Ballads and Other Poems / Fourth Edition, Revised

by George Lansing Raymond

IDEALS MADE REAL.

I.

It seem’d a rare and royal friendship, ours,

The very sovereignty of sympathy;

Begun so early too—mere lads we were—

And now I never look back there again

But, swept like shading from a hero’s face

In pictures,—those of Rembrandt,—all the school

Appear in hues of dim uncertainty

Surrounding Elbert, shining in relief.

Not strange was it; too tender was I made;

Nor oft had felt a touch save that of age,

When moulding all my methods to its own.

Kept back from contact with rough boys at play,

Till sensitive and shrinking as a girl,

A hint of their regard could master me;

No maiden, dreaming of her wedding day,

Could wake at morning with more trembling hopes

Than I, when looking forward to my school.

But when I reach’d it, not a Bluebeard more

Could have disturb’d a trusting bride’s romance.

II.

At first, they lodged me there with such a loon!

“Our clown!” so said the boys; and clown he was;

Would tease all day, and tumble round all night;

And, every morning, sure as came the sun,

Would start and rout me out, with strap in hand,

Plied like a coach-whip round my dancing shape,

Well put to blush until I dodged away.

A chum had Elbert too; and, like my own,

A wild boy caged, who seem’d more wild at times

Through beating at his bars, a hapless wretch.

And when our happier love had flower’d in us,

Half pitying each other, half this chum,

Which pity grew, we both stood round, scarce loath

To note his own wild set inflating him

With well-blown whims that swell’d his empty pride

Forsooth, the better bubble he could be,

The better hope we two could have of what

Should blow him from us. Then the blow came on:—

A gust of scolding struck him, and he went,—

Obey’d the call that had been mouthed for him,—

An inn-clerk’s, as I think,—and bow’d content

To sink from view like Paul, one gloomy night,

From out the window of his room; while we,

Much giggling, flung his luggage after him.

III.

My friend, thus widow’d, caused that our school’s head,

Already nodding o’er his noonday pipe,

Should beck at sever’d dreams with one nod more,

And so consent to our dreams.

Room-mates made,

We slamm’d his door and woke him; not ourselves.

Our dreamland lasted, that is, when we two

Were by ourselves. When more surrounded us—

You know boy-friends are shy: is it a trait,

Their shielding of their hearts, that fits them thus

For life-tilts of their manhood?—How we two

Would rasp each other when the world look’d on!

In truth, each seem’d to wear his nature’s coat

The soft side inward, comforting himself,

And turn the rough side only toward the world.

If strangers chafed against it, yet oneself

And friend were saved this.

When thus Elbert’s cloak

Was mine, and mine was his, and both held both,

No proof could have convinced me in those days

His peer had ever liv’d. What seem’d in him

So mild and beautiful, was more than marks

Mere difference between a porcupine

Provok’d and peaceable. The kind was new;

Not human, so angelic. Ay, that soul,

As pure as loving, and as fine as frank,

I half believe to-day, as I did then,

Stood strange amid his comrades of the play

As dogwood, wedded to the skies of spring,

White in a wilderness of wintry pines.

Ah me, could all find all on earth so dear,

Christ’s work were common. I had died for him.

In fact, to shield the rogue, I just escap’d

That very fate a score of times or more,

Bluft, bruis’d, and battling for him on the green.

IV.

Our love kept warm until our school-day-sun

Had set; and afterwards the smouldering fires

Were fed by letters, and rekindl’d oft

By friction of a frequent intercourse

Through visits in vacations; then, for years,

Behind it there was left a lingering light

Pervading moods of memory like the rays

Pour’d through a prism, wherein the commonest hues

Will spray to uncommon colors when they break.

In truth, I never see to-day a face

Where flash the kindling feelings of a boy,

But back of it, I seem to feel the warmth

Of Elbert’s heart. No school-boy past me bounds

But his dear presence comes to leap the years,

And rush on recollection, with a force

That brings from depths of joy, still’d long ago,

A spray as fresh as dash’d from them when first

They stream’d in cataracts. With love like his

To flood its brim, my soul appear’d so full

That, overflowing at each human touch,

Its pleasures could not stagnate.

But, you know

How fly the clouds above us, and in drought

The old springs fail; and long we liv’d apart.

V.

Then Elbert, when we met, talk’d much of this:

How, all its chairs made vacant one by one,

Th’ applause rose thinner at his bachelor-club;

How, brief as birds’, are human mating-times;

How men, mere songs forgot, withdraw to nests—

To homes—their worlds, where all the sky is fill’d

With sunny smiles they love, and shadowy locks.

How sweet were life whose light and shade were these!

“We, Norman,” said he, “were contented once;

To love each other only; but men part;

And I confess that, while this light of love

Plays lambent round so many glowing lips,

I feel as chill, and lost, and out of place,

As one lone dew-drop, prison’d in a shade

Of universal noon.”

“The sun,” said I,

“Will free it, by and by. Our time will come.”

“Must come,” replied he, “or I go to it.

Henceforth, let beauty’s beams but gleam for me,

I shall not shun them, as has been my wont,

But make my eyes a sun-glass for my heart,

And let them burn it.”

“May they burn,” I cried,

“Until love’s fragrant opiate fume so strong

It make your brain beclouded as a Turk’s.

But I, alas, though wild o’er many a maid,

Am never mad enough to marry her.”

“You poets,” laugh’d he, “soar above earth so

That common clouds like these can reach you not.

But why say ‘clouds’? for clouds rise o’er a flame

That smoulders. Love that burns is always clear.”

“But mine will not burn clearly, till it show

A woman,” said I, “fitted for a mate,

Whose mind, like yours, can really match my own.

Till then must memory, jealous for her past,

Out-do love’s hope that cannot promise more.”

“But maidens,” cried he, “are not loved like men.

Bind beauty to their souls, then weigh the twain.

If one weigh naught, he waives his judgment then.

We must be practical.”

Thus Elbert spoke,

While I, for whom these light and vapory moods

Had gather’d o’er that soul in slightest clouds,

Not tokening the storm that yet should burst,

Smiled only, thinking how, where throbb’d his heart,

Some maid unnamed must surely stand and knock;

Though this I had forgotten, save for that

Which happen’d later. You shall hear of it.

VI.

It came in Dresden, something like a year

More late than when my plan for life was changed.

The change seem’d sudden; but, you know, the blow

That swept from me my parents, fortune, all,

Could not but stun me, and I could not think.

No other theme seem’d mine; I could not write.

So came my change—no myth—I felt it all:—

One time, when, lonely, I to Christ had knelt,

I rose to seem not lonely; I was His,

He mine. I vow’d to live then but for Him,

To break away from every cord of Earth,

And make my life accordant with his own.

Not only would I think the truth, but yield

Each grain in all my being to the truth,

And sow in wildest wastes, where all should germ

In generations growing toward the good.

But still, a novice yet, though, like St. Paul,

To will was present with me; to perform

I found not how; but, on performance bent,

Within a chancel chanting with the choir,

I stood before an altar, half the day,

And half before my books, with cravings pale

For church and stole and sermons of my own.

VII.

Then was it Elbert’s friendship further’d me.

For finding me, and staring at my face,

And books, and cassock—when the puzzle pass’d,—

He, humbling to my humor, praised the priest

And all the powers of priesthood, till delight

Relax’d the rigor of my rôle; and then

He wedged the wisdom of his own desire

Within my dreams, and broke apart their spell,

And drew aside the curtains of their couch,

And spoke of dawn, and light for all the world.

“First learn about this world,” he urged, “and then

Learn how to help it. Minds like mine,” he said,

“Should teach, revise, reform, and start the thought

To counteract ill aim’d philosophy.

Here loom’d an end worth reaching! which to reach

’Twere well to cross the sea.—His purse was mine.

And go you as a student,” Elbert said,

“Nor clad so like a priest, for whom all earth

Will don some Sabbath-day demean; go free

To find the man, hard by his work, at home.”

Thus pleading many days, at last he won;

And, yielding to his wish, the sea I cross’d.

VIII.

Soon, borne to Dresden for a leisure week,

With whom, one morning, should I chance to meet

But Elbert’s elder sister?—now grown staid

And matronly withal, a second wife,

In charge of half a dozen sturdy boys;

Though these I saw not then; but all alone,

Much flush’d and flurried, sweeping up the street,

She stopp’d, and cried abruptly, “Why, my friend,

Are you here, Norman?—you?—where from?—how long?

Not heard of you for years! That Elbert, drone,

Will never write the news. How glad I am

To see a man on hand when needed once!

Two girls, young friends of mine, just come to town,

Have lost their trunks,—and I my husband too,—

And there they stand amid such throngs of men!—

And did you note the statues in Berlin,

In all the streets?—of warriors, every one!

And these two girls, here travelling, by themselves,

Where might makes right, and woman slighted is,

Not strange it is their feelings toward you men,

In heat of indignation seething up,

Should brew some barm at times of bitterness!”

IX.

Thus, rattling on, she led me, as confused

As feels a warrior at the morning drum,

Till came a sight supreme, arousing me:—

Two bright eyes only, sparkling in the light,

Where flush’d a face that flared, then hid itself

Behind a travelling hood, befleck’d with dust,

And fring’d with venturous locks of careless hair.

“I have them now!” it cried; and straight began

A tale, strain’d sweeter through those lips aglow

Than sunset music. Then, when all was told,

The name I heard was “Edith.”

Bowing low,

“Well done!” essay’d I; then,—to bandy back

That charge against the men I just had heard

From her who brought me,—“Well done as a man!”

X.

“That speech,” laugh’d she thus bandied, “scarce deserves

Our ‘Well done as a woman!’—Edith, hark,

His praise for you is, ‘Well done as a man!’”

Then Edith, echoing after, naïvely dropt,

“I tell you—nay—I will not say it though.”

“Please do?” I ventur’d.

“Nay; it may offend,”

Replied she; while her shoulders gently shrugg’d

As if to tempt me like two dainty doors,

Doors all but swung ajar before a heart

That love was dared to enter!

“Nay,” I said,

“I vow you such a deal of patience now!”

“I do not know,” she answer’d; “am not sure.

Your manly patience might break loose to sigh

More hints about my manhood! Just to think

That half of all mankind are merely girls

And so must borrow all their tact from men!”

“Not so,” I said; “not so; but commonly.”—

“Ah, commonly! and what,” she sigh’d, “is this

That men-minds do so well?—discriminate?

