"And this seraphic ocean-child
And heroine was Orlie Wilde:
And thus it was I came to hear
Her voice's music in my ear—
Ay, thus it was Fate paved the way
That I walk desolate to-day!" . . .
The artist paused and bowed his face
Within his palms a little space,
While reverently on his form
I bent my gaze and marked a storm
That shook his frame as wrathfully
As some typhoon of agony,
And fraught with sobs—the more profound
For that peculiar laughing sound
We hear when strong men weep. . . . I leant
With warmest sympathy—I bent
To stroke with soothing hand his brow,
He murmuring—"Tis over now!—
And shall I tie the silken thread
Of my frail romance?" "Yes," I said.—
He faintly smiled; and then, with brow
In kneading palm, as one in dread—
His tasseled cap pushed from his head
" 'Her voice's music,' I repeat,"
He said,—" 'twas sweet—O passing sweet!—
Though she herself, in uttering
Its melody, proved not the thing
Of loveliness my dreams made meet
For me—there, yearning, at her feet—
Prone at her feet—a worshiper,—
For lo! she spake a tongue," moaned he,
"Unknown to me;—unknown to me
As mine to her—as mine to her."
THAT OTHER MAUD MULLER
Maud Muller worked at making hay,
And cleared her forty cents a day.
Her clothes were coarse, but her health was fine,
And so she worked in the sweet sunshine
Singing as glad as a bird in May
"Barbara Allen" the livelong day.
She often glanced at the far-off town,
And wondered if eggs were up or down.
And the sweet song died of a strange disease,
Leaving a phantom taste of cheese,
And an appetite and a nameless ache
For soda-water and ginger cake.