Alone, the conversation of the two
Was chiefly about trifles and the weather,
With many pauses, since so much did press
Sordino’s heart, so much he would confess,
And since it was so strange to be together
With her whom he adored, yet did not know.
Soon Stella, pleading cold, arose to go,
Without a promise of another meeting,
Sordino feeling chills about his heart,
And as they from the garden did depart,
That little hour so full, and yet so fleeting,
Seemed to him fatal, and mal á propos.
XXX
Love’s like a great musician, whose deft fingers
Control the hidden pow’r of organ-keys;
He plays upon the soul with mastery,
And uses all the stops of melody,
Of deepest sorrow, highest ecstacies,
Of stormy fugues, or tune that softly lingers.
Thus did he play upon Sordino’s heart,
When to himself he suddenly was left;
A flood of passion overwhelmed his soul,
In which he heard himself her name to call,
And spent, did leave him painfully bereft,
Yea, caused unmanly, bitter tears to start.
He wiped away the furtive tear, and went
Into the bar-room, where he called for wine,
And freely drank, then entering the street,
The sailor of last night he chanced to meet,
Who told him, for a drink he sore did pine,
And had, alas! his very farthings spent.
Sordino handed him sufficient coin
To make him happy for another night;
He thanked him most profusely, and betook
Himself into the tavern’s pleasant nook,
Where he did find his life’s supreme delight,—
A cup of sack and others it to join.
Sordino sauntered carelessly along,
And with no aim but to assuage his mind,
Which wandered twixt a ray of hope and fear,
When all at once he saw her drawing near,
In company with one whose eye did find
Her smile surcharged with an affection strong.
A moment’s glance told of his manly cast;
Well-knit and tall, in military suit,
But with a face so much unlike her mien;
And what Sordino could instantly glean,
It had a strength, but not of thought and truth,
But rather courage, stemming any blast.
Correctly he surmised, this very man
Was Stella’s fiancé; and Jealousy,
That “greeneyed monster,” held him by the throat,
Or, as in modern parlance “had his goat,”
A phrase suggestive of the purity
Of English, even among a college clan.