Yet even I, dull woman, I can see

Brains differ in their grain. But men, forsooth,

Feel so much matter lodged in their brains—eh?—

That they weigh mind like matter in the lump,

And judge of character, as if ’twere clay:—

This forms a man—has wisdom, firmness, power;

And that, a maid—is foolish, fickle, frail,

And never can be wholly safe, forsooth,

Except when subject to a man, her lord!”

“Ah, but,” I said, “we men all prize you so!

To hold you ours, our pride seems infinite.

Thus lifted up by you, it is your fault

If we seem lords to you.”

“Is it?” she ask’d,

“Or have you seem’d so long our lords, you think

Your lording over us has trained in us

What still needs lording over? Fashion yields

A man, at times, exemption from her forms,

But woman never. Wherefore, pray, is this?

Do not they both have souls? and both aspire?

Must one class only slave it to her sex?—

I think the soul of woman as of man

May show some mastery over its abode.”

“But yet,” I said, “You know, her frame divine—

And soul, too—men confuse things—who can tell

Which is the soul?”

She answer’d absently:

“In truth they do confuse things! only wise,

As owls that blink at light!—so blind—nor see

What day dawns with a wife’s enfranchisement;

Ambitious, but forgetting that the meek,

Inherit heaven, or that the oppressor dwarfs

His own surroundings; that if pride stoop not,

Then must the soul; that earthly lords must bend,

And lift their consorts to their own prized seats,

As equals, queens; or else must house with slaves,

And make the slavish habits there their own.”

XI.

“Well said!” I thought. “Disown it, though she may,

This maiden’s mood is manlier than she deems”;

And, as with manhood, so my wits went forth

To find a way to test her further still.

Just then the sister of Elbert, gesturing toward

The sister of Edith, Alice, whom she fetch’d,

Cried, half-way introducing us, “My fan!”

I stoop’d, and pick’d it up. Then, bowing low,

“Your humble slave,” I said. “You know, some claim

That genuine friends of either sex are slaves;

And only want of love would snatch a whip,

And snapping it, cry out: ‘This way—serve me.’”

“And I, like them,” said Edith, slightly flush’d,

“Seem wholly loveless. You may mourn it less

That yonder carriage waits me. For to-day,

All thanks for coming! We may meet once more.”

XII.

My face flamed hot as if its veil of flesh

Would burn, and bare the soul, to show I meant

No rudeness. Elbert’s keen-eyed sister laugh’d,

And, walking homeward then, kept bantering me,

To storm my heart with courage womanly,

So sure that love of sex controls us all.

“So fortunate!” she cried; “Heaven favor’d me.

They had no escort,—I no rival near;

And I must ply my arts this very eve.”

“Ah, but my plans!” I said;—“I leave to-day

For studies at Berlin.”

“Yes, yes; your plans!—

You serve ideals, like all idiots.

But you are more, much more, than out your teens;

And—well, you are no hermit, any way.”

“Then must I find”—I laugh’d, yet half in earnest—

“The charms to tempt me!” and my reckoning

Fill’d all my fingers doubly with the traits

Of perfect womanhood.

“She owns,” I heard,

“All these, and more. For once, my poet, dream;

And full Elysium waits you when you wake.

But mind you, Norman, maids of Edith’s kind,

In whose one person love so womanly

With intellect so manly has been join’d,

Need not to marry for a hand or head.

There, hearts alone can win. Bear this in mind;

And fan your fancy till your words grow warm,

Ay, glow to flash the white heat of the soul!”

Then, crying from her door, “Farewell till eve,”

True to her sex, unanswer’d yet assured,

The woman left.

XIII.

And so my will was caught,

The net so deftly drawn, I flounder’d first,

Then, resting, smiled. We fight the hydra, we,

Who war against our nature. Every head

That reason clove would rise redoubled there.

Forsooth, my rudeness:—that should be explain’d;

For which a single visit would suffice;

And this, for scarce a day, need check my work;

Or, if I linger’d longer, all my life

Lay still before me. Wherefore haste away?

Fate might be beckoning!—“Nay, I should not leave,”

Sigh’d hope, too warm, at last, by more than half;

Then roused sweet echoes of faint hints, recall’d

From churchly sources, of one’s need to wed,

If he would work the best, for all, with all.

Thus, like two cowards, clinging each to each,

Weak wish nudged wisdom, and weak wisdom wish.

Who gets on better?

XIV.

So that night we went.

And, all the way, my gay guide rail’d at me.

“Aha, my bachelor, your roving love,

Aha, has had its day! Yon sunset hues

But deck the curtains hung before its night.”

“Alas,” I cried, “if I must through them pass,

Woe me who wish it! See, in front of them,

The river in the horizon underneath—”

“Your Jordan, ere your promis’d land!” she said;

“You need baptizing for your harden’d heart.”

“Ah me!” I sigh’d, yet strangely; for there seem’d,

While all the way the twilight thicker sank,

Sweet silence luring dreamward wind and bird

Until the reverent air lay hush’d where came

The hallowing influence of holier stars.

And, all the way, deep folding round my soul,

With every nerve vibrating at its touch,

Fell dim delight, through which, as through a veil,

Some nearer presence breath’d of holier life.

Ah, wandering Heart, and had I had my day?—

With closing gates as golden as yon west?

And whither was I moving in the dark?—

“Who knows?” my spirit ask’d, “who knows or cares?

On through the twilight threshold, trustingly!

What halt thou, Night, that weary souls need fear?

Thou home of love entranced, thou haunt of dreams,

Thy halls alone can hoard the truth of heaven!

Thy dome alone can rise to reach the stars!”

XV.

She roused me, crying out, “Look toward the porch!”

I look’d, and there beheld our waiting friends,

And, grouped with them, some ruddy German maids

Whose deeper hues but finely rimmed with shade

The subtler beauty of our special hosts.

These came from out that western world wherein,

By fresher breezes and by brighter suns,

The Saxon tissue, sweeten’d and refined,

Unfolds, each season, more ethereally.

The two then moving from their sister-maids,

Like petals loos’d from roses when in bloom,

Came forth to welcome us; and, greetings o’er,

Of Europe, Edith spoke, and Germany,

And books, and music—how the church of Greece

Had carved earth’s pivot that earth whirls upon

Within the centre of a flag-stone round

That paves a chapel in Jerusalem.

But she, who track’d that viewless whirl by sound,

And deem’d all harmony to centre here,

A Grecian only in her love of art,

Had found that pivot fix’d in Germany.

XVI.

“True Grecian, she!” the sister of Elbert cried;

“Each morning brings her fresh from shrines of art,

All flush’d, a priestess from an oracle,

To sanctify us grosser mortals here

With vague suggestions! mutter’d mysteries!

Ah me, to hear her rave once!”

Edith smiled,

“And eyes that see are blest!—and which sees most—

My worship, or your wonder? Know you, friend,”

She turn’d to me and asked,—“this critic’s ground?—

The Sistine Babe it was, we spoke of Him.

Because I find art’s glass, when rightly held,

Revealing through the real the truth ideal,

I said: ‘I seem to see not only Him,

The Babe, but back of Him, His heavenly home.

I seem to enter this—His handmaid there,

And there commune until my soul is blest.’

I said: ‘From thence my spirit seems to come,

And feel its arms to be the throne of Christ.

And this,’ I said, ‘is wrought for me by art.

Some hold that souls transmigrate after death,

But art,’ I said, ‘makes mine transmigrate here.’

For this you hear of raving. Do I err?

The soul of feeling is in thought, not so?

Then one, to feel refresh’d, must think she bathes

In rills that reach her from the freshest springs.”

XVII.

“Ah,” said the sister of Elbert, soothingly,

“Our soaring lark here bathes in each bright pool.

So be not frighten’d off; her plumes but shake

A sprinkling from the bath they had to-day.”

“Some please the world,” said Edith; “I, myself,—

My soul, I mean; nor long to clip that soul

To suit mere worldling’s notions. Courting crowds,

A soul lives crampt; but if one speak the truth,

Crowds leave—good riddance!—place is clear’d for friends.”

“Clear’d verily!” her sister cried, “Long live

These household pet-gods of our modern homes,

Like sprites to fright the stranger off! Now own

The fear you felt. It would appease her so!”

XVIII.

To this rose no reply to Edith’s lips.

I mark’d, instead, a gentle trembling there,

Like ripples roused upon a tranquil sea

That rise from deep, unseen disturbances.

“They fail to read her rightly,” thought I, then—

You know no man can flinch it: woman’s grief,

If there be any manhood left in him,

Will rouse his efforts to bespeak her peace—

I found myself her soul’s expositor

To clear the channel of its overflow.

“And when the thought is in one, when it springs,

Why, then, not let it spring? The world is not

So fill’d with thoughts that it can spare our own.

And if we startle folks, jog off the guise

Of their deceit, we spy them as they are.

Between souls thus discover’d, Edith deems

That love must flow; while friendship caught by craft

Is lost by confidence. I think her right.

Why not? We all when in our noblest moods

Crave homage for our souls’ nobility.

But what our souls are in themselves, who know,

Save as our rôles report us outwardly?

Did not divine hands form us as we are?

Who love us as we are, love higher things

Than those who love what earth would make of us.”

“My champion!” Edith cried; and waved her thanks,

With white sleeves fluttering from her shapely sides—

Ah me, a wing’d one sent to save my soul

Had scarcely stirr’d in me a greater joy.

XIX.

My mien must have reveal’d it. Like a lake,

Whose fogs unfold, when comes a genial sun,

Her moods unfolded to my sympathy;

And, brightly imaged in her nature’s depths,

I seem’d, at every turn, to face my own.

So new to me such views were, that I felt

As thrill’d as feels the savage maid, when first

She finds her own face in a stranger’s glass,

Then spell-bound lingers, learning of herself.

So wrapt, my wonder hung, all wistfully,

About that spirit bright. What meant it all?

I could not then believe,—I scout it yet,—

That mortals can afford to slight the souls

Reflecting theirs, who make them mind themselves

And prize the good they own, and dread the ill.

You smile, friend: yes; and often so would I.

My head would oft, made jealous of my heart,

Deny that reason ruled my impulses.

And oft my heart, to bear such weight of joy,

Would faint from too much feeling. I would ask

Could I be sane yet find my life so sweet?—

At least I would be sure; so like a friend

Who finds a long-lost friend amid a crowd,

And stares, and holds him at arm’s length, a time,

Ere clasping him with courage to his breast

That wellnigh bursts the while, I held her off,

This long-sought soul that mine had found a friend;

And did not dare to trust her as I would.

XX.

What struggles then were mine! Too cautious grown,

To dare to risk a fall, though but in love,

How would I brace my powers against her charms

That might unbalance me! How would my will,

That strove to master my reluctant mien,

Make stiff my every smile! or, were my heart

Too strong to be suppress’d, how would I thwart

And turn each glance that could reveal one glimpse

Of how I loved her, toward her sister first!

