Kathrina—A Poem

by J. G. Holland

I marked her as I read, a furtive glance
Filling each pause. The passion of the piece,
Flaming and fading, ever and anon,
Mirrored itself within her tender eyes,
Themselves the mirror of her tender soul,
And fixed attent upon my face the while.

She had not caught my meaning, but had heard
Only a weird, wild story. When I paused,
Folding the manuscript, I saw a shade
Of disappointment sweep her face, and marked
A question rising in her eyes. She knew
That I was waiting for her words, and turned
Her look away, and for long moments gazed
Into the brooding dusk.

"Speak it!" I said.

"'Twas very strange and sad," she answered me.
"Why do you write such things?—or, writing such,
Leave them so incomplete? The prisoned youth,
Thus unreleased, will haunt me while I live.
I shudder while I think of him."

Then I:
"The poem will be finished, by-and-by,
For this is history, and antedates
No fact that it records. Whether this youth
Shall live entombed, or reach the blessed air,
Depends upon his angel; for he calls—
I hear him call, and call again her name
Kathrina! O! Kathrina!"

Like the flash
Of the hot lightning, the significance
Of the strange vision gleamed upon her face
In a bright, throbbing flame, that fell full soon
To ashen paleness. By unconscious will
We both arose. She vainly tried to speak,
And gazed into my eyes with such a look
Of tender questioning, of half-reproach,
Of struggling, doubting, hesitating joy,
As few men ever see, and none but once.

Are there not lofty moments, when the soul
Leaps to the front of being, casting off
The robes and clumsy instruments of sense,
And, postured in its immortality,
Reveals its independence of the clod
In which it dwells?—moments in which the earth
And all material things, all sights and sounds,
All signals, ministries, interpreters,
Relapse to nothing, and the interflow
Of thought and feeling, love and life go on
Between two spirits, raised to sympathy
By an inspiring passion, as, in heaven,
The body dust, within an orb outlived,
It shall go on forever?

Moments like these—
Nay, these in very truth—were given us then.
Who shall expound—ah! who but God alone,
The everlasting mystery of love?
She spoke not, but I knew that she was mine.
I breathed no word, but she was well assured
That I was wholly hers.

In what disguise
Our love had hid, and wrought its miracle;
Behind what semblance of indifference,
Or play of courtesy, it spun the cords
That bound our hearts in one, was mystery
Like love itself. The swift intelligence
Of interchange of perfect faith and troth,
Of gift of life and person, of the thrill
Of triumph in my soul and gratitude
In hers, without a gesture, or a word,
Was like the converse of the continents
Tracking with voiceless flight the slender wire
That underlay the throbbing mystery
Between our souls, and made our heart-beats one.
I opened wide my arms, and she, my own,
Sobbed on my breast with such excess of joy,
In such embrace of passionate tenderness,
As heaven may yield again, but never earth.

Slow in the golden twilight, toward her home,
Her hand upon my arm, we loitered on,
Silent at first, and then with quiet speech
Broaching our plans, or tracing in review
The history of our springing love, when she,
Lifting her soft blue eyes to mine: