Postscript
AN EMBER ETCHING
An old man sat before his great log fire
And gazed dreamily into the dying blaze.
His eyes were red as though with weeping.
The long, thin locks of hair
Were spotless as the snow
Silently mantling the earth
That last sad night of the dying year.
Four days and nights
He had sat beside the bed
Of his life-companion.
But now the watchers by the bier
In the adjoining room,
Were dozing in their chairs.
The cold night
Had driven the mice from their hiding,
And the loud tick of the clock
No longer frightened them
As they scampered over the hearth.
The man was breathing heavily,
Although his eyes were open,
And his stare fixed upon the fire:
Down by a gnarled oak near the spring
Two children played.
Rebecca had dipped a dock leaf
In the water,
And now whisked it in the sunlight.
Against the trunk of the tree
There was a playhouse made of broken boughs.
The girl's dolls were lying on the green moss bed,
And a little cracked slate lay upon the ground.
An almost illegible scrawl was written on the slate.
Two childish hands had traced their names:
"Rupert—Rebecca."
And the words were linked together by lines
That looked like twisted ropes.
The boy and girl sat down before the playhouse,
And crossed their hands in imitation
Of the lines that bound their names together.
And then they smiled
And looked upon the dolls
Asleep in the fresh June morning.
A chunk broke and fell in the ashes.
The blaze died into a glow of coals.
In the gray beyond the dog irons
The old man saw two figures
Sitting before an awning:
Two golden haired children
Slept in a little bed.
The man and woman who sat beside the shelter
Were old and bent,
Their faces thin and white.
They clasped their hands
And looked into each other's face.
And then they turned and looked
Upon the children.
A coal dropped into the picture,
And the fitful fire died
Into deepening shadows.
Next day the pall-bearers
Bore two bodies away
And lowered a single coffin
Into a grave
Beneath the snow-laden cedar.
A TRAGEDY IN BIRDLAND
A little maiden blue-jay,
Fresh from her April morning bath,
Sat on the limb of a weeping willow,
Preening her shining feathers
And dreaming of a song
To which she had listened
On the afternoon of the preceding day.
A wild joy was in her heart
And yet it took all the sunshine and song
From a hundred other throats
To withstand the gloom
That seemed hovering just above her.
She was conscious of the threatening cloud,
But her heart beat furiously
And hope thrilled her bird-being
With an unwonted light.
And yet she knew,
When she dared to think at all,
That it was a hopeless hope
That flooded her soul with love—
A hope that must ere long
Change to a black despair.
She lifted her crested head
And looked toward the old beech tree
Where her blue-jay lover now sat
In melancholy gloom.
Why not raise her voice
And gladden his heart?
He had been true and faithful
For many weeks,
And his suit would long since
Have won another's love.
Why had she thrilled
At the alien voice of another throat?
She had been a foolish maiden
To have entertained so wild a thought.
But hark! Again the song!
On the topmost spire
Of yonder Gothic poplar
Sits a cardinal fop,
In a coat of matchless red,
And a beak of shining ivory.
He lifts his sumach plume
Into the glinting sunlight
And sends a Cupid shaft
From his beaded eye
Into the trembling breast
Of little maiden blue-jay.
Poor little mademoiselle!
Once more the notes
Come whistling and glittering
Like a shower of pearls
Through the sunshine:
"Oh! my true love is a little blue-jay—
Mademoiselle, my bird gazelle,
My little gazelle, and I love her well.
Fresh and sweet from her morning spray
She sits on the willow and her crest is gay—
Mademoiselle, my little gazelle I love so well."
Down from his commanding height
Flashed the cardinal flame
And perched on another limb
Of the weeping willow.
And then he strutted and pranced
And capered and danced
And shot his fiery glances
Toward the modest little maiden
Whose heart was now fluttering
Beyond all control. Master blue-jay
Over on the beech bough
Saw the terrible tragedy
That would follow in the wake of betrayal
And was desperate to save this Psyche
To whom he had often poured out his soul
In amorous vows,
Swearing by all the gods in birdland
That there was none other beside her.
But like many another lover
Of larger experience and better advantage,
He forgot that the very way
To lose his loved one
Was to berate his rival,
And lifting his reed
To the upper register of a clarinet,
He almost screamed:
"He's a liar, he is, by the god of all birds,
A master of villainous art—
A hypocrite, a varlet, believe not his words,
This dandy, this fop, deceiver, betrayer,
A coward, seducer, a murderous slayer—
He'll crush thy innocent heart."
Poor little maiden blue-jay
Heard his screams of anger and despair
But heeded not the warning.
She only fluttered over
To where the cardinal sat
And threw herself under his protecting arm,
Declaring her perfect faith
In his undying love.
The red prince lifted
His burning plume triumphantly
Into the sunlight,
And shot a contemptuous glance
Toward the old beech tree.
Master Blue-Jay unable
Longer to control himself,
Darted like a lance of blue steel
At the red coat.
