THE WORST OF IT

Would it were I had been false, not you!

I that am nothing, not you that are all:

I, never the worse for a touch or two

On my speckled hide; not you, the pride

Of the day, my swan, that a first fleck's fall

On her wonder of white must unswan, undo!

I had dipped in life's struggle and, out again,

Bore specks of it here, there, easy to see,

When I found my swan and the cure was plain;

The dull turned bright as I caught your white

On my bosom: you saved me—saved in vain

If you ruined yourself, and all through me!

Yes, all through the speckled beast that I am,

Who taught you to stoop; you gave me yourself,

And bound your soul by the vows that damn:

Since on better thought you break, as you ought,

Vows—words, no angel set down, some elf

Mistook,—for an oath, an epigram!

Yes, might I judge you, here were my heart,

And a hundred its like, to treat as you pleased!

I choose to be yours, for my proper part,

Yours, leave or take, or mar me or make;

If I acquiesce, why should you be teased

With the conscience-prick and the memory-smart?

But what will God say? Oh, my sweet,

Think, and be sorry you did this thing!

Though earth were unworthy to feel your feet,

There's a heaven above may deserve your love:

Should you forfeit heaven for a snapt gold ring

And a promise broke, were it just or meet?

And I to have tempted you! I, who tried

Your soul, no doubt, till it sank! Unwise,

I loved, and was lowly, loved and aspired,

Loved, grieving or glad, till I made you mad,

And you meant to have hated and despised—

Whereas, you deceived me nor inquired!

She, ruined? How? No heaven for her?

Crowns to give, and none for the brow

That looked like marble and smelt like myrrh?

Shall the robe be worn, and the palm-branch borne,

And she go graceless, she graced now

Beyond, all saints, as themselves aver?

Hardly! That must be understood!

The earth is your place of penance, then;

And what will it prove? I desire your good,

But, plot as I may, I can find no way

How a blow should fall, such as falls on men,

Nor prove too much for your womanhood.

It will come, I suspect, at the end of life,

When you walk alone, and review the past;

And I, who so long shall have done with strife,

And journeyed my stage and earned my wage

And retired as was right,—I am called at last

When the devil stabs you, to lend the knife.

He stabs for the minute of trivial wrong,

Nor the other hours are able to save,

The happy, that lasted my whole life long:

For a promise broke, not for first words spoke,

The true, the only, that turn my grave

To a blaze of joy and a crash of song.

Witness beforehand! Off I trip

On a safe path gay through the flowers you flung:

My very name made great by your lip,

And my heart aglow with the good I know

Of a perfect year when we both were young,

And I tasted the angels' fellowship.

And witness, moreover ... Ah, but wait!

I spy the loop whence an arrow shoots!

It may be for yourself, when you meditate,

That you grieve—for slain ruth, murdered truth:

"Though falsehood escape in the end, what boots?

How truth would have triumphed!"—you sigh too late.

Ay, who would have triumphed like you, I say!

Well, it is lost now; well, you must bear,

Abide and grow fit for a better day:

You should hardly grudge, could I be your judge!

But hush! For you, can be no despair:

There's amends: 'tis a secret: hope and pray!

For I was true at least—oh, true enough!

And, Dear, truth is not as good as it seems!

Commend me to conscience! Idle stuff!

Much help is in mine, as I mope and pine,

And skulk through day, and scowl in my dreams

At my swan's obtaining the crow's rebuff.

Men tell me of truth now—"False!" I cry:

Of beauty—"A mask, friend! Look beneath!"

We take our own method, the devil and I,

With pleasant and fair and wise and rare:

And the best we wish to what lives, is—death;

Which even in wishing, perhaps we lie!

Far better commit a fault and have done—

As you, Dear!—forever; and choose the pure,

And look where the healing waters run,

And strive and strain to be good again,

And a place in the other world ensure,

All glass and gold, with God for its sun.

Misery! What shall I say or do?

I cannot advise, or, at least, persuade:

Most like, you are glad you deceived me—rue

No whit of the wrong: you endured too long,

Have done no evil and want no aid,

Will live the old life out and chance the now.

And your sentence is written all the same,

And I can do nothing,—pray, perhaps:

But somehow the world pursues its game,—

If I pray, if I curse,—for better or worse:

And my faith is torn to a thousand scraps,

And my heart feels ice while my words breathe flame.

Dear, I look from my hiding-place.

Are you still so fair? Have you still the eyes?

Be happy! Add but the other grace,

Be good! Why want what the angels vaunt?

I knew you once: but in Paradise,

If we meet, I will pass nor turn my face.

DÎS ALITER VISUM;
OR, LE BYRON DE NOS JOURS

Stop, let me have the truth of that!

Is that all true? I say, the day

Ten years ago when both of us

Met on a morning, friends—as thus

We meet this evening, friends or what?—

Did you—because I took your arm

And sillily smiled, "A mass of brass

That sea looks, blazing underneath!"

