within its cloistered walls apart
• The Convent of the Sacred Heart
• Rose o’er the noise of street and mart,
• Serenely still.

XXVII.

• Above the unquiet sea it rose,
• A quiet nest,
• Severed from earthly wants and woes.
• There might the weary find his rest;
• There might the pilgrim cease his quest;
• There might the soul with guilt oppressed
• Implore repose.

XXVIII.

• The day was done, the sun dropped low
• Behind the mill
• That swung within its blood‐red glow;
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• And up the street and up the hill
• Lisa walked fast and faster still,
• Her sable shadow lengthening chill
• Across the snow.

XXIX.

• Hark! heavenly clear, with holy swell,
• She hears elate
• The greeting of the vesper bell,
• And, knocking at the convent gate,
• Sighs, “Here she prays God early and late;
• Walled in from love, walled in from hate;
• All’s well! All’s well!”

XXX.

• A sweat broke from her every pore,
• And yet she smiled,
• As, stumbling through the clanging door,
• page: 47
• She faced a nun of aspect mild.
• Like some starved wolf’s her eyes gleamed wild:
• “My child!” she gasped; “I want my child.”
• And nothing more.

XXXI.

• The nun looked at her, shocked to see
• The violent sway
• Of love’s unbridled agony;
• And calmly queried on the way,
• “Your child, Madame? What child, I pray?”
• Still, still the mother could but say,
• “Marie! Marie!”

XXXII.

• The nun in silence bowed her head,
• And then aloud,
• “Christ Jesus knows our needs,” she said.
• page: 48
• “Madame, far from the sinful crowd,
• The maiden to the Lord you vowed;
• There is no safeguard like a shroud—
• Your child is dead.

XXXIII.

• “Upon the night Christ saw the light
• She passed away,
• As snow will when the sun shines bright.
• We heard her moaning where she lay,
• ‘Come, mother, come, while yet you may;’
• Then like a dove, at break of day,
• Her soul took flight.”

XXXIV.

• As from a blow the mother fell,
• No moan made she;
• They bore her to the little cell:
• page: 49
• There in her coffin lay Marie,
• Spotless as snow upon the lea,
• Beautiful exceedingly:
• All’s well! All’s well!

A CARNIVAL EPISODE.

NICE, ’87.

I.

• WE two there together alone in the night,
• Where its shadow unconsciously bound us;
• My beautiful lady all shrouded in white,
• She and I looking down from the balcony’s height
• On the maskers below in the flickering light,
• As they revelled and rioted round us.

II.

• Such a rush, such a rage, and a rapture of life
• Such shouts of delight and of laughter,
• page: 51
• On the quays that I watched with the General’s wife;
• Such a merry‐go‐reeling of figures was rife,
• Turning round to the tune of gay fiddle and fife,
• As if never a morning came after.

III.

• The houses had emptied themselves in the streets,
• Where the maskers bombarded each other
• With a shower of confetti and hailstorm of sweets.
• Till the pavements were turning the colour of sheets;
• Where a prince will crack jokes with a pauper he meets,
• For the time like a man and a brother.

IV.

• The Carnival frolic wa now at its height;
• The whole population in motion
• page: 52
• Stood watching the swift constellations of light
• That crackling flashed up on their arrowy flight,
• Then spreading their fairy‐like fires on the night,
• Fell in luminous rain on the ocean.

V.

• And now and again the quick dazzle would flare,
• Glowing red on black masks and white dresses.
• We two there together drew back from the glare;
• Drew in to the room, and her hood unaware
• Fell back from the plaits of her opulent hair,
• That uncoiled the brown snakes of its tresses.

VI.

• How fatally fair was my lady, my queen,
• As that wild light fell round her in flashes;
• How fatally fair with that mutinous mien,
• And those velvety hands all alive with the sheen
• Of her rings, and her eyes that were narrowed between
• Heavy lids darkly laced with long lashes!

VII.

• Almost I hated her beauty! The air
• I was breathing seemed steeped in her presence.
• How maddening that waltz was! Ah, how came I there
• Alone with that woman so fatally fair,
• With the scent of her garments, the smell of her hair,
• Passing in to my blood like an essence?

