IX.
O dark-eyed Ina! All the years
Brought her but solitude and tears.
Lo! ever looking out she stood
Adown the wave, adown the wood,
Adown the strong stream to the south,
Sad-faced, and sorrowful. Her mouth
Push'd out so pitiful. Her eyes
Fill'd full of sorrow and surprise.
Men say that looking from her place
A love would sometimes light her face,
As if sweet recollections stirr'd
Her heart and broke its loneliness,
Like far sweet songs that come to us,
So soft, so sweet, they are not heard,
So far, so faint, they fill the air,
A fragrance filling anywhere.
And wasting all her summer years
That utter'd only through her tears,
The seasons went, and still she stood
For ever watching down the wood.
Yet in her heart there held a strife
With all this wasting of sweet life
That none who have not lived and died,
Held up the two hands crucified
Between the ways on either hand,
Can look upon or understand.
The blackest rain-clouds muffle fire:
Between a duty and desire
There lies no middle way or land:
Take thou the right or the left hand,
And so pursue, nor hesitate
To boldly give your hand to fate.
In helpless indecisions lie
The rocks on which we strike and die.
'Twere better far to choose the worst
Of all life's ways than to be cursed
With indecision. Turn and choose
Your way, then all the world refuse.
And men who saw her still do say
That never once her lips were heard,
By gloaming dusk or shining day,
To utter or pronounce one word.
Men went and came, and still she stood
In silence watching down the wood.
Yea, still she stood and look'd away,
By tawny night, by fair-fac'd day,
Adown the wood beyond the land,
Her hollow face upon her hand,
Her black, abundant hair all down
About her loose, ungather'd gown.
And what her thought? her life unsaid?
Was it of love? of hate? of him,
The tall, dark Southerner?
Her head
Bow'd down. The day fell dim
Upon her eyes. She bow'd, she slept.
She waken'd then, and waking wept.
She dream'd, perchance, of island home,
A land of palms ring'd round with foam,
Where summer on her shelly shore
Sits down and rests for evermore.
And one who watch'd her wasted youth
Did guess, mayhap with much of truth,
Her heart was with that band that came
Against her isle with sword and flame:
And this the tale he told of her
And her fierce, silent follower:
A Spaniard and adventurer,
A man who saw her, loved, and fell
Upon his knees and worshipp'd her;
And with that fervor and mad zeal
That only sunborn bosoms feel,
Did vow to love, to follow her
Unto the altar ... or to hell:
That then her gray-hair'd father bore
The beauteous maiden hurriedly
From out her fair isle of the sea
To sombre wold and woody shore
And far away, and kept her well,
As from a habitant of hell,
And vow'd she should not meet him more:
That fearing still the buccaneer,
He silent kept his forests here.
The while men came, and still she stood
For ever watching from the wood.