While up the cliff-road edged with heath,

We took the turns nor came to harm—

Did you consider, "Now makes twice

That I have seen her, walked and talked

With this poor pretty thoughtful thing,

Whose worth I weigh: she tries to sing;

Draws, hopes in time the eye grows nice;

"Reads verse and thinks she understands;

Loves all, at any rate, that's great,

Good, beautiful; but much as we

Down at the bath-house love the sea,

Who breathe its salt and bruise its sands:

"While ... do but follow the fishing-gull

That flaps and floats from wave to cave!

There's the sea-lover, fair my friend!

What then? Be patient, mark and mend!

Had you the making of your skull?"

And did you, when we faced the church

With spire and sad slate roof, aloof

From human fellowship so far,

Where a few graveyard crosses are,

And garlands for the swallows' perch,—

Did you determine, as we stepped

O'er the lone stone fence, "Let me get

Her for myself, and what's the earth

With all its art, verse, music; worth—

Compared with love, found, gained, and kept?

"Schumann's our music-maker now;

Has his march-movement youth and mouth?

Ingres's the modern man that paints;

Which will lean on me, of his saints?

Heine for songs; for kisses, how?"

And did you, when we entered, reached

The votive frigate, soft aloft

Riding on air this hundred years,

Safe-smiling at old hopes and fears,—

Did you draw profit while she preached?

Resolving, "Fools we wise men grow!

Yes, I could easily blurt out curt

Some question that might find reply

As prompt in her stopped lips, dropped eye,

And rush of red to cheek and brow:

"Thus were a match made, sure and fast,

'Mid the blue weed-flowers round the mound

Where, issuing, we shall stand and stay

For one more look at baths and bay,

Sands, sea-gulls, and the old church last—

"A match 'twixt me, bent, wigged and lamed,

Famous, however, for verse and worse,

Sure of the Fortieth spare Arm-chair

When gout and glory seat me there,

So, one whose love-freaks pass unblamed,—

"And this young beauty, round and sound

As a mountain-apple, youth and truth

With loves and doves, at all events

With money in the Three per Cents;

Whose choice of me would seem profound:—

"She might take me as I take her.

Perfect the hour would pass, alas!

Climb high, love high, what matter? Still,

Feet, feelings, must descend the hill:

An hour's perfection can't recur.

"Then follows Paris and full time

For both to reason: 'Thus with us!'

She 'll sigh, 'Thus girls give body and soul

At first word, think they gain the goal,

When 't is the starting-place they climb!

"'My friend makes verse and gets renown;

Have they all fifty years, his peers?

He knows the world, firm, quiet and gay;

Boys will become as much one day:

They 're fools; he cheats, with beard less brown.

"'For boys say, Love me or I die!

He did not say, The truth is, youth

I want, who am old and know too much;

I'd catch youth: lend me sight and touch!

Drop heart's blood where life's wheels grate dry!'

"While I should make rejoinder"—(then

It was no doubt, you ceased that least

Light pressure of my arm in yours)—

"'I can conceive of cheaper cures

For a yawning-fit o'er books and men.

"'What? All I am, was, and might be,

All, books taught, art brought, life's whole strife,

Painful results since precious, just

Were fitly exchanged, in wise disgust,

For two cheeks freshened by youth and sea?

"'All for a nosegay!—what came first;

With fields on flower, untried each side;

I rally, need my books and men,

And find a nosegay:' drop it, then,

No match yet made for best or worst!"

That ended me. You judged the porch

We left by, Norman; took our look

At sea and sky; wondered so few

Find out the place for air and view;

Remarked the sun began to scorch;

Descended, soon regained the baths,

And then, good-by! Years ten since then;

Ten years! We meet: you tell me, now,

By a window-seat for that cliff-brow,

On carpet-stripes for those sand-paths.

Now I may speak: you fool, for all

Your lore! Who made things plain in vain?

What was the sea for? What, the gray

Sad church, that solitary day,

Crosses and graves and swallows' call?

Was there naught better than to enjoy?

No feat which, done, would make time break,

And let us pent-up creatures through

Into eternity, our due?

No forcing earth teach heaven's employ?

No wise beginning, here and now,

What cannot grow complete (earth's feat)

And heaven must finish, there and then?

No tasting earth's true food for men,

Its sweet in sad, its sad in sweet?

No grasping at love, gaining a share

O' the sole spark from God's life at strife

With death, so, sure of range above

The limits here? For us and love,

Failure; but, when God fails, despair.

This you call wisdom? Thus you add

Good unto good again, in vain?

You loved, with body worn and weak;

I loved, with faculties to seek:

Were both loves worthless since ill-clad?

Let the mere star-fish in his vault

Crawl in a wash of weed, indeed,

Rose-jacynth to the finger-tips:

He, whole in body and soul, outstrips

Man, found with either in default.

But what 's whole can increase no more,

Is dwarfed and dies, since here 's its sphere.

The devil laughed at you in his sleeve!

You know not? That I well believe;

Or you had saved two souls: nay, four.

For Stephanie sprained last night her wrist,

Ankle or something. "Pooh," cry you?

At any rate she danced, all say,

Vilely; her vogue has had its day.

Here comes my husband from his whist.