Unconscious Edith,—could she read deceit?—

’Twas all I dared to use. How could I else,

Poor fool, that then I felt myself to be,

Hide my infatuation!

XXI.

What of her?—

How could she know me when a mask I wore?

Was not her sister pleased, when pleasing me?

Did Edith not please me, when pleasing her?

And so for Alice only seem’d her care;

And Alice was a fair and flippant naught,

An empty echo only of my love.

The sweetness of the family all had gone

To fill the elder Edith.

Then alas,

Too late, I learn’d my error. How I chafed,

Kept back from midnight strolls for sake of Alice!

And jogg’d from tête-a-têtes to give her place!

Then with her left, inspired alone to wish

To be like her a dunce; and thus to be

Like her, in some way, Edith’s all-in-all.

XXII.

Nor could I hint this truth to Edith; nay.

Unselfish, all ethereal in her thought,

A disembodied soul had held less moods

Touch’d through the senses. One had sooner snared

With tatter’d nets of tow a wind of spring,

Or with his own breath warm’d the wintry air.

Her love’s regard in no way could be reach’d.

At times, I would essay philosophy,

Or try to freight her fancy’s wings with facts.

Like merest sand, flung off a nervous bird,

My pleas were shaken back.

She “There,” would cry;

“Some everlasting everybody’s law

Applied again to me! Nay, nay, this world

Would grind one’s very soul to common dust!”

XXIII.

“And what else are we?” turn’d I once to ask;

“Would God we all could free ourselves from laws;

But half our lives we spend in learning them;

And half in learning how to love them then.

And but in souls that learn life’s laws by heart,

Has wisdom, so it seems, a sway complete.”

“’Tis thus with earthly wisdom,” she rejoin’d;

“But earth is ruled by folly,—idiot child

Of freedom fetter’d. You may live the slave;

But I choose freedom!”

And, as then she left,

“You lawless,” thought I, “will you always prove

The water Undine of my wilderness,

All maddening, with strange metamorphoses,

My faint love thirsting to refresh itself?”—

XXIV.

Oft while I this would moot, she changed, and seem’d

A fount of laughter now that sprang within,

O’er-rill’d her lips and rippled round her guise,

The very train’s hem shaken by the flow.

“Nay, nay, but I shall trust you yet,” I thought;

“And still believe you good, and hold it true

That maids, like minnows, rarely show themselves

Till, caught and drawn from out the open sea,

They frisk in safety in some household pond!”

Like this, my moods moved on,—life’s usual way,

The mainspring sped by balanced contraries,

And every pulse, whose beating proves we live,

Anon with deathlike voids alternating.

One hour, my faith in her was like the sun,

The next, my doubt was lightless as the night.

All prefaced fitly that which you shall hear.

XXV.

I, once, recurring to my youth, had said

Of Elbert, that he soon, fulfilling plans

Long form’d, would join me here in Germany.

“Why,” Alice cried, “to think you know so well

Our Elbert!”

“Yours?” I ask’d.

“Ours,” Edith said,

“Ay, ay; our families have been friends for years.”

But spite her careless tone, her eyes appear’d,

Slipping through lashes long, to shun my own.

And why was this?—And why, too, had she flush’d?—

What subtle weapon had been used to cut

Beneath the surface of her mien, and bring

The heart-blood from its core?

Then I recall’d

How Elbert’s moods, of late, had hid themselves

In strange far mists of fancy.—Could it be

That Edith, she was his?—And he, my friend,

Was he the one then that had caged her love,

And placed it where my soul in reaching forth

Could sense but bars of chill indifference?—

I could not ask her nor her sister this;

Nor even Elbert’s now, for in the week

When first I met her, she had sail’d for home.

But soon, like worms that would not wait for death,

Fear-fretted jealousies clung round the form

Of dying hope that now prized Edith more,

To feel that Elbert too had prized her so.

XXVI.

A few days later, as we sat and talk’d,

He on us burst, and brought a sudden light

Illuminating her, and paling me,

Blanch’d, ash-like, in the flame of that hot flush

That warm’d her welcome. All my heart and breath

Seem’d sunk in silence like the buzzing bees

When autumn steals the sunlight from the flowers,

And frost seals down their sweets. I heard them talk

Like one who just has walk’d a glacier path

With boist’rous friends; then, stumbling, slips away,

Far suck’d through freezing fathoms down to death,

Yet hears the cruel laughter crackling still.

XXVII.

This hardly tuned my mood for Elbert’s glee,

When then we left the sisters. “Ah, good friend,

So glad to see you! Such a desert, life!

And friendship, such an oasis!—Your health!

Our dusty throats need clearing first, and then

Shall drafts drawn deeper clear our dusty souls.”

Thus led he, hurrying on from thought to thought,

Yet not one breath for Edith could he spare.—

Why not? Could he not trust my friendship yet?

Half anxious then, half curious to detect,

Though wary still of love so subtly hid,

My lips, bold-braced yet trembling at the deed,

Essay’d a note to touch him,—Edith’s praise.

XXVIII.

“She looks well,” said he, somewhat absently.

“She looks well!” cried I, half-way nettled now;

Should Edith be abused, forsooth, to show

What brutes men are who lose their trust! “She looks—

For what then do you take her? for a frame,

An empty effigy of human shape,

Like what a shopman hangs his gowns upon?—

Her soul is what I spoke of,—of her soul.”

“Her soul?” he said; “may be; but I, may be,

Have never seen it.”

“How?—this too!” I thought,

“A slight is it?—or triumph that he vaunts?”

He caught my feeling from my fever’d mien,

And words confused and few; and, warming then,

Made answer: “Norman, if I loved you less,

I more might love, and more might spare myself.

The thing my sister wrote, I deemed her whim;

Could not conceive it true, yet can it be?—

I swear, it staggers half one’s faith to find

A man, devoted to the aims you claim,

So little circumspect.”

What meant he now?

Could he believe that I had form’d a plan

To woo his Edith, knowing she was his?—

And could my sleepless nights, my troubled heart,

My prayerful deeds, my nature that he knew,

Be so misjudged, without some fault in him?—

“So little circumspect in what?” I ask’d.

And then with words that could but anger me,

“In what but choice of company?” he said;

“No more you think of study, duty, church,

But waste the whole day long with one like this!—

Nay, check me not. I understand my words.—

This actress, though right artless in her way,

This actress here, would play”—

“With me!” I cried;

“This ‘actress!’” and I know not what I said;

But yet recall what kept him forcing in,

“You err!”—“You do me wrong!”—“You know her not!”—

Wild words, the which he ended, saying then:

“Not such am I as you profess to be;

But had you common-sense, no piety,

You might perceive a farce, if not a fault:

A broad church yours will be then, when your mate,

Attracting toward the stage by charms you lack,

Will draw the sinner, while you draw the saint.”

XXIX.

Struck blind, I scarcely could have felt more stunn’d.

Was this the truth? An actress would she be?

Why had that sister of his not told me this?—

“Not told you this?” cried Elbert; “What? not told?

Ay, ay, I see.—She hoped that love, perchance—

It is a woman’s balm for every ill—

Might woo this Edith from her present life.

She knows her not.—And you—have you told her?—

Does Edith know your plans?”

“She must have known”—

I answer’d back; and then I check’d myself.

Did not she blush to hear that Elbert came?—

For fear was it, lest he should tell the truth?—

To me, her friend? to me, deceived, her dupe?

To me, whose love she might have known, yet knew

That all that she had seem’d was not her all?—

If she had meant deception, could my love

Survive the test?

Those watching death-beds, mark

That souls, when dying, ere above they spring,

Breathe deep, then pass away. And so with minds,

When come the deadliest woes. Down deep in thought,

I scarce had deem’d that aught from hell could roil

Such dregs of bitterness long undisturb’d.

XXX.

The fault, sigh’d conscience, had been all my own:

How safely might one sail the sea of life

If all his reckonings were but true to heaven!

Ah, siren-like, a rivalling earthly love

May lure to realms whose mountain heights are clouds,

Clouds warmly hued above a cold gray shoal,

Whose only outlines are the breakers’ caps,

Whose only stir, the fury of the storm.

And I, who now had learn’d the truth, what now?—

Should I turn back to aims I knew were safe?—

I swore to do it; yet I thought—and thrill’d—

Could I but hold her soul, but own herself,

Though all things else were lost, this gain were sweet!—

Were sweet, though all were lost? Why need this be?

All might be saved. Did I believe in God?—

That he could change a life through human means?

Might not her life be chang’d then?—What were I

But faithless wholly, did I try this not?

XXXI.

So, soon, to draw her thoughts out, baiting mine,

Some slur I dropt, suggested by a church:

It touch’d a theatre. “Extremes,” I said,

“Have met.”

“Extremes have met,” she said, “before!

I take your meaning. Elbert has disclosed—

Not what I am, but what I seem to be

To those who will not view me as I am.

You join their lists?—I hoped for better things.”

“But was it right to keep me ignorant?”

“I hoped it right,” she said, “to keep you wise.

What Elbert thought, I knew. With you, had hopes,

That she who might not seem so wholly wrong

Might better represent a class unknown,—”

“Without design, might represent amiss,”

I answer’d. “As for you, however class’d,

I fear no class could claim you, all in all.

For all rules have exceptions.”

“Take but rules

For this time,” said she. “Did you ever find

That ever, when the seers look forth through heaven,

They view there pews and pulpits?—Nay, not so:

Yet oft they note a stage and galleries,

All throng’d with white-robed hosts attendant there.

So these, you see, at times may hint of good.”

“They may,” I said, “but do they, as a rule?”

“Ah, as a rule,” she said, “they hint of life—”

“But mainly life to laugh at or to fear,”

I answer’d.

“When emotion swells and shrinks,

The spirit’s wings are moving,” she replied.

“And that art moves them most, which mirrors most

The life that is, and therefore is the truth.

So often have I heard my father say:

‘We read of truth who spell from nature’s page;

And art can best make out the meanings there;

For ’tis the artist’s thought that finds each form

A form of thought,—imagination’s glass

That views the infinite in the finite fact.

Here moves a man, you say. What see you?—man?—

Nay, nay; that guise material fashions there

The image only of his manliness.

And you can only know his life within,

As from the image you imagine it.

Yon little girl that skips beside the porch,—

I know her, love her, not, save as I pass

Behind that face to reach a region rare

Where dolls are sentient babes, and brothers kings.