But the high churchman was a skilled fencer,
And stepped aside just in time
To send his antagonist
With terrible momentum
Into the thorn tree
Beyond the willow,
Where a moment later he writhed and fluttered,
Pinioned through his body
By a sword-like thorn
That projected from the trunk of the spiny tree.
It was a sight to touch the heart
Of the most abandoned denizen of birdland.
But Mademoiselle Blue-Jay,
Who would ordinarily have wept
At so sad a fate of one of her kind,
Was just now too happy
In the love of her wooer
To notice another;
And unmindful of the ebbing life-blood
That was fast turning her unfortunate lover's coat
Of bright and shining blue
To one of dark and dull maroon,
She nestled close
To the false-hearted ecclesiastic
And sighed the lovelorn sigh
That has come from the maiden heart
Since the foundation of the world.
The low cedar
In which Madam Blue-Jay-Cardinal now sat
On such a nest of eggs
As no blue-jay had ever brooded over before,
Wondering, fearing, doubting, longing—
Was only a rod or so from the spiny thorn
Where the dried body of the fated lover
Still hung.
But where now was the supercilious fop
Whose seductive vows of love
Had won the little maiden's confidence
And robbed her true and faithful lover
Of that incense that belonged of right
Only to him?
For more than a week
She had not seen him.
Surely he would return on the morrow,
For he must remember
That soon the little brood
Would need his protecting love.
Yes, he would return again
To praise her slender form and shining crest
And call her once more his little gazelle.
But the cardinal came not.
The brood had hatched,
And the little birds were covered now
With tiny feathers.
Strange sight!
All the blue-jays in the woods around
Had gathered to witness
What no mortal bird had ever seen before—
Little birdling blue-jays
With crimson stains on wings and breasts!
And the poor little mother,
Madam Blue-Jay-Cardinal,
No longer mademoiselle, the bird gazelle,
But an outcast and disgraced mother
Of a mongrel offspring,
Left alone in this hour of shame,
Remembered now the words of him
Who had warned against this sad hour.
But the memory brought her only bitter grief,
And she watched her brood in broken-hearted sorrow,
As they looked with wondering eyes
At the strange panorama in birdland.
And all the blue-jays sat in silent condemnation
Of the unpardonable sin.
There was no mercy
To be found in all the land of birds
For either the forsaken mother
Or her little brood.
The deserted wife and widowed mother blue-jay
Suddenly threw her wings
Over the astonished little children,
As though to wipe the stain of sin
From their innocent lives,
And as she did so,
The crested cardinal
With a fresh crimson bride flashed by,
And perched upon the old beech limb.
And there he sat
In undisturbed and cynical silence,
While all the court
Of high crimes and misdemeanors
Praised his sacerdotal coat and shining mitre.
The mother felt the birdlings stir beneath her wing,
And their scarlet stain suffuse her being.
She looked toward the thorn tree
But no word was spoken.
A wise old owl that moped and moaned
On the limb of a sycamore tree
That overhung the little stream
Suddenly lifted his voice and cried:
"Let him who is without stain of sin,
Lift the first note of song
Against the little blue-jay."
But all the woods were still.
Only the thorn tree swayed slightly in the breeze,
And then a flute-like note floated out
Upon the wondering air:
"Oh! my little blue-jay, my little bluebell,
I would I could come to thee;
I would find all the food for thy sin-stained brood,
And thy bridegroom I should be.
That villainous fop on the old beech limb
And the arrogant wife that sits by him
Have broken the heart of my little bluebell,
The little gazelle, the bird gazelle he loved so well,
And they laugh in their cynical glee.
Oh! I would heal thy deep chagrin,
Forgive thy blood-stained life its sin,
And thou shouldst be my beauteous bride,
Forever happy at my side.
My hope, my joy, my love, my pride,
If I could only come to thee,
If I could only come to thee."
Again the air was silent as the tomb.
The little mother bird
Moved with her frightened children
Toward the old thorn tree.
And when she at last stood
Beneath the sword
Upon which her faithful lover was pinioned
Behold the miracle that was enacted
Before her wondering eyes.
The crimson dyes
That streaked the birdlings' wings and breasts
Turned suddenly to a dull and dark maroon,
And not a jay in all birdland
But would swear that her little children
Now resembled in every line and stain
The dead body of her valiant lover
Who had shed his blood
To save his little bluebell from betrayal.
Transcriber's Notes:
1. Minor punctuation errors have been corrected without comment.
2. Spelling corrections:
p. 60, "syncophantic" to "sycophantic" (A thousand sycophantic, fawning lords;)
p. 96, "shubbery" to "shrubbery" (O'er a waste of shrubbery and alkali)
3. Word Variations:
"Agagite" (1) and "Aggagite" (1)
"ghost-like" (1) and "ghostlike" (1)
4. On the title page, the words "A Dramatization of Esther" were printed in Gothic Font which has been represented as italic in this e-text.