Stories in Verse

by Henry Abbey

III.

I see them riding down the village street:
He on a horse as black and strong as iron,
She on her snowy palfrey, robed in green,
Slack reins in hand; the horses side by side.
Even as I see and write, my heart grows cold—
Cold as a bird that on a winter's day
Breasts the bleak wind, high in the biting air.

IV.

I see a city with a concourse vast
Of gas-lit streets and buildings, and above,
Its dear face buried in its cloudy hands,
The Night bends over, weeping. In the street
I see the face again I saw to-day.

I see him writing in a narrow room.
I read the words:
To-night I end my life.
The river says "Embrace, I offer rest."
The world and I have grappled in fair fight,
And I am beaten. Having found defeat,
I long to go down to its lowest depths.
I only ask, that those who find these words,
Will send them to my people past the sea;
To-night I cross a wider: so, adieu.
Michael Gianni.

This is his true name,
And afterward he writes his wife's address.
He leaves the paper foldless on a stand,
And then goes forth; but not to end his life.
He dreams that now his life is but begun.
He sees my Grace in all his coming days;
He sees the large old farm-house where she dwells,
And therein hopes to happily pass the years,
Living in peace and plenty till he dies.

Most human calculations end in loss,
And every one who has a plan devised,
Is like a foolish walker on a rope,
First balancing on this side, then on that,
Hazarding much to gain a paltry end;
And if the rope of calculation breaks,
Or if the foot slip, added to mishap
Come the world's jeers and gibes; and so 'tis best.
Should half men's schemings find success at last,
I fear God's plans would have but narrow room.

(Michael Gianni, now I know your name,
This premonition gives the hint to me
To trip you in your studied subtleties.
You will not win my Grace, who loves me still;
You will not dare to kiss her hand again.)

V.

Beneath a rustic arbor, near her house,
Linked with sweet converse, sit two shadowed forms.
The new sword moon against the violet sky
Is held aloft, by one white arm of cloud
Raised from the sombre shoulder of a hill.
My Grace and I are sitting in the bower,
And down upon my breast and girdling arm
Is strewn pure gold—no alloy mixes it—
The pure ore of her lovable gold hair.
The cunning weavers of Arabia,
Who seek to shuttle sunshine in their silk,
Would give its weight in diamonds for this hair,
Whereof to make a fabric for their king.

I see the trees that skirt the yonder vale,
And where the road dents down between their arms,
I see a figure passing to and fro.
Now he comes near, and striding up the path
Enters the arbor, and discovers us.
It is Gianni; to his flashing eyes
A fierce deep hatred leaps up from his heart,
As lightning, which forebodes the nearing storm,
Leaps luridly above the midnight hills.
With some excuse Gianni passes on,
While Grace, with sweetly growing confidence,
Whispers with lips which slightly touch my ear,
"I never loved him, I was always yours."

VI.

I see the parlor that my Grace adorns
With flowers and with her presence, which is far
Above the fragrant presence of all flowers.
Grace sits at her piano; on her lips
A song of twilight and the evening star.
There as the shadows slowly gather round,
Gianni comes, and stops a moody hour;
She, ice to his approaches; he, despair;
But ere he goes, he places in her hand
A large ripe orange, fresh from Sicily,
And begs her to accept it for his sake.
She bows him from the room, and puts the fruit
Before her on her music, once again
Dreaming of me, and singing some wild song
Of Pan, who, by the river straying down,
Cut reeds, and blew upon them with such power,
He charmed the lilies and the dragon-flies.
Now while the song is swaying to its close,
I seem to come myself into the room,
And clasp true arms about my darling Grace;
She lays Gianni's orange in my hand,
And says that I must eat it; she would not
Have taken it, but that she did not wish
To cross him with refusal. So I say,
"Surely this stranger has peculiar taste
To bring an orange to you—only one.
Perhaps there is more in it than we know."

VII.