And yonder maidens, musing in delight,

I know not, love not, till, in sacrifice,

My spirit seems to yield to their desires,

To wait a watchful servant unto them,

To move with motives that inspire their deeds,

To look through their own eyes and see their views,

And thrill with rhythm when their ear-drums throb;

Then, joining all with all, imagine thus

The movements of their hidden inner moods.

Thus too, through all of life, how know we more?

All things are fitful images alone,

Reflecting glory from the Absolute;

And he who can imagine from the part

What marks the whole, walks in the light of heaven.

Find then a life where every child becomes

Earth’s animated toy of manliness,

Each man the mass from which to mould a god,

And earth the pit whence all heaven’s wealth is mined,

You find for thought a life worth living for,

A life the artist gives us: it is he

Discerns a spirit always veil’d in shape,

A soul in man, and reason everywhere.’”

XXXII.

Ah, Edith, so I mused, an artist thou,

Thou art indeed! but not an actress, no,

Whatever may have train’d thee, save to tread

The stage of truth! and Elbert’s every act

Against my flinty confidence in her

Struck fire and flash’d, each time I met him now;

The more so, that each time I met him now,

In earnest, or to stir me to distrust,

He flutter’d like her fan at Edith’s beck,

Her silence fill’d with subtlest flattery,

Her vacant hours invaded with himself;

Till all my life, at last, appear’d a plot

To steal upon his absence, and then pluck

Love’s fruit which once his presence only brought.

XXXIII.

And so, henceforth, I less could welcome him.

How could I do it,—with his views of her,

Yet wooing her?—He wellnigh made me doubt

If I might not mistake her,—doubt I check’d,

Flush’d fiercely soon that Elbert’s deeds could hint

Thought so unworthy. When I spoke to him,

He laugh’d me off.

“Why, man, I like your friend,

And she likes me; and with the other sex

The more we like, sometimes, the less we love—

Or think we love. Do I deceive her, then,

In showing friendliness?—Why think you so?—

Forsooth, if beauty pleases me, I smile;

If gracefulness beguile me, gaze at it;

If wisdom awe me, offer my respect.

Good art I laud; with fancy, am a poet;

And with emotion, an enthusiast.

What then?—Am I a hypocrite?—How so?—

Must all our sympathy be personal?

Must one appropriate all that he would praise?

Is beauty such a flower, or is a man

So much a beast, that, having taste for it,

He needs must go and gorge it down?—Go to!—

I watch the fair thing; of its fragrance quaff;

Then leave for others. Edith knows this well;

For that, trust her.”

XXXIV.

But was it, as he claim’d?

Were both of them so wise?—Or would he now

By sheer sharp practice cut us two apart?

This more seem’d like him, and more anger’d me.

Was I a boy that he should foil me thus?

Yet what to do?—The more I question’d this,

The more I saw but only one true course.

Our aims—my own and Edith’s—differ’d much.

Yet knew I more than this. Our hearts were one

In all desires that had inspired these aims.

And if our lives and hearts could be but join’d,

Could not my love and hers, together put,

Outweigh such aims as would be hers alone?

Why not have faith in love, mine join’d with hers?

What power was mightier in the universe?

Why not have faith to trust this only soul

That ever I had met, to whom my moods

Could be unroll’d, assured of insight there

To read them rightly? Why, ’twas all decreed:

Her power to read my soul gave her the right

To know its love, whatever might be hers.

And were I but to speak the truth to her,

So tell her all, why fear the simple truth?

For I would say I loved her, not her aims.

If then she should prefer her aims to me,

It would be proof that she could love me not.

But if she should prefer me to her aims,

Then surely she could yield her wish to mine.

XXXV.

So, near the sunset of a summer’s day,

While walking by the lake within the park,

“I mean,” I breathed out cautiously, “to write

A tale of love; and I have plann’d the tale

To open here. In after time, perchance,

Those minds to whom it proves of interest

May love to linger here, recalling it.

Look now—this lake. To gain the full effect

Of palace, park, and yonder heaven unveil’d,

One, gazing downward in the water’s depth

Should note them wash’d of gross reality,

And—as in art—reflected. With this view

This tale of mine shall open. First of all,

Here, in the sunshine near us—at our feet—

Ay, in the water; ay, friend, here I mean—

Just underneath us,—mark you, mark you, there,

The hero, and, beside him, his ideal!”

XXXVI.

And when she saw us two there, “What?” she cried;

And then stood speechless; whereat I sped on,

Detailing all my plans and all my hopes:

How she, with soul so true and aim so high,

Might meet in them the mission meant for her,—

How all the wrongs of earth might be redeem’d

Through sacrificial deeds of such as we.

Still stood she silent. Then I spoke again:

“But think not, Edith, for my plans alone

I plead with you. I plead, too, for myself;

And tell my plans that you may know myself;

Not holding that I stand above you, friend.

Nay, nay; I oft feel worthy scarce to touch

Your fingers’ tips, or stand erect and taint

The level of the air you breathe in; nay,

I would not judge your life; would only crave,

When we have so much else in sympathy,

That holy state where two souls, else at one,

Would both be God’s.—Ah, could you thus be mine?”

XXXVII.

Her silence then was broken. “Well might I

Be proud to be thus yours. Who could not find

All meet for manhood, in your manliness?

But no, for you forget our different aims.

You never told me of these plans before.

And, Norman, now—no, no; for, through your church,

That fann’d some whim of his, left smouldering,

Some spark of doubt to ardent heresy,

My father suffer’d, lost his honor’d name,

His living, all; nor struggled, scrimpt, and starved

To leave his daughter ignorant of the cause.

And I?—no, no; it courses through my blood;

And you would hate my tastes, which cannot be

Like yours religious; no, for I was made

To be the minister of only art.”

“But, Edith,” urged I, “truth far more includes

Than most men deem who would deem all things theirs.—

Your tastes are not religious?—Mine are not,

If by religion you mean piety,—

Religion’s brew, froth’d bubbling to be seen.

But how is it beneath the surface, friend?

Down deep within?—is not the substance there?

I never seem’d religious half so much

As when at one with you.”

She but replied

To tell me how “her father’s legacy

Had been her sister, whom she must not leave.

For her sake, seeking means of livelihood,

She first rejected, then accepted what

Her spirit, spurning once, had learn’d to love;

As had her sister; and for both of them

Each hope, and joy, and all they thought of now,

Was bounded by the music of the stage.

Nor could my logic change this; nay,” she said,

“Not logic leads the artist on, but light.”

XXXVIII.

I heard in vain—I could not give her up.

I urged her still, still hoping her to swerve.

My slight of music, rousing her defence,

But proved my love too weak to rival it.

“My father oft,” she said, “would quote your Book;

Say ‘music marshall’d all the better life.

What else could sway the soul, yet leave love free

To think and choose and do?’—What different moods,”

She added, while before us play’d the band,

“These chords, we hear, arouse in different minds!

That maid may smile amid sweet dreams of love;

Her dark attendant dream of but her wealth;

That matron plan some fresh self-sacrifice;

And that spare fellow, twirling near her side

The soft mustache that downs his pursing lips,

Plan only how to hide their stingy look.

And thus all listen, musing different things;

And all, with conscious freedom, muse of them;

And yet one harmony controls them all,

Aroused or calm to match its changing flow.

What else but music frees the mind it rules?

‘Good-will to man,’ was first proclaim’d in song.”

“Good-will,” I said, “but follows will for good.”

“And will for good will come,” she answer’d back.

“As in the older advent, so to-day,

Would I believe in power behind sweet song

To hold the universe in harmony,

Expelling evil and impelling good

Through all the limits of created life,—

A spirit’s power!—What though we mortals here

With eyes material cannot see the hosts

That issue forth in forms that while they move

Awake around us echoes everywhere!

We spring to spy them, but we only hear

Their rustle in the trees by which they pass;

Or where, with dash of water o’er the rocks,

They leave the sea or linger in the rill.

At times they rest a moment on the earth,

When twilight hides them, sighing gently then,

And lull to dreams, with tones in sympathy,

The lowly insect and the lowing herd.

At times, amid the winds that rise at morn,

They sweep across the land and startle sleep

From nervous birds that twitter in their track;

And, now and then, in clouds that close the sky,

They bound adown the rift the lightning cleaves

Till sunlight overhead pours through again.

A spirit’s power has music; and must rule

Unrivall’d still as far as ear can heed,

Or reason hark behind it. All the chords

Of all things true are tuned by hands divine,

And thrill to feel the touch!—

But sounds may rise

In souls untuned, like harp-strings when they snap,

Or, though more soft than dreamland breezes are,

May fright like forests when the dark leaves blow

About the solitary murderer—

And sweetest airs to sweetest moods may bring

But foretastes vague of harmonies on high.

The school-girl hears her comrade’s ringing laugh,—

’Tis but the key-note trill’d before the tune.

The maiden heeds her lover’s mellow plea,—

’Tis but the gamut rill’d ere surge the chords.

The dame is moved by tones that cheer her home,—

And they perchance prelude the theme of heaven.

For even blows of toil and battle-guns

May be the drum-rolls of the martial strains

That rise to greet the glory yet to come.

Ay, wait we long enough, we all may hear

In all things music; far above, at last,

May hear the treble thrilling down from heaven,

And e’en from hell no discord in the jar

That only thunders back a trembling bass.”

Thus Edith spake; while I, left lonely all,

Beheld her, ardent for her art, a cloud,

Aglow by dawn, then drawn away, away.

XXXIX.

I said, I know not what; but far too proud,

Intoxicated though I was by love,

To let her view the folly of my fall,

I said not all I felt; but what I felt,

Beneath the first fierce humbling of the storm,

Floods o’er my memory yet with half the woe

That overwhelm’d me then. Am I, I thought,

So strong in love, and waiting long for it,

And always true to it, to be outweigh’d

By mere brute chaff of manhood, on the stage

Or in the pit? I swore ’twas ever so

With all her sex. Worth never weigh’d a straw.

A very satyr could outwoo a sage.—

Weak woman!—yet she must be weak—in brain

Or body. Better to be weak in brain!

She then, perchance, might serve a husband’s thought,

And wisdom’s voice might rule the family!

But were her moods too strong to serve his thought,

She might serve that in him which could not think.—

To wed she-brains, a man should seek to be

Commended as a fool!

XL.

And then I stopp’d:—

Here raved I, jealous of this fool alone,

This coming clown.—To think of him I blush’d—

But what of her?—of Edith?—She would live,

With faintest smile, to fascinate—ah—crowds!

The rabble would be ravish’d but, forsooth,

To clap with crazy hands the rarer air

Wherein she moved. For them, her voice would sound,

With every trill so swaying all who heard

That thronging cheers would thunder in response!—

Her form, so sweet, would plead till foulest lives

Would feel how pure were joys beyond their reach,

And long for things their touch could never taint!