VIII.

• Her eyes seemed to pluck at the roots of my heart,
• And to put all my blood in a fever;
• My soul was on fire, my veins seemed to start,
• To hold her, to fold her but once to my heart,
• I’d have willingly bared broad chest to the dart,
• And been killed, ay, and damned too for ever.

IX.

• I forgot, I forgot!—oh, disloyal, abhorred,
• With the spell of her eyes on my eyes—
• That her husband, the man of all men I adored,
• Might be fighting for us at the point of the sword;
• Might be killing or killed by an African horde,
• Afar beneath African skies.

X.

• I forgot—nay, I cared not! What cared I to‐night
• For aught but my lady, my love,
• As she toyed with her mask in the flickering light,
• Then suddenly dropped it, perchance, at the sight
• Of my passion now reaching its uttermost height,
• As a tide with the full moon above!

XI.

• Yet I knew, though I loved her so madly, I knew
• She was only just playing her game.
• She would toy with my heart all the Carnival through;
• She would turn to a traitor a man who was true;
• She would drain him of love and then break him in two,
• And wash her white hands of his shame.

XII.

• Yet beware, O my beautiful lady, beware!
• You must cure me of love or else kill.
• That fire burns longest that’s slowest to flare:
• My love is a force that will force you to care;
• Nay, I’ll strangle us both in the ropes of your hair
• Should you dream you can drop me at will.

XIII.

• And then—how I know not—delirious delight!
• Her lips were pressed close upon mine;
• page: 56
• My arms clung about her as when in affright
• Wrecked men cling to spars in a tempest at night;
• So madly I clung to her, crushed her with might
• To my heart which her heart made divine.

XIV.

• Oh, merciful Heavens! What drove us apart
• With a shudder of sundering lives?
• Oh, was it the throb of my passionate heart
• That made the doors tremble, the windows to start;
• Or was it my lady just playing her part,
• Most indignant, most outraged of wives?

XV.

• She was white as the chalk in the streets—was she fain
• To turn on me now with a sneer?
• page: 57
• All the blood in my body surged up to my brain,
• And my heart seemed half bursting with passion and pain,
• As I seized her slim hands—but I dropped them again!
• Ah! treason is mother to fear.

XVI.

• Had it come upon us at that magical hour,
• The judgment of God the Most High?
• The floor ’gan to heave and the ceiling to lower,
• The dead walls to start with malevolent power,
• Till your hair seemed to rise and your spirit to cower,
• As the very stones shook with a sigh.

XVII.

• “With you in my arms let the world crack asunder;
• Let us die, love, together!” I cried.
• page: 58
• Then, with a clatter and boom as of thunder,
• A beam crashed between us and drove us asunder,
• And all things rocked round us, above us and under,
• Like a boat that is rocked on a tide.

XVIII.

• She sprang like a greyhound—no greyhound more fleet—
• And ran down the staircase in motion;
• And blindly I followed her into the street,
• All choked up with people in panic retreat
• From the houses that scattered their plaster like sleet
• On the crowd in bewildered commotion.

XIX.

• Black masks and white dominoes, hale men and dying,
• Scared women that shook as with fever
• page: 59
• Poor babes in their bedgowns all piteously crying,
• Tiles hurled from the housetops—all flying, all flying,
• As I, wild with passion, implored her with sighing
• To fly with me now and for ever.

XX.

• “Go, go!” and she waved me away as she spoke,
• Carried on by the crowd like a feather;
• “You forget that it was but a Carnival joke.
• Now blest be the terrible earthquake that broke
• In between you and me, and has saved at a stroke
• Us two in the night there together.”

THE BATTLE OF FLOWERS.

I.

• THE battle raged, no blood was spilled,
• Though missiles flew in showers;
• Hard though they hit, they never killed
• Or maimed the merry throwers:
• Or if they killed, those wingèd darts,
• They killed but unprotected hearts;
• For flowers from flower‐like hands can slay
• Jeanne Ray! Jeanne Ray!

II.

