Kathrina—A Poem

by J. G. Holland

Besides, these pious and believing wives
Make gentle mothers, who, with self-control
And patient firmness, train their children well—
A fact to be remembered. But, alas!
They train their husbands too, and undertake
A mission to their souls, so gently pushed,
So tenderly, they may not take offence,
Or punish with rebuff; and yet, dear hearts!
With such persistence, that they reach the raw
Before they know it: so it comes to tears
At last, with comfort in an upper room.
But then—a seal is sacred to them, and a purse
Or pocket-book, though in a dressing-room
With shutters and a key!

Thus wrapped in thought
And selfish calculation of the claims
Of one my peer, or my superior,
In every personal and moral grace,
I walked along, till, on my consciousness,
Flashed the absurdity of my conceits
And my assumptions, and I laughed outright—
Laughed at myself, so loudly and so long
That I was startled. Not for many months
Had sound of mirth escaped me; and my voice
Rang strangely in my ears, as if the lips
Of one long dead had spoken.

I received
The token of returning healthfulness
With warm self-gratulation. I had touched
The magic hand that held new life for me:
The cloud was lifted, and the burden gone.
The leaf within my book of fate, that gloomed
With awful records, washed and blotched by tears—
Blown by a woman's breath from finger-tip's
They knew not what they did—was folded back;
And all the next white page held but one word,
One word of gold and flame—its title-crown—
That wrought a rosy nimbus for itself;
And that one word was LOVE.

The laggard days
My pride or my propriety imposed
Upon desire, before my eyes could see
The object of my new-born passion, passed;
And in the low hours of an afternoon.
Bright with the largess of kingly shower
Whose chariot-wheels still thundered in the East,
Leaving the West aflame, I sought the meads,
And once again, thrilled by foretasted joy,
Walked toward the mountain.

While I walked, the rain
Fell like a veil of gauze between my eyes
And the blue wall; and from the precious spot
That held the object of my thought, there sprang
An iridal effulgence, faint at first,
But brightening fast, and leaping to an arch
That spanned the heavens—a miracle of light!
"There's treasure where the rainbow rests," I said.
Would it evade me, as, for years untold,
It had evaded every childish dupe
Whose feet had chased the bright, elusive cheat?
Would it evade me? Question that arose,
And loomed with darker front and huger form
Than the dark mountain, and more darkly loomed
And higher rose as the long path grew short!
Would it evade me? Like a passing smile
The rainbow faded from the mountain's face;
And Hope's resplendent iris, which illumed
My question, grew phantasmal, and at length
Evanished, leaving but a doubtful blur.
Would it evade me? Gods! what wealth or waste
Of precious life awaited the reply!
Was it a coward's shudder that o'erswept
My frame at thought of possible repulse
And possible relapse?

"Oh! there he comes!"
I heard the mistress of the cottage say
Behind a honeysuckle. Did I smile?
It was because the fancy crossed me then
That the announcement was like one which rings
Over the polar seas, when, from his perch,
The lookout bruits a long-expected whale!
Then sweeping the piazza from the spot
Where with her niece she sat, she hailed me with:
"So, you are come at last! How very sad
These men have so much business! Tell me how
You got away; how soon you must return;
Who suffers by your absence; what the news,
And whether you are well."

Brisk medicine
These words to me, and timely given. They broke
The spell of fear, and banished my restraint.
She took my arm, and led me to her niece,
Who greeted me as if some special grace
Of courtesy were due, to make amends
For the familiar badinage her aunt
Had poured upon me.

They had come without—
One with her work, the other with her book—
To taste the freshness of the evening air,
Washed of the hot day's dust by rain; to hear
The robin's hymn of joy; and watch the clouds
That canopied with gold the sinking sun.
The maiden in a pale-blue, muslin robe—
Dyed with forget-me-nots, I fancied then,
And sweet with life in every fold, I knew—
A blush-rose at her throat, and in her hair
A sprig of green and white, was lovelier
Than sky or landscape; and her low words fell
More musically than the robin's hymn.
So, with my back to other scene and sound,
I faced the faces, took the proffered chair
And looked and listened.

"Tell us of yourself,"
Spoke the blunt aunt, with license of her years.
"What are you doing now?"

"Nothing," I said.