My sweet, sweet love!—

But, moving at her side,

Should I be aught?—Alas, I could but seem—

Beside the gilded glory of the stage,

Beside the loud-mouthed suitors of the show,

An unwhipt cur, to wait at some backdoor,

And jar with signalling bark the echo sweet

Of all-the-town’s applause. She mine would be

But as the sun, whose flaming brow has touch’d

The morning sea that flushes far and near,

Is thine, O trembling globulet of spray,

Because, forsooth, his image, glass’d in all

The sea and world, is glass’d, as well, in thee!—

Fool, fool! yet dear, dear folly!

These my thoughts;

My words—all I recall now—came at last

When slowly sauntering back we reach’d her home.

“Would God,” I sigh’d, “the time might come for us,

When, looking toward the future now so lone,

We two should need no more to say good-night.”

“Good-bye,” she said, and left me in the gloom.

XLI.

Then was it, as I turn’d about, by chance,

I came on Elbert; and my whole soul rose

To dash at him its briny bitterness.

Is he here, thought I,—he to whom, alas,

The very potion, poisoning all my hopes,

Will prove the sparkling nectar of success,

And bring good cheer, though bringing death to me?—

Then let him share it!—Still, my wiser pride

The purpose check’d, and balancing rash hate

With hateful prudence, closed his opening smile

But with a frown that would not welcome him.

With any truth to self, so argued I,

I could do nothing else; nor could abide

A town that held him. So I left the town;

And so these friends of mine, so prized of old,

And I had parted,—not as friends would part,

With love’s high zenith fever’d like the skies

Where eve has rent from them a fervid sun,

Then cool’d and calm’d in starlight sprinkled thick

Until the sun come back. We crack’d apart,

Like icebergs drifting southward, join’d no more,

And sunn’d alone the while they melt away.

XLII.

No need is there that here I should recall—

I would not if I could—my suffering.

From Elbert, best of friends, my nobler self,

My soul of virtue and my heart of love,

What cause could rightly tear me?—Asking this,

My heart rose up from reason to rebel;

Indignant to have found a theory

That dared to hold an innate impulse down;

While will, caught there, betwixt the heart and head,

Each charge would bear, and yet forbear to act.

And Edith, peerless Edith! how my soul

Would struggle to forget her! Struggling thus,

How fair her form, conjured by raving thought,

Would rise, a Venus o’er my sea of sighs,

Till I would bend, and seem to plead anon

To be forgiven for forgetting her!

And then, how would I tear her traits apart;

And pluck the petals from each budding grace

And hope its naked stem some trace would show,

Too void of beauty, to suggest again

The bloom and sweetness of the life I loved.

Alas, but while I wrought for this alone,

How would her virtues but the more unfold!—

Like God’s own glory flowering in the skies,

That those detect who would not find it there,

But, when they test the stars, have dealt with light.

XLIII.

I wrought and rested; it was all in vain.

My highest consolation was the hope

That hard-earn’d sleep might hold me long in dreams

Where evermore my soul might with her dwell,

Though every morn I seem’d yet more alone.

Awake, asleep, throned constant o’er my heart,

I served this image all intangible,

This photographic fantasy of truth,

This fairy nothingness of vanish’d fact,

A shape to love, minute yet mighty still,

To senses nothing, but to spirit all.

XLIV.

Thus lived I, triumph’d over; as are clouds

Whereon the sun sits throned; all bright are they,

And bright beneath them is the sunset sea.

In splendid serfdom to its love, my soul,

That shone with kindling glory, thence beheld

A kindling glory shine from all about.

No whim of mine was this; it fills my creed;

The graft of all true love regenerates.

Those in whom love is born are born anew,

And all their family of fancies then

Bear family traits; those loving, and those not,

Being wide apart as rainbows and the rain.

I might be superstitious, but to me

The temple of my life’s experience

Had been less sacred, had it held no shrine

Whereon to heap sweet tokens of my love.

And all that loom’d around seem’d holier now,

Illumed by holy lights of memory.

Nor long was it ere I had grown to share

In all the love of all with whom I met;

And oft, too, thus invoking sympathy,

My wishes wrought like witches, and conjured

The thing they wish’d for: sympathy would come.

XLV.

And so my moods, thus moving on, at last

Found special pleasure in a friendship form’d

Upon a day of tramping through the Alps.

Her name was Grace, and gracious was her mien;

And graces everywhere attended her

Through jars and joys of journeys afterward.

So splendid never as my Edith; never

So striking, so alluring, or so shunn’d;

Her brilliance would not dim a rival’s eyes,

Nor beauty shade another’s face with frowns.

One saw in her a modest, model maid,

A woman loved by women; and with men

A presence, mellow-lighting like the moon;

Yet could she shed no light when came my storms,

As now they came full often. Then it seem’d

Her very mildness made her moods too dull

To penetrate the clouds that cover’d mine.

XLVI.

“It must be lonesome here for one like you,

A stranger-land, indeed, here,” would she sigh.

“Why could we not, church people, day by day,

Have converse here, and thus live more at one?”

When hearts hold secrets, even love that comes,

And comes in crowds, will bring the prying soul

Full drive to spring them open. How I shrank

To meet with those with whom my soul could find

No source of sympathy beneath the sound

Produced when tongue and teeth and lips combine

To mouth one shibboleth! A fate like this

Foretoken’d only, made me well nigh faint

As feels a soldier, falling at his post,

With heart shell’d out and emptied of the soul.

I could but find excuses, partly real

And partly feign’d, the fringe of ready whims.

XLVII.

She startled echoes from my inmost soul

By words that named my “life-work.”

“Yes,” I said;

“We all should sympathize. All own one lord;

All wait beside one shore; all watch one tide.—

So too do snipes and snails! and so do souls

That yet shall rule in heaven ten towns and one.

Souls differ, Grace; and John from James, as well

As both from Judas.—Judas lingers too.”

“So many,” sigh’d she, “sell their Christ, and think

Souls rich, that but receive suggestions rich

From art or——”

Had regard for Edith, now,

Made me, at last, a champion of art?—

“However or wherever plied,” I said,

“Real power for good owns good enough to claim

Some courtesy from Christian charity.

If I but fling a stone in yonder pond,

Wherever it may fall, it stirs the whole.

So if I throw out thought for mind or heart,

Through art or through religion, each may move

The whole man thus, and move him for his good.”

“Ah, but,” she breathed, with slight dogmatic stress,

“A simple woman, I would move his heart,

Through love, as Christ too did; not so?”

“Do this,”

I said, “you do but what is woman’s right;

And none about you will dispute the right.

But ask me not to limit thus the Christ.

How dare I?—if our churches teach the truth,

If He incarnated the sum of life

And spirit of all good,—his holiness

His wholeness, and His perfectness, the proof

Of what He was? Nor dare I limit those

Who follow Him.—Why may they not live His,

Not aiming here nor there, but everywhere

To make the most of all God meant them for.

And things there are that art can do for man

To make him manlier. Not the senseless rock

Is all it fashions into forms of sense;

But senseless manhood, natures hard and harsh,

Great classes crush’d, and races driven to crawl

Till all their souls are stain’d with smut and soil,—

More human seem these when the hands of art

Have grasp’d their better traits and hold them forth.

And men who see these better traits, and see

The tender touch of art that holds them forth,

Behold a beauty never else beheld;

And all their hearts beat more humanely while

They heed the plea of these humanities.

And so, I think, although the wilderness,

At times, a John in camel’s hair may need,

There open too, in ways of life less wild,

More ways, where love may plead in guise more soft.

In short, as long as one may choose his course,

’Tis best we do what each can do the best.”

XLVIII.

“Oh, you perplexing!” cried she; “not for me,

For your brain! Tell, pray, where it rummaged last,

To catch these cobwebs?—I have seen them, yes;

These halls are full of them, and libraries,

Old musty things!—But, Norman, soberly,

This German text is bad for eyesight, yes;

And half I doubt—Come, tell me, tell the truth,

Do you see clearly aught that you can do?”

“Why so?” I ask’d; “do you?”

“Why not,” she said,

All serious now, “do what shall yield life’s day

The most of glory at its evening hour?—

The sun sets brightest after days of storm.”

“What, always?” ask’d I; “are you sure of this?

I know true faith that mainly aims to rid

Our present life from fears of future ill.

To it what need of storms, if sunshine here

May best prepare one for the future calm?

That future is eternal; even so

How can we gauge th’ eternal save by time?

How can we judge of joy that will not end,

Save by our own, if ours would only last?

What is it to be blessèd, if not this,—

To find our process of becoming blest

Made permanent, our young weak wings of faith

Full fledged and flying by habit?—and if so,

Heaven’s habits are form’d here. Suppose a youth,

That, by and by, he may enjoy much wealth,

Act miserly,—what gains he by and by?—

Much wealth, perhaps; but, holding with it, too,

The miser’s moods, establish’d now as traits,

Incorporated modes of all his life,

He with them holds what most unfits the soul

To use wealth, or enjoy it. So on earth

When avarice, aim’d for heaven, makes man a monk,

What can he gain thereby, save monkish moods,

Become establish’d in him now as traits.

Incorporated modes of all his life?

But, holding these, the soul must with them hold

What most unfits it to enjoy—not here,

In any sphere at all,—a life of love.”

XLIX.

“You surely would not mean,” she ask’d and paused,

“That you could throw aside your hopes? your vows?

Your life-work?—seek enjoyment?”

“Ah,” said I,

“Enjoyment is the man’s most heartfelt praise

To Him that fram’d his being. What should I,

A child of God, do here but live God’s life?—

Which is not now, nor then, but evermore.

My soul must thrive the best, as best I make

My now, eternal; my eternal, now.

So when a storm comes, let me bar it out;

And, braced against the present ill, grow strong;

And when the sunshine, let me open wide

To that which makes all nature grow more sweet.

Thus, realizing in my earthly state

The aim of heaven, why do I praise Him less

Whose life is that of heaven, than those who wear

The guises of that slattern of the soul,

Asceticism, shuffling toward far good,

Slipshod and snivelling?”—

“Now, that goes too far!”

Cried Grace. “Do I do this?—Ah, but I know

A man so moody!—Own it. Were I you,

I just would set to work. To work off whims,

The best way, say they, is to work them out;

One hand at work is worth ten heads that shirk.”

“You find me moody!” sigh’d I; “and complain;

Deem moods not meet. Oh, no they prove we feel!—

Nor pious they: they prove we think!”