• Like humming‐birds upon the breeze
• So swiftly shot the posies;
• Glory of red anemones,
• Pink buds of curled‐up roses,
• page: 61
• Lilacs and lilies of the vale;
• Yea, every flower that scents the gale
• Yielded up incense to its day,
• Jeanne Ray! Jeanne Ray!

III.

• How gallantly along the course,
• Stepping with conscious glances,
• Each flower‐decked, gaily harnessed horse,
• In rank and file advances!
• Even as green boughs and daisy‐chains
• Enwreathe their bits and bridle‐reins,
• Bright pleasure hides black grief away
• Jeanne Ray! Jeanne Ray!

IV.

• The people humming like a hive,
• Swarm closely pressed together,
• To watch high fashion’s crowded drive
• With flirt of fan and feather;
• page: 62
• And nosegays thrown up high in air,
• Now hitting gray, now golden hair,
• Now deftly caught upon their way,
• Jeanne Ray! Jeanne Ray!

V.

• And past the eager jostling crowd,
• Watching their guests from far lands,
• Gigs flash by in a violet cloud,
• And drags with rose‐red garlands;
• There meet crowned heads from many zones,
• And princes who have lost their thrones,
• With gifts from Ind and far Cathay,
• Jeanne Ray! Jeanne Ray!

VI.

• Ah, who shall bear away the prize
• In this bewitching battle,
• Where shafts are hurled from brightest eyes,
• And Cupid’s arrows rattle;
• page: 63
• In that fair fight where flowers alone
• By fairer flowers are overthrown?
• Who shall be victor in this fray?
• Jeanne Ray! Jeanne Ray!

VII.

• And people bet with buzz of tongue
• As the gay pageant passes;
• Now runs a murmur through the throng
• And stirs the thrilling masses.
• All heads are turned, all necks astrain,
• As through the thickening floral rain,
• “Look! look! She comes!” you hear them say—
• Jeanne Ray! Jeanne Ray!

VIII.

• No turn‐out in that festive throng
• Is half so bright and airy;
• Your cream‐white ponies prance along
• As if they drew a fairy;
• page: 64
• They step along with heads held high,
• And favours blue to match the sky:
• They know theirs is the winning way,
• Jeanne Ray! Jeanne Ray!

IX.

• A queen in exile might you be,
• Or leader of the fashion?
• Some Jenny Lind from over sea
• Melting all hearts with passion?
• Some tragic Muse whose mighty spell
• Unlocks the gates of heaven and hell?
• What sceptre is it that you sway?
• Jeanne Ray! Jeanne Ray!

X.

• All by yourself in spotless white,
• You sit there in your glory;
• Your black eyes scintillate with light—
• Eyes that may hide a story.
• page: 65
• In spotless white with ribbons blue,
• You look fresh from a bath of dew
• That sparkles in the rising day,
• Jeanne Ray! Jeanne Ray!

XI.

• Triumphant—without shame or fear—
• You air a thousand graces;
• Though women turn when you appear
• With cold, averted faces;
• Though men at sight of you will stop,
• As if they looked into a shop;
• Shall both for this not doubly pay?
• Jeanne Ray! Jeanne Ray!

XII.

• And with a smile upon your lips,
• Perhaps a shade too rosy,
• You shake two dainty finger‐tips
• And lightly fling a posy:
• page: 66
• So might a high‐born dame perchance,
• In days of tourneys and romance,
• Have flung her glove into the fray,
• Jeanne Ray! Jeanne Ray!

XIII.

• As with that little careless sign
• You fling your bouquet lightly,
• Three graybeards, flushing as with wine,
• Lift hats and bow politely;
• And one, the grandest of the three,
• Stoops low with stiff, rheumatic knee;
• Out of the dust he picks your spray,
• Jeanne Ray! Jeanne Ray!

XIV.

• His coat is all ablaze with stars
• For deeds of martial daring;
• His name, a watchword in the wars,
• Kept soldiers from despairing.
• page: 67
• Now see beside his orders rare
• Your mignonette and maidenhair;
• With just a nod you turn away,
• Jeanne Ray! Jeanne Ray!