I seem to have this orange in my room,
And in the light of morning turn it round.
I find no flaw in it on any side.
A goodly orange, ripe, with tender coat
Of that deep reddish yellow, like fine gold.
Perhaps the tree had wrapped its roots about
A chest of treasure, and had drawn the wealth
Into its heart to spend it on its fruit.
But while I slowly turn the orange round,
And look more closely, lo, the slightest cut!—
A deep incision made by some sharp steel.
I carefully cut the rind, and without once
Breaking the fine apartments of the fruit,
Or spilling thence a drop of golden juice,
Find that one room through which the steel has passed.
This I dissect, and, testing as I can,
Fail to discover aught that's poisonous.

VIII.

I bring my microscope, and on a seed
Clinging with abject fear, I see a Shape
Whose wings are reeking with foul slime, whose eyes
Glare with a demon lustre born of Pain.
Its face has somewhat of the human shape,
The under-jaw too large, and bearded long;
The forehead full of putrefying sores.
Such front the Genius, Danhasch, may have worn.
It may be that the hideous face is like
The idol Krishna's, from whose feasts depart,
Smitten with cholera, the Hindoo devotees.
The body oozes with a loathsome dew.
Its head is red as if sucked full of blood;
But all the rest, its hundred legs, and tail,
The mailed back, and the wide-webbed prickly wings,
Are green, like those base eyes of jealousy
Which hope to see a covert murder done.
I find the finest needle in the house,
And press the point down on the slimy hide.
The blunt edge crushes, does not pierce the shape,
And brings the straggle that I gloat to see.
The legs stretch out, and work to get away;
A barbed tongue and twin fangs drool from the mouth.
The eyes protrude, and glare with deadly hate,
Until they fix at last in stony calm.

I ponder long on what this shape can be.
There is no doubt Gianni placed it here;
If so, where has he caught and caged a thing
The naked eye has not the power to see?
Its uses must be deadly. In revenge,
He hopes to take the life of her I love.
While poisons of another character
Might be detected, this remains unknown.
The Thing I have discovered—this vile Shape,
Must be an atom of some foul disease!
And now I have the secret. For some days
Gianni waits upon a stricken man,
Who dies, a victim of the cholera.
In some strange manner he has found this germ,
And placed it in the orange, hoping thus
To bring the dread disease to Grace Bernard.

IX.

I seem to be with him I hate, once more,
And now accuse him of the fiendish deed
That I through chance averted. Now I too
Command him to return to his true wife,
And no more cross my path; should he remain,
He shall but wait to meet her, for my words
Already have been sent that he is here.

X.

I know that I shall fall sick dangerously,
And in some way by dark Gianni's hand.
I seem to lie asleep upon my bed,
And Grace is near, and watching my calm face.
The village doctor makes his morning call,
And takes my listless hand to feel the pulse.
There is no pulse! His hand goes to the heart.
My heart has ceased to beat, and all is still.
The hand the doctor held drops down like lead.
A looking-glass receives no fading mist,
Laid on the icy and immovable lips.
My eyes are fixed; I glare upon them all.
Grace twines her widowed arms about my neck,
Kissing my sallow cheeks, with hopeless tears,
Calling my name, and begging me come back;
So, thinking me dead, they close my staring eyes,
And put the face-cloth over my white face,
And go with silent tread about the room.
They do not know that I am in a trance.
I hear each whisper uttered, and the sighs
That heave the desolate bosom of my Grace.

XI.

All is so dark since they have shut my eyes;
I think it cruel in them to do that—
Shut out the light of day and every chance
That I could ever have of seeing Grace.
I cannot move a muscle, and I try,
And strive to part my lips to say some word;
But all in vain; the mind has lost control
Over the body's null machinery.

I wonder if they yet will bury me,
Thinking me dead? To wake up in the grave,
And hear a wagon rumbling overhead,
Or a chance footstep passing near the spot,
And then cry out and never get reply;
But hear the footstep vanish far away,
And know the cold mould smothers up all cries,
And is above, beneath, and round me,
Is bitter thought. To lie back then and die,
Suffocating slowly while I tear my hair,
Makes me most wild to think of.