L.

And yet,

I could but blame myself; so fain to draw

This gentler soul from her still streams of life

Toward waves thus fiercely dash’d about my own!

You know, though, how it is: our thought, like light,

Opposed, will vaunt itself; and brightest play,

Glanced off from things it does not penetrate.

So, more to shock her than for sympathy,

My thought play’d round the surface of her life:

It had been shaped so—to so smooth a thing—

I burn’d to warp it of complacency.

Oft, though unconscious of the least mistruth,

I feign’d a fall in fancied depths of ill,

And mock’d that I might hear her call me thence;

And learn’d therein to envy some the rake.

For what a charm it were to hear—not so?

That is, if one were vicious, through and through—

Such pleas for love from lips that aye were pure?

The very depth of one’s unworthiness

Would whet such relish for a thing so strange!

LI.

But weeks and months went by, in which she fill’d

A certain void in life; and, every eve,

We parted for the night made better friends.

Once, ending thus, the pleasures of the day,

We chanced upon a path where, sauntering too,

Lo, Elbert enter’d and encounter’d us.

At first scarce friendly, after divers tests,

And in the new light of my life with her,

His older love return’d with oldest warmth:

“To think so thin a fancy,” he exclaim’d,

“As last I found you folded in, should screen

Our genuine hearts, a moment, each from each!”

LII.

The fancy thin!—I let him keep his word;

I would not argue.—Still, with care not loath

To guard some credit yet for having sense,

I hinted at the truth,—how I had changed,

And how had changed my thoughts about myself,

About my life-work. “For that fancy, friend,

That fancy thin my own true self reveal’d.

If spray it were, it left a constant sea

That heaves and heaves. With moods that move like mine,

So madden’d by traditions, calm’d by dreams,

Content scarce ever, till at hazard dash’d

Through ways that lead to sheer uncertainty,

Where fancy more may seek than matter shows

In things that are but matter,—what am I

For life-work such as priesthood, sure in creeds

And sureties for the soul, whereon may lean

All weaker faith, with warrant not to bend?”

LIII.

Then Elbert laugh’d. “Ah, were you but a bow,

Your bending most would shoot most.—Not a priest?

A man alone?—You yet a brother are

To many a soul that sails the sea of life,

Where oft the horizon trembles with the change

Of wind and wave; and hope, too hale, oft mourns

Fair promises, like skies that fade in fog.

A man alone?—And yet the moods of man

May make men love us for our manliness,

Who draw them, Christ-like through our sympathy,

Toward self,—God’s image here, and thus toward Him.”

“But draw them how?” I cried. “Woe me, I stand,

A poet born, who deem’d his Muse had fled;

That time and trouble had a stone roll’d up,

Her sweet form sealing in their sepulchre.

And yet one breath of love could rouse the dead.

All day the subtle spirit haunts me now,

Thrill’d through and through to sound her sweetness forth.”

“Then let it sound!” he said. “Rare rest it were,

Were all one’s recreation freshen’d thus;

And slumber serenaded by the Muse.”

“One’s recreation! slumber!” I exclaim’d;

“Is mind a deep that wells with most of thought

When void the most? I tell you none can draw

A truthful inspiration save from truth.

The poet’s ken may people heaven like clouds,

All phantom shaped, and splendid as their sun;

But all his fairest forms were vapors first

That heaven drew, mist-like, from the earth beneath.

Thought decks itself in holiday attire,—

Turns fantasy,—to expend the inertia large

Of large reserves of philosophic force,

Forced into play, the night’s dream opening where

The day’s work closes.”

“Close work thus,” he said;

“And all the measures of your verse may show

How sweet can be the echoes waked anon

By labor’s ringing anvil.”

“Nay,” I sigh’d.

“Such work would bring too much of sleep,—no dreams.

When born with souls like harps the Muse would play,

What better can men do than toil to keep

Their thoughts and feelings close in tune with truth?

For this will tax them wholly. They, who try,

With those few strings that fate has given to them,

To play all parts of all the orchestra

Will help the play of no part. We are men;

And straight and narrow must our pathways be.

If, Adam-like, we would be gods, we fall.

Not given to mortal is the life supreme,

In naught unbalanced, laden light in naught,

Existence evermore at equipoise,

Complete with that which on itself depends.

Oft, who his worth would double, nothing does

Except to break the back of worth that was,

While doubled burdens fall to doubled waste.

We men should humbler be, and pray to heaven

To have horizons hanging nearer us.

Our views too broad unfit us for the earth,

Yet fit us not for loneliness divine,—

The wide chill chaos, back behind the stars.”

LIV.

Thus would I talk, and trouble Elbert much,

For he would rouse me in his rattling way:

“Why, Norman, you are hedging all our hopes.

Do not you pity moods that dote on you?

If, man, your metaphysics be not yet

Beyond all physics, pray you, cure yourself;

Be more material; or material powers

Will alienated grow, and so forget

And count you out in all their reckonings;

And you who are of earth, will earth own not;

And you who would be heaven’s, will heaven own not.

To own yourself and only own yourself,

Is worse than serfdom that has earn’d a smile,

Though but from wrinkling cheeks of sham good-will.”

LV.

Then, through my gloom exploring for its cause,

His thought would light on Edith. He was right;

Perhaps less right, grew garrulous of Grace.

For deeming love’s return my only hope,

And, seeking this, resolved, as well, to find it,

My slightest flush could furnish him a glow

As bright to light his pathway as the day.

Of course I could deny it; say I held

No key to spring the latch of love like hers.

Our lips, but parting e’en to speak of love,

Infringe on Cupid; and, before they shut,

Some tingling arrow of that jealous god

Will make them drop all soberness.

He laugh’d:

“Now say you never saw the sea, for waves;

Or stars, for twinkling; or the trees, for leaves;

But tell me not, you never saw the heart

That bosom heaves; nor ever saw the play

Of faith and freak within that twinkling eye;

Nor ever saw the spirit when the smile

That breaks in laughter shakes the form aside.

Come, friend, I know you better. Say you err;

Or, by my soul, I never read you yet.”

“And more,” said I; “she is not my ideal.”

He laugh’d again: “Most men who court ideals

Have first their idol; and, the false god fell’d,

Hoard then the fringe that dangled on its train,

And spend their lives in hunting other trains

To match but forms and colors of the first.

It strikes me, friend, that all things truthful grow.

E’en love outgrows the fashion of its youth:—

The world whirls on apace; and different hues

Turn toward the noonday-sun. No dawn returns.

What form or color robes the infinite?—

Yet aught to worship matches that alone.

So look you less for worship, than for worth.

You need a mate, friend; not a mystery.”

“A mate,” I said, “but she for whims could waive

The truth whereto was anchor’d all my soul.”

LVI.

Still Elbert parried me: “To hear you prate

Of truth—with women!—Why, you tried that once,

With Edith, not so?—and she liked it, eh?

Herself had love for that same truth?—What then?—

How very strange, when yesterday she pass’d,

She craved no more of it.”

“She pass’d?” I cried.

“Ay, ay,” said he; “while you, so wrapp’d in Grace,

Walk’d near, and noted nothing. How she turn’d!—

Then spoke of ‘haste, such haste, she could not stay’;

And bade me ‘not to tell’ you.—Thus, you see,

I keep my word; I promised nothing though.”

At this, I blush’d; it but encouraged him.

“This flame of sympathy you deem’d so bright

Extinguish’d was—you may have thought by me.

If so, I tell you, friend, ’twas lightly done.

I but outblew you; and the moral is:—

True flames, these women flicker with the wind.

But use you breath enough, their natures yield.

Yet blow for their sakes, not for your ideals.

One seldom finds a sweetheart sweet enough

To love her suitor’s pinings for mere whims.

Nay, they alone our all-in-all would be;

And so are jealous of our male ideals.

Then, too, they are creative less than we,

And cling more to the creature, love and serve

Embodied life that may be seen and felt.

You doubt me?—Test it.—Read that rhyme you wrote,

Inspired by fancy.—Say so;—still they hint.

‘Ah, this was she, or she, whom once he loved.’

It may be, Grace does waive your love of truth.

If so, ’tis better; more you seem her own.”

“More likely,” cried I, “I and all my truth

Seem like champagne,—a thing that pops and shocks,

But yet enlivens when the hour is dull.”

“She likes the shocking,” said he. “Know you not

Most maids love mastery? and the closest cling

To those who show the strength to hold them fast?

Full many a suitor, when he wins his love,

Will treat her merely like some petted puss,

Caress, then cuff her, till she yield at last,

Won solely through his wondrous wilfulness.

If one defer to her, she pities him;

And names him friend, because she feels him frail.

Her favorite cavalier seems less a friend,

At first, than foe who stays the brunt in time

To seem to save her when she seems to fall.”

“And should make him fall,” cried I. “’Tis not strange

Such onsets numb her senses! Heaven preserve

The world from women rear’d to feel but weak,

Whose whole experience, nurtur’d not to think,

Unfolds in passions pert of wishes dwarf’d,

Afraid of truth and dodging to deceit!

Let loose from home, their thing that ought to think

Is dry and hollow as a sounding-board

Behind a tongue that, like a weather vane,

Creaks with the windy scandal of the town

Till endless malice make one’s ear-drum ache,

At one spot hammer’d sore, and o’er and o’er,

With humdrum gossip of surrounding naught.

Small gain are they, to crown our courtships grand,

Prinked out with flowers and flattery! Wise man;

Flowers draw the bee, and flattery the fool.

One stings; the other—Laugh not, Elbert, nay,

You know it well, what friendship craves; and these

Light, simpering women, testing manhood’s woof

By worthless nap that tickles their vanity,—

O I shall wait some coming woman, I,

Who needs no suing since in soul we suit;

Nor ruling either.—Love shall rule us both.”

“You true Pygmalion,” cried he, “make a maid!—

But all maids grow to us, when wedded once;

For practical, they are, far more than men,

And bow to powers that be. Though caught, like fish,

Through bait they crave not ere men tender it,

They cleave to love once offer’d them; nor turn,

Like male-friends, clinging—true as iron, forsooth—

To each new stronger magnet! Were they thus,

Our homes might hardly hold our rivals there.

Accept the facts, friend; in this world of reals,

Ideals must give way. So look to Grace,—

Despite your protest, your true mate; and love

In maids like her is limitless when won.

You like her, too; now, now”—

LVII.

And so we talk’d.

I never thought it meant much; for we talk’d

Of all things, almost; and, in play, at times,

Would I indulge in hopes that he was right.

Once too, far up in clouds, my fancy feign’d

To question if her friends, or she, would wish

My calling to be hers. I scarce had dream’d

Of Elbert’s giving weight to whims like this.