XV.

• You turn to meet the wintry face
• Of an old beggar‐woman,
• Just there beyond the railed‐in space,
• Brown, bony, hardly human;
• Who in her tatters seems at least
• The skeleton of Egypt’s feast;
• A ghastly emblem of decay,
• Jeanne Ray! Jeanne Ray!

XVI.

• With palsied head and shaking hand,
• As if it were December,
• Grim by the barrier see her stand,
• Just mumbling a “Remember!
• page: 68
• Remember in thy days of lust,
• That fairest flesh must come to dust;
• Then have some pity while you may,”
• Jeanne Ray! Jeanne Ray!

XVII.

• Why do you shiver at her glance,
• As if the wind blew chilly?
• Why does your rosy countenance
• Turn pale as any lily?
• The sun is warm, the sky is bright,
• The sea dissolving into light
• Breaks into blossom‐bells of spray;
• Jeanne Ray! Jeanne Ray!

XVIII.

• Ah, could some instinct in your breast
• Reveal that beggar’s story,
• Would not your gay life lost its zest,
• Your empire lost its glory?
• page: 69
• Or would you only care to waste
• Life’s bounty in yet hotter haste?
• For is the world not beauty’s prey?
• Jeanne Ray! Jeanne Ray!

XIX.

• Alighting at the beggar’s feet,
• A bright Napoleon flashes!
• Then gaily through the dust and heat
• Your light Victoria dashes.
• Again your face is rosy clear,
• As with a loud and ringing cheer
• They hail you winner of the day,
• Jeanne Ray! Jeanne Ray!

XX.

• And gloriously at set of sun,
• In triumph now departing,
• The golden prize your flowers have won
• Leaves rival bosoms smarting.
• page: 70
• How many deem you half divine,
• Where amid bouquets you recline—
• Proud beauty in the devil’s pay,
• Jeanne Ray! Jeanne Ray!

XXI.

• Down, down beneath the rolling wheels,
• The flowers, so fresh this morning,
• Lie trampled under careless heels,
• Vile stuff for all men’s scorning.
• The roses crushed, the lilies soiled,
• The violets of their sweets despoiled,
• In dusty heaps defile your way,
• Jeanne Ray! Jeanne Ray!

THE SONG OF THE WILLI.

I.

• THE wild wind is whistling o’er moorland and heather,
• Heigh‐ho, heigh‐ho!
• I rise from my bed, and my bed has no feather,
• Heigh‐ho!
• My bed is deep down in the brown sullen mould,
• My head is laid low on the clod;
• So wormy the sheets, and the pillow so cold,
• Of clammy and moist clinging sod.

II.

• The long livid moon rides alone high in heaven,
• Heigh‐ho, heigh‐ho!
• The stars’ cutting glitter their dull shrouds hath riven,
• Heigh‐ho!
• I rise and I glide out far into the night,
• A shadow so swift and so still;
• Bleak, bleak is the moonshine all ghastly and white,
• The dank morass drinketh its fill.

III.

• And down in yon valley in wan vapour shrinking,
• Heigh‐ho, heigh‐ho!
• The bare moated town cowers fitfully blinking,
• Heigh‐ho!
• There, warm under shelter, the fire burning bright,
• My lover sleeps sound in his bed;
• page: 73
• But I flit alone in the pitiless night,
• Unpitied, unloved, and unwed.

IV.

• And hast thou forgotten the deep troth we plighted?
• Heigh‐ho, heigh‐ho!
• Too warm was thy love by cold death to be blighted,
• Heigh‐ho!
• My sweetheart! and mind’st thou that this is the night,
• The night that we should have been wed?
• And while I flit restless, a low wailing sprite,
• Ah, say, canst thou sleep in thy bed?

V.

• A week, but a week, and a wreath of gay flowers,
• Heigh‐ho, heigh‐ho!
• page: 74
• I wore as I vied with the fleet‐footed hours,
• Heigh‐ho!
• As I vied with the hours in dancing them down
• Till the stars reeled low in the sky,
• And sweet came thy whispers as rose‐leaves when blown
• About in the breeze of July.

