The Maiden.
Your tone,
Your words, seem strange.—But then, I’ve never known
A woman like you.
The Lady (aside).
Yet we are not few,
Thank Heaven, for the world’s sake! It would starve
If gray was all its color, and the dew
Its only nectar. With a pulsing haste
It seeks the royal purples, and draws down
The luscious bunches to its thirsty taste,
And feels its blood hot-thrilled, a regal crown
Upon its brow; and then, its hands do carve
The vine-leaves into marble.
But the hue
Of thoughts like these she knows not—and in vain
To tell her. Yet, sweet snow-drop, I would fain
Hear her small story.
(Speaks.) Did he fall alone,
Your gallant soldier-boy? And how to you
Came the sad news?
The Maiden.
A farmer heard him moan
While passing—bore him to the camp, and there
A captain from our lake-shore wrote me word
Ere the brigade moved on; which, when I heard,
I left my mother, ill, for in despair
He cried, they wrote, for me. He could not know
That they had written, for hot fever drove
His thoughts with whips of flame.—O cruel woe,—O my poor love—
My Willie!
The Lady.
Do not grieve, fair child. This day
Will see you by his side—nay, if you will,
Then lay your head here—weep your grief away.
Tears are a luxury—yes, take your fill;
For stranger as I am, my heart is warm
To woman’s sorrow, and this woman’s arm
That holds you is a loyal one and kind.
(Thinking.) O gentle maiden-mind,
How lovely art thou—like the limpid brook
In whose small depths my child-eyes loved to look
In the spring days! Thy little simple fears
Are wept away. Ah! could I call the tears
At will to soothe the parched heat of my heart!
—O beautiful lost Faith,
I knew you once—but now, like shadowy wraith,
You meet me in this little maiden’s eyes,
And gaze from out their blue in sad surprise
At the great gulf between us. Far apart,
In truth, we’ve drifted—drifted. Gentle ghost
Of past outgrown, thy land the hazy coast
Of dreamless ignorance; I must put out
My eyes to live with you again. The doubt,
The honest, earnest doubt, is upward growth
Of the strong mind—the struggle of the seed
Up to the broad, free air. Contented sloth
Of the blind clods around it sees no need
For change—nay, deems, indeed, all change a crime;
“All things remain as in our fathers’ time—
What gain ye then by growing?”
“Air—free air!
E’en though I die of hunger and despair,
I go,” the mind replies.
The Maiden (thinking).
How kind, how warm
Her sympathy! I could no more resist
Her questions, than the large clasp of her arm
That drew me down. How tenderly she kissed
My forehead! strange that so much good should dwell
With so much ill. This shining, costly dress,
A garb that shows a sinful worldliness,
Troubles my heart.
Ah, I remember well
How hard I worked after that letter came
Telling of Willie—and my sisters all,
How swift we sewed! For I had suffered shame
At traveling in house-garb.
—I feel a call
To bring this wanderer back into the fold,
This poor lost sinner straying in the cold
Outside the church’s pale. Should I not try
To show her all the sad deficiency,
The desperate poverty of life like hers,
The utter falseness of its every breath,
The pity that within my bosom stirs
For thinking of the horrors after death
Awaiting her?