Yet after that I mark’d him much with Grace;

But naught surmised until, one time, he said:

“All right, my Norman; I have talk’d with her;

All but to tell her why I talk’d with her;

And with her parents talk’d, and now they all

Agree in praising plans of life like yours;

These latter actually sighing oft,

‘Would we but had a son for work like that!’

So, friend, your way is clear.”

LVIII.

But was it clear?—

So sure was it, that I could pluck this fruit?

If sure, so sure the Eden open’d not

To tempt, as well as bless me?—Could it be

That love could yet be mine?—The hope seem’d sweet;

Yet strange!—Why strange?—The change?—

Seem’d all change so?—

Yet marriage?—Why did mortals marry then?—

For love, they said, for love. And what was love?

What more than liking well?—Whom liked I so;

And all in all, and always?—Edith?—What?—

And liked her calling?—If I liked not that,

I liked not her, not wholly. If not her,

Then liked I no one wholly; and my will

In love, as in all other earthly states,

A choice must make,—take one of different boons,

And all imperfect. Why should not my love

Serve thus my judgment? Grace could stand this test,

And life with one like her so sweet could be!

LIX.

I thought; but all my thinking stirr’d but thought

Until, one time, I mused of other days;

How once, and at the merest hint of love,

My younger blood, like some just conquering host

That trembling hope bears on, would bound through veins

That thrill’d and thrill’d while shook each trodden pulse;

How, hot as deserts parch’d by swift simoons,

And wild as forests fell’d by sudden blasts,

My frame would glow and bend at every breath

That tidings bore me of the soul I loved.

Love Grace did I?—How then had love been tamed!

Mere self-control was it, that now, grown strong,

Had broken in, at last, that bounding blood,

And held the rein to joy?—Ah, self-control,

The rest rheumatic of a zest grown old,

It came with time; but mine had come from care.

Cold self-control, the curse of northern climes,

The artful despot of the Arctic heart,—

Before my summer scarce had warm’d me yet,

Was it to freeze me with its wintry clutch

Of colorless indifference? chill and check

The springs of love till still’d in ice-like death?

Woe me! I sigh’d; but then, with nobler cause,

More nobly moved, I mourn’d that older love.

It aye had come from regions far and pure,

From sacred heights of dream-land and desire,

And trailing light like Moses from the mount,

With one hand clasping mine, one pointing up

To something earthly, yet more near the sky.

It aye had thrill’d the throbbing veins it near’d

And made my brow flush proudly as the boor’s

When king’s hands knight him, and he bears away

Ennobled blood forever.—My mood though—

This lax-limb’d, loitering, sisterly regard,

So cold, so calm, so cautious,—what was this?—

To call it love my spirit could have swoon’d,

Shrunk like some parent’s when he first has found

His fair babe’s brain to be a gibbering blank.—

And then, down underneath my deep despair,

Where heaved a sigh that loosen’d all my soul,

Like some sweet kiss of sudden death that draws

To sudden bliss, when men to heaven are snatch’d

From all the roar and rage of war, there came

One hope for Edith;—and my shaken powers

Lost hold of Grace forever!

LX.

Still would doubt

Survive, and question if, when off my guard,

In fancy rampant, I had Grace deceived

As I had Elbert? Could it be, indeed,

That I, who wish’d it not, had won her love?

And if so, what?—The problem wore me thin.

My very wits, indeed, seem’d whittled off

To point and probe it.

Strangely was it solved.

I dropp’d a vague surmise,—how two “should act,

In case one loved, and love were not return’d.”

She arch’d her answer with so rare a blush,

That all my doubts dissolved; and, catching truth

From hers contagious, like a boy confused,

All fused in frankness bubbling o’er the brim,

I blurted out about my older love;

To root it out would root out love itself,

And not to do so, leave none else a place.

“I love not you!” she cried, with look so changed,

My weight of shame had sunk me through the floor.

But, driven to words, like one some startle shocks,

I stammer’d “Elbert!”—and stood shock’d in truth;

For had I wrench’d it from her bodily,

Scarce redder had her flushing brow repell’d

My wresting rudely such a secret thence.

At one bound then my honor had return’d.

A bandit had I been, to force the spring

That lock’d her secret—but had spied her soul!—

And back to right it brought me. “Pardon, Grace,”

I breathed, then hush’d: With strange and holy power,

New-welling love seem’d fountain’d in my heart,

And shower’d and stream’d through all my thrilling veins;

And then I check’d it. She was not for me,

Alas, unworthy! She was Elbert’s—all!

“Grace,” breathed I, “you are doubly now my friend,

And doubly dear, since Elbert’s dearest friend;

Thank Heaven that you have loved so true a man.

I go to him.”

“Nay not to him,” she urged.

But I, though yielding to her, as it seem’d,

Made loose the letter for the sake of spirit;

Nor promised aught, unless he loved her not.

LXI.

But Elbert, found, the whole sweet truth confess’d,

With all his love for her so satisfied,

And all the sacrifice for me so clear,

I honor’d God the more from this, the hour

I found His honor so encased in man.

“Nay, thank me not,” he said. “You brought me her.

Nor did I dream I loved her, ere I sought

Your cause to plead; and, aim’d for what it wills,

My will is wilful. There, you know the whole.”

And soon, as if he fear’d our former strife

Were not yet still’d, “And you, perhaps, were right

With Edith, too,” he said; “at least, were safe.

Hold still to truth. It yet may save us both.”

LXII.

And then I learn’d—as many a friend has learn’d—

Who with them strove my joy for them to share,

How much more joy was theirs, when theirs alone.

But this could scarcely turn my thought aside

From self, left lonelier now than e’er before.

I strove to drown my grief in work. The work

Was but a worm’s that eats from day to day

The morrow’s bed, at morning dragging on

A soulless trunk, through troubles void of hope.

My soul to startled sighs was roused alone

When Edith cross’d my vision. Then my mood,

As gloom would gather round again, would grieve

To think, in sorting souls, fate bungled so,

And let our traits be judged of by our trades,—

The dusty imprint of the things we touch.

“As well,” cried I, “to judge of winds of heaven,

By bogs they brush, or fogs they bear away!

We two that so could trust each other’s hearts,

Why should we not join hearts, and leave to them

The hands? If wiser than the world we were,

Why should we act, forsooth, in worldly ways?

What need that all should don the uniform

That fits men for the social march of fools?

What need?—Ah me,” I thought, “all need, indeed,

If one wish influence in the world or church.—

Or church!—Must it then crucify the soul

To save appearances? the body? form?

The Christ gave up all these to save the soul.

’Tis treason when His churches join the world,

And courting smiles from bigotry appeased,

And grinning hell that holds the whole its own,

Preach up the crucifixion of the soul

To save the body, save the outward form.

A church is His no more, whose rites or creeds

Keep souls untrue to truth within that shows

God’s tempering there, the touch that makes man man.”

LXIII.

I swore it should not be, it could not be;

No life could so be cleansed,—by wringing thence

The blood that warms the heart; no face made pure

By turning pale the blush of beauty cast

By shadows where sweet love goes in and out.

Love, love should never be a slave, but free.—

“Come, Edith!”—Then I question’d, Would she come?—

Nay, not to my life. Mine must go to hers.

But this, mine could not,—could do nothing there;—

And would not!—Whence then sprang my call to her?—

If not from reason, from my wish, forsooth.—

My wish for what?—for her?—as now she was?—

Not so; but rather might be.—Whence then sprang

This ‘might be’?—whence, alas, but from myself,

As I kept moulding it within my soul?

Why rail’d I, then, against the church and world?—

Not these alone, but I would have her changed.

These all but echoed back my own soul’s voice;

And yet, augmented by the voice of all,

In heeding them, I heeded not myself,

But something greater, grander than myself.

For if a single man may image God,

Then many men who join their partial gifts

And parted wisdom,—till the whole become

Not merely human but humanity’s,—

May watch our ways and keep them circumspect

With eyes that often wellnigh stand for His

Who still more fully in mankind than man

Rules over truth in each through truth in all.

Why term me slave, then, when I serve my kind?—

Through serving it, I best may serve, as well,

My godlier self!—Let general thought take shape;

What better can incarnate sovereignty?

What stir to nobler dreams or grander deeds?

The soul in reverence may kneel to it,

Yield all to it.—So may my neighbors reign,

And I may be their slave, yet own myself;

And deify, while I defy my pride!

LXIV.

A new conversion, say you?—call it so.

The truth converts one oft, if he be true.

The true man loves his own, and fights for it;

And, since his own is little and God’s is large,

He often fights to fall. Yet ranks on high

Now throng with heroes, whose too slender blades

Were wielded but for slender causes once;

Nor sheathed, ere flying shatter’d from their grasp,

Till truth they fought had proven too strong for them.

Then, when they knew themselves, and knew the truth,

And knew its mercy too, they loved the truth,

And came to be its champions, evermore.

So now with me: rebellious though I was,

Rebellion wrought my rescue. Truth triumphant

Enlisted duty for a loyalty

That made all life seem lordlike. Work began.

Thank God, we all have heads above our hearts;

And, if we let them reason with us well,

They rule us for our best.

LXV.

What Elbert wish’d,

When first I cross’d the sea, was more than wrought.

I brought back not alone what books could give,

But in myself a sense of others’ wants,—

For in my heart a wondrous wealth of love;

Ay, wealth it was; though, like the ore in mines,

It only proved that that which lived had died.

What though my life, complete with her alone,

Seem’d always rent? a weight of broken quartz

That only gleam’d where it had fractur’d been?

That weight was wealth that sparkled back to greet

Each glance of sunshine.

Thus I found that love

At times may prove a treasure even dead,

If dead enough in spirits yet alive.

Mine, thwarted so, had made me more the man

That Elbert wish’d,—a man for all mankind;—

No special pleader for a special class

Whose grasping greed crowds out the general good;—

But one who pleads for all fair rights for all.

Nor would I bide content with utter’d words.

Too often, these, when widest welcomed, wake

But echoes brief as breath from which they spring.

I craved the mission less of roaring waves

Than of the rare wrought shells that, evermore,

When storms are gone, suggest their living presence.

LXVI.

Anon it happen’d that through others’ hands

My tales, pour’d forth to voice my loneliness

In echoing talk and song, were framed in plays,

And then were phrased in music; and, in time,

Arose like sighings of a human wind

Above a human sea, while, all about,

There swept, like surgings of a rhythmic surf,

The shifting scenes and singers of the stage.