VI.

• “Thou’rt light, O my chosen; a bird is not lighter,
• O love, my love!
• I’d dance into death with thee; death would be brighter,
• My love!”
• And they struck up a wild and a wonderful measure;
• Quick, quick beat our hearts to the tune;
• Quick, quick the feet flew in a frenzy of pleasure,
• To the sound of the fife and bassoon.

VII.

• Oh, on whirled the pairs on the swift music driven,
• Heigh‐ho, heigh‐ho!
• Like gossamer vapours afloat in high heaven,
• Heigh‐ho!
• Like gossamer vapours, in silence they fled,
• With a shifting of face into face;
• But fleeter than all the fleet dancers we sped
• In the rush of the rapturous race.

VIII.

• How often turned Wanda, the slim, lily‐throated,
• Heigh‐ho, heigh‐ho!
• And gazed at wistful as onward we floated,
• Heigh‐ho!
• And Bilba, the swarthy, whose eyes had the trick
• Of a stag’s, with a glitter of steel;
• She lifted her lashes, so long and so thick,
• To stare at my true love and leal.

IX.

• But he, he saw none o’ them, brown‐faced or rosy,
• Heigh‐ho, heigh‐ho!
• Tho’ maidens bloomed bright like a fresh‐gathered posy,
• Heigh‐ho!
• For his eyes that shone black as the sloes of the hedges,
• They shone like two stars over me;
• And his breath, thrilling o’er me as wind over sedges,
• Stirred my hair till I tingled with glee.

X.

• Now slow as two down‐bosomed swans, we were sliding,
• Heigh‐ho, heigh‐ho!
• O’er the low heaving swell of the silver sounds gliding,
• Heigh‐ho!
• page: 77
• Now hollowly booming drums rumbled apace,
• Flashed sharp clatt’ring cymbals around,
• And swung like loose leaves in a stormy embrace
• We whirled in a tumult of sound.

XI.

• But pallid our cheeks grew, late flushing with pleasure,
• Heigh‐ho, heigh‐ho!
• As slowly away swooned the languishing measure,
• Heigh‐ho!
• For shrill crew the cock as the sun ’gan to rise,
• And it rang from afar like a knell;
• Our kisses grew bitter and sweet grew our sighs,
• As sadly we murmured, “Farewell!”

XII.

• High up in the chambers the maidens together,
• O love, my love!
• page: 78
• Were piling bleached linen as white as swan’s feather
• My love!
• Were weaving and spinning and singing aloud,
• While broidering my bride‐veil of lace;
• But the three fatal sisters they wove me my shroud,
• And death kissed me cold on the face.

XIII.

• The wild wind is whistling o’er moorland and heather,
• Heigh‐ho, heigh‐ho!
• I rise from my bed, and my bed has no feather,
• Heigh‐ho!
• The snow driveth grisly and ghostly, and gleams
• In the glare of the moon’s chilly glance;
• What pale flitting phantoms aroused by her beams,
• Are circling in shadowy dance!

XIV.

• Mayhap ye were maidens death plucked in your flower,
• Heigh‐ho, heigh‐ho!
• As clustering you glowed in love’s murmuring bower,
• Heigh‐ho!
• Who, delirious for life from the gloom of your graves,
• Are driven to wander with me,
• And you rise from your tombs like the white‐crested waves
• From the depths of the dolorous sea.

XV.

• Ah, maidens, pale maidens, o’er moorland and heather,
• Heigh‐ho, heigh‐ho!
• The bridegroom is coming athwart the wild weather,
• Heigh‐ho!
• page: 80
• Full shines the fair moon on his beautiful face,
• He walketh like one in a trance;
• Nay, is running like one who is running a race
• Against death, with his dead bride to dance.

XVI.

• At the sound of thy footfall my numb heart is shaken,
• O love, my love!
• Once again all its pulses to new life awaken,
• My love!
• It leaps like a stag that is borne as on wings
• To the brooks thawing thick through the noon,
• Like a lark from the glebe, like a lily that springs
• From its bier to the bosom of June.

XVII.

