I go to Rome, to seek
The right to use my knightly sword again;
The right to fill my place and live or die
So that all Spaniards shall not curse my name.
I sate one hour upon the barren rock
And longed to kill myself; but then I said,
I will not leave my name in infamy,
I will not be perpetual rottenness
Upon the Spaniard's air. If I must sink
At last to hell, I will not take my stand
Among the coward crew who could not bear
The harm themselves had done, which others bore.
My young life yet may fill some fatal breach,
And I will take no pardon, not my own,
Not God's—no pardon idly on my knees;
But it shall come to me upon my feet
And in the thick of action, and each deed
That carried shame and wrong shall be the sting
That drives me higher up the steep of honor
In deeds of duteous service to that Spain
Who nourished me on her expectant breast,
The heir of highest gifts. I will not fling
My earthly being down for carrion
To fill the air with loathing: I will be
The living prey of some fierce noble death
That leaps upon me while I move. Aloud
I said, "I will redeem my name," and then—
I know not if aloud: I felt the words
Drinking up all my senses—"She still lives.
I would not quit the dear familiar earth
Where both of us behold the self-same sun,
Where there can be no strangeness 'twixt our thoughts
So deep as their communion." Resolute
I rose and walked.—Fedalma, think of me
As one who will regain the only life
Where he is other than apostate—one
Who seeks but to renew and keep the vows
Of Spanish knight and noble. But the breach—
Outside those vows—the fatal second breach—
Lies a dark gulf where I have naught to cast,
Not even expiation—poor pretence,
Which changes naught but what survives the past,
And raises not the dead. That deep dark gulf
Divide us.
FEDALMA.
Yes, forever. We must walk
Apart unto the end. Our marriage rite
Is our resolve that we will each be true
To high allegiance, higher than our love.
Our dear young love—its breath was happiness!
But it had grown upon a larger life
Which tore its roots asunder. We rebelled—
The larger life subdued us. Yet we are wed;
For we shall carry each the pressure deep
Of the other's soul. I soon shall leave the shore.
The winds to-night will bear me far away.
My lord, farewell!
What has been said of The Spanish Gypsy applies very nearly as well to all her other poems. They are thoughtful, philosophic, realistic; they are sonorous in expression, stately in style, and of a diction eloquent and beautiful. On the whole, the volume containing the shorter poems is a poetical advance on The Spanish Gypsy, containing more genuine poetry, more lyrical fire, and a greater proportion of humor, sympathy and passion. They are carefully polished and refined; and yet that indefinable something which marks the truest poetry is wanting. They are saturated with her ideas, the flavor of her thought impregnates them all, with but two or three exceptions.
Her artistic conceptions are more fully developed in some of these poems than in any of her novels, especially in "Armgart" and "The Legend of Jubal." The special thought of "Armgart" is, that no artistic success is of so much worth as a loving sympathy with others. The longing of Armgart was to be—
a happy spiritual star
Such as old Dante saw, wrought in a rose
Of light in Paradise, whose only self
Was consciousness of glory wide-diffused,
Music, life, power—I moving in the midst
With a sublime necessity of good.
Her ambition runs very high.
May the day be near when men
Think much to let my horses draw me home,
And new lands welcome me upon their beach,
Loving me for my fame. That is the truth
Of what I wish, nay, yearn for. Shall I lie?
Pretend to seek obscurity—to sing
In hope of disregard? A vile pretence!
And blasphemy besides. For what is fame
But the benignant strength of One, transformed
To joy of Many? Tributes, plaudits come
As necessary breathing of such joy;
And may they come to me!
Armgart is beloved of the Graf, and he tries to persuade her to abandon her artistic career and become his wife. He says to her,—
A woman's rank
Lies in the fulness of her womanhood:
Therein alone she is loyal.