And, chief of all the singers in those throngs,

Who best of all could body forth the truth

That most of all had seem’d to be inspired

By Edith’s influence, while in all I thought

Her love had ever lured expression on,

Was her own self.

LXVII.

But love outstrips my tale.

Erelong, from shores where surged that surf of song,

Like gems the ocean casts upon its coast,

About me lay a growing store of wealth.

And then, with broaden’d means, led on to push

Toward broaden’d purposes, I spoke and wrote;

And found, anon, while aiding here and there

Where aid was rare, wide opening to my view,

A worthiest mission in this new reform

That seeks to make the server and the served

Walk hand in hand, while wage gives way to share,

And, furthering all men to their furthest due,

Thus lifts the low and lost.

LXVIII.

At last, one day,

There came a letter from our bureau’s head,

With it, another, sent him, so he wrote,

“By some enthusiast, a character—

A woman, and a woman too of mind;

And yet, withal, who had been strangely led,

Through doubtful ways, he thought, toward doubtful ends,

Till doubts had wrought reaction,—as when clouds

That course on clouds, at last, bring lightnings forth

That clear them off. And now her vision, clear’d,

Had found within her soul a wish to work,—

In new ways truly for a cause like ours,—

For us and with us. But I held her note,

She dwelt near by me: could I visit her?

And give my judgment then?”

LXIX.

This note, so sent,

Was—would you guess it?—Edith’s. What she wrote,

Weighs love against all liking to this hour.

All thrill’d with hope, yet trembling for my fate,

I spell’d out all her tale:—“Her sire—his aims—

And her fulfilment of them—her success—

Earth seem’d a kingdom prostrate at her feet,

And she, a queen; alas, but, like a queen,

Was doom’d to hold a throne where rivals came,

To spy her weakness out, and wrest away

A power that could be kept by power alone.—

How sad for woman when her hopes were based

On practice that must all her heart conceal,

That must be conquering ever or be crush’d!

At first her love for art had kept her up,—

And for success, and for a sister dear,

Who shared her earnings, who, while cheer’d the crowds,

At last, had died, and left her all alone.

And, after that, her soul had loathed applause,

Had found her nature so belied, misjudged,

Her life the embodiment of hollow sound,

And all surroundings echoing back but sound,

Chill admiration in the place of love,

Her friends but flatterers, and herself unknown.

“With this, her world had grown so hard, so parch’d,

Without one source affording sympathy—

She took no credit to herself for aught;

The weakest sigh that could have heaved a breast,

A dying breast, had crack’d so dry a crust—

She rose, one morn, and swore to free her soul,

Let pent-up love in softening currents flow

Till something human, ay, and heavenly, too,

Were nurtured by the wish from which it sprang.

“She could not work now for herself alone;

For she had learn’d that all life’s purposes

Are held like lenses that a soul may use

To gather in heaven’s light and flash it round

Upon its world illumin’d; or, not so,—

If turn’d on self,—to but inflame and dim

Its own self-centered vision. So she now

One only purpose knew,—to pledge her gifts

To those who most might need them; and she came,

With all she was or hoped she yet might be,

Her gifts of nature and her skill in art,

To work for us, whose aims were plann’d so well,

To further all men to their furthest goals,

And lift the low and lost.”

LXX.

And then I rode,

As fast as trains could take me; and I wrote,

Like one intoxicated, from the inn:

“The bureau’s agent here abides your wish”;

And, signing not my name, awaited thus

The welcome sure to seem more sweet than life.

It came. I went.

“You?” Edith cried, “and whence?”

“From whence?” I said. “Each slightest spark of good

Flies upward, and the heaven returns it where

It fires the most?—and where were tinder found

Like my heart?”

“Why is this?” I heard; “My note—

Did it miscarry?—Would you thwart me now—

Or, though my gifts could aid them, do they wish

No help from me?—My heart was fix’d on it.”

“On my cause,” breathed I. “Did you never think

That work with them would make you work with me?”

“Why think of that?” she ask’d.—“Enough to know

I sought my own work here.”

“Why, Edith, friend,”

I answer’d—“Why could not your work be mine?

What parts us now? What though, like mine, your soul

Had come to look down life’s long dreary vista,

And watch yourself alone. Why bide alone?

I, I, at least, through all these years have seen—

Not you yourself, for that too dear had been!—

But I have seen a vision, seeming you

Within the far horizon of my hopes,

The sweet mirage before me. Now, at last,

I know those misty outlines veil’d the truth;

It must have meant that you would yet be found—

That we should meet. Heaven surely meant it so.”

LXXI.

Her mien had chang’d; and yet she ask’d again,

“But how with Grace? I thought”—

“Alas,” I said,

“With your dear spirit thron’d above my love,

What were I but a traitor, wedding Grace?

This heart was yours, your dwelling-place alone.

Nay, now I do not come to give it you:

It only opens to an owner old.

How sacredly I guarded it for you!—

A holy place, though there, above the shrine,

The niche was empty. Ah, has earth seem’d rude?

Some reason was there; surely some there was.

We war with Providence, who war with life.

We seek to mould our own existence out;

But life, best made, is mainly for us made.

Each passing circumstance, a tool of heaven,

Grates by to smooth some edge of character,

And model manhood into better shape.

Has nought been wrought with you? Ah, idol mine,

You living image of all hope, would God,

Love’s niche were fill’d, love’s altar stood complete!”

LXXII.

Then Edith lean’d her face against her hand,

And slowly came the words that seem’d so dear:

“It may be, Norman, may—I know—I feel—

It must be earth, so roughly handling one,

Should round experience for some wise design.

Yet this—it cannot be—how can it?—nay—

For me you come—and you? your voice I hear?

No echo void, oft, oft so sweet in dreams?—

Nor now to wake me?—Nay I trust. You may—

’Twill stray no more—take back your wanderer.”

“My wanderer!” I answer’d, when I could;

“Ah Edith, you but wander’d as the lamb;

My spotless, worldling-mediator, you!—

It wander’d?—yes; it cross’d a threshold chill;

A proud cathedral enter’d; there found one

Too pleased with what he had, to gaze outside.

To him those arches low seem’d high as heaven;

And all the sweet and sunny air without,

When strain’d through stain’d and smoke-wreathed window-panes,

Gleam’d lurid as were hell. This man spied you:

He saw you shun him—leave him. He pursued—

Out, past the doorway—and he found God’s world

So much more broad than walls named after Him!”

LXXIII.

“And Norman,” said she, “think you, evermore,

Recalling you, the worldling could forget

How walls exclusive could exclude not love?

Or, love rejecting, gain from all the world,

Though brimm’d with but applause, one draft so sweet?—

But then earth held such promise yet, so lured;

How could I know that merely sighs there were

Could thrill me more than all its thunders could?

Ah, did I love you then, so loves he heaven

Who has not courage yet to leave the world.

I might have left it never; but, you know,

That sister mine—At last, life meant but this,—

To envy that cold tomb, all night, all day,

That held her only.—Norman, pardon me:

Such woe, such loneliness,—ah, strange was it

That oft then I recall’d your form, your words?

And when I render’d forth upon the stage

Scenes you had visioned, phrases you had fram’d,

That then I came to do as you would do,

And think as you would think?—or that my tongue

Should linger o’er your language, as o’er sweets

Re-tasted still again?—or that, anon,

Those accents ardent with your own dear aims,

Should fire mine own to ardor?—or that then

My soul should flash forth light that flamed within,

And tracing far the rays that sped from it,

Should find here”—

“One to help you, friend?” I asked—

“Then let us both thank heaven that made us weak.

So may a mortal pair bide, each to each,

Both priest and partner; like the church, their home;

For what are churches here but chosen courts

Of One pure Spirit, moving all to love?

And, think you, writ or vestment, art or arch,

Can image Him, or His domain unbound?

Nay, trust my word, we worship Him the best,

When two or three together, loving truth

And one another, thus repeat, once more,

An incarnation, imitating Christ”

LXXIV.

“I catch it, Norman,” cried she, “the ideal!

Henceforth our aim be this,—the art of life.

I saw it not before: the stage of spirit

So much more broad is than the stage of sense!

Comes on the soul now, actor, all divine,

At play no longer; nay, but shadowing forth

A love complete that personates a God!

And what love is complete that walks alone?”

“None,” answer’d I. “In true love, hand in hand,

Each leads his like. For this the whole world waits.

It waits for love,—why say not love like ours?

When souls touch souls, they touch the springs of life;

For them the veils of sense are drawn aside,

Are burn’d away in radiance divine,

The while their spirit’s contact starts afresh

The electric flash that scores new glory here,

And lights the lines of being back to God.

Then, with their whole existences renew’d,

Far up these lines, the souls that thus commune,

Discern anon that sacred home on high,

Where boundless rest is blest by boundless love

And dreams the dreams of bounty absolute.—

They find that home, whence issue floods of light,

Which, flowing forth from white mysterious heights,

Flame down and flash and burst anon in sparks

That star the dark through all life’s firmament;—

They find that home, whence whirl the cycles wide

Where all the wastes of nature fuse and form,

And all the things that thought can touch take shape,

Until the restless wheels of matter, roll’d

Through roadways worn to waste by speeding years,

At last in fatal friction fire themselves,

And light returns to light from whence it sprang.

Through all, where souls commune with central love,

They stay secure, awaiting birth or death;

The Spring that starts the blossom blown to fall,

Or Fall that drops the seed that springs afresh.

They watch nor fear whatever change evolve,—

The splendor grand of epochs borne to waste,

The ruin wild of times that end in law,

The monarch mail’d whose lustre dims his folk,

The people’s guns whose echoes hush their king.

What though dark clouds loom up and storms descend?

True faith would not bemoan the forms they wreck;

For forms if true are formulas of love

That still is ardent to consume them all.

Though lightnings thunder till they crack the sky,

What unroofs rage leaves heaven to dome our peace.

The more convulsion shakes and fire consumes,

The more of love and light may both set free;

The earlier may they end these earthly days

That fret our lives with flickerings vague below

Of steadfast light in endless day above;

The earlier may the power of hate give way,

And good awake, and every path be bright,

While hope of glory gilds the gloom on high.

We too—come, Edith. Christ will go with us;

And by and by the glory so shall flame

Heaven cannot hold the halo!—Edith, come;

We join the plans above.”

LXXV.

But hold—I rave—

I know, I know—no matter, so would you.—

But find your soul’s ideal, and you would find,

If common-sense be reason, you would rave,

Till you forgot that common-sense could be—

Though I forget it not. My tale is told.

Why talk I more? I know one household now

All radiant through its mistress! Where she dwells

A sweet content pervades the very air,

And genial sympathy smiles on to make

Each whole long year one summer of delight.