• “I hold thee, I hold thee, I drink thy caresses,
• O love, my love!”
• page: 81
• Round thy face, round thy throat, I roll my dank tresses,
• My love!
• “I hold thee, I hold thee! Eight nights, wan and weeping,”
• I wandered loud sobbing thy name!
• “Thy lips are as cold as the snowdrift a‐sweeping;”
• But thy breath soon shall fan them to flame!

XVIII.

• Blow up for the dance now o’er moorland and heather!
• Heigh‐ho, heigh‐ho!
• Blow, blow you wild winds, while we two dance together,
• Heigh‐ho!
• Till the clouds dance above with tempestuous embraces
• Of maidenly moonbeams in flight;
• In the silvery rear of whose fugitive traces
• Reel the stars through the revelling night!

XIX.

• “Cocks crow, and the breath on thy sweep lip is failing,
• O love, my love!”
• Stars swoon, and the flame in thy dark eye is quailing,
• My love!
• “Oh, brighter the night than the fires of the day”
• When thine eyes shine as stars over me!
• “Oh, sweeter thy grave than the soft breath of May!”
• Then down, Love to death, but with thee.

SCHERZO.

• OH, beloved, come and bring
• All the flowery wealth of spring!
• Though the leaf be in the sere,
• Icy winter creeping near;
• Though the trees like mourners all
• Standing at a funeral,
• Black against the pallid air
• Toss their wild arms in despair,
• With their bald heads sadly bowed
• O’er dead summer in her shroud.
• Yea, though golden days be o’er,
• If you enter at my door,
• Spring, dear spring, will come once more.
• There will break upon the night
• page: 84
• That glad flash of dewy light
• Which, like young love in a pet,
• Once with sunny tears would wet
• Many a wild‐wood violet;
• And the hyacinth will arise
• In the April of your eyes.
• Blossoms of the apple tree?
• Rarer blossoms bloom for me
• In the cunning white and red,
• Most felicitously wed,
• On your cheek. And then your brow—
• Can a snow‐white cherry‐bough
• Match its bland, unsullied hue,
• Where, like threads of silky blue,
• Little veins show here and there
• Through broad temples where your hair,
• Clustering, hangs a tender brown
• Softer than the fluffy down
• Which before the leaf in March
• Beards the lime tree and the larch?
• page: 85
• Shall I grieve because the rose,
• The red rose, no longer blows,
• Since all roses you eclipse
• With the roses of your lips?
• And what matter, O my sweet,
• Though the genial light and heat
• Have departed for a while!
• Only let me see you smile,
• Let me see that dulcet curve
• Like a dimpling wavelet swerve
• Round the coral of your mouth,
• And the North will change to South:
• To the happy South, whose clear
• Light o’er‐brimming atmosphere,
• Flowing in at every pore,
• Sets life glowing to the core.
• You are light and life in sooth,
• Fair as was that Grecian youth
• Who in her cold sphere above
• Drove poor Dian mad with love—
• page: 86
• When she saw him where he lay,
• White and golden like a spray
• Of tall jonquils whose intense
• Sweetness faints upon the sense;
• When she saw him swathed in light,
• Couched on the aërial height
• Of hoar Latmos, hushed and warm;
• While, to shield him from all harm,
• Like a woman’s rounded arm,
• A fresh creeper wildly fair
• Twined around his throat and hair.
• And the goddess clean forgot
• Her fair fame without a blot,
• And untarnished reputation,
• Free from faintest imputation
• Of such frailties as the fair
• Dwellers in Elysian air
• Find recorded to their shame,
• Chronicled with date and name,
• In the annals of the skies.
• page: 87
• She forgot in her surprise,
• When her empyrean eyes
• Saw Endymion where he lay
• Slumbering, and she cast away
• Her immortal honour, clear
• As her own unclouded sphere,
• For the palpitating bliss
• Of a surreptitious kiss.

• Oh, beloved, come and bring
• All the flowery wealth of spring—
• All its blossoms, buds, and bells,
• And wind‐coaxing violet smells—
• All its miracle of grace
• In the blossom of your face.