Ah! brief our little, little day;
Ah! years that fleet so fast away;
Before our summer scarce begun,
Look, spring and blossom-tide are done!
When all things hasten past,
How should love only last?
How should our souls alone unchanged remain?—
Come pleasure or come pain,
In days of joy and gladness,
In years of grief and sadness,
Love shall be love!
CLYTÆMNESTRA IN PARIS.
I seemed to pace the dreadful corridors
Of a still foreign prison, blank and white,
And in a bare and solitary cell
To find a lonely woman, soft of voice
And mild of eye, who never till life's end
Should pass those frowning gates. Methought I asked her
The story of her crime, and what hard fate
Left her, so gentle seeming, fettered there,
Hopeless, a murderess at whose very name
Men shuddered still. And to my questioning
Methought that dreadful soul made answer thus:
"Yes, I suppose I liked him, though I know not;
I hardly know what love may be; how should I?—
I a young girl wedded without my will,
As is our custom here, to a man old,
Not perhaps in years, but dark experiences.
What had we two in common, that worn man,
And I, an untrained girl? It was not strange
If when that shallow boy, with his bold tongue,
And his gay eyes, and curls, and budding beard,
Flattered me, I was weak. I think all women
Are weak sometimes, and overprone to love
When the man is young, and straight, and 'twas a triumph
To see the disappointed envious jades
Wince as he passed them carelessly, nor heeded
Their shallow wiles to trap him,—ay, a triumph!
And that was all; I hardly know, indeed,
If it was love that drove, or only pride
To hold what others grudged me. Vain he was,
And selfish, and a coward, as you shall hear,
Handsome enough, I grant you, to betray
A stronger soul than mine. Indeed, I think,
He never cared for me nor I for him
(For there were others after him): I knew it,
Then chiefest, when our comedy of life
Was turning at the last to tragedy.
"Now that I was unfaithful, a false wife,
I value not men's sneers at a pin's point,
We have a right to love and to be loved;
Not the mere careless tolerance of the spouse
Who has none to give. True, if I were a nun,
Vowed to a white and cloistered life, no doubt
'Twere otherwise. They tell me there are women
Who are so rapt by thoughts of the poor, of churches,
Of public ends, of charity, of schools,
Of Heaven knows what, they live their lives untouched
By passion; but for us, who are but women,
Not bred on moonlight, perhaps of common clay,
Untrained for aught but common bourgeois life,
Life is no mystical pale procession winding
Its way from the cradle to the grave, but rather
A thing of hot swift flushes, fierce delights,
Good eating, dances, wines, and all the rest,
When the occasion comes. I never loved him,
I tell you; therefore, perhaps, I did no sin.
"But when this fellow must presume to boast,
Grow cold, have scruples for his soul and mine,
And turn to other younger lives, and pass
My door to-day with this one, then with that,
And all the gossips of the quarter sneered,
And knew I was deserted, do you think it
A wonder that my eyes, opened at last,
Saw all the folly and the wickedness
(If sweet it were, where were the wickedness?)
Which bore such bitter fruit? Think you it strange
That I should turn for aid, ay, and revenge,
To my wronged spouse—if wronged he be, indeed,
Who doth consent as he did? When I told him,
Amid my tears, he made but small pretence
Of jealousy at all; only his pride
Was perhaps a little wounded. And indeed
It took such long confessions, such grave pain
Of soul, such agony of remorse of mine
To move him but a little, that I grew
So weary of it all, it almost checked
My penitence, and left me free to choose
Another for my love; but at the last,
Long labour, feigned reports, the neighbours' sneers,
These drove him at the last, good easy man,
To such a depth of hatred, that my task
Grew lighter, and my heart.
He bade me write
Loving appeals, recalling our past days
Together; and I wrote them, using all
The armoury of loving cozening words
With which craft arms us women: but in vain,
For whether some new love engrossed, or whether
He wearied of me and my love, I know not,
Only, in spite of all, no answer came.
"At length, since I could get no word from him,
My husband bade me write—or was it I
Who thought of the device? Pray you believe me,
I would speak nothing else than the whole truth,
But these sad dreadful deeds confuse the brain.
Well, perhaps 'twas I, who knew his weakness well
I do not know, but somehow it came to pass
I wrote a crafty letter, begging of him,
By all our former kindness, former wrong,
If for the last time, recognizing well
That all was done between us evermore,
We might, for one last evening, meet and part
And, knowing he was needy, and his greed,—
'If only he would come,' I wrote to him,
'I had some secret savings, and desired—
For what need comes there closer than a friend's?—
To help him in his trouble.'
Swift there came—
The viper!—hypocritical words of love:
Yes, he would come, for the old love still lived,
He knew it, ah, too well; not all the glamour
Of other eyes and lips could ever quench
The fire of that mad passion. He would come,
Loving as ever, longing for the day.
"Now when we had the answer, straight we three—
My husband and myself, and his weak brother,
Whose daughter to her first communion went
That very day,—and I, too, took the Host
As earnest of changed life,—we three, I say,
At a little feast we made to celebrate
The brothers reconciled (in families
There come dissensions, as you know), devised
His punishment. We hired, in a still suburb,
A cottage standing backward from the street,
Beyond an avenue of sycamores;
A lonely place, unnoticed. Day by day
We went, we three together—for I feared
Lest, if there were no third, the strength of youth
Might bear my husband down—we went to make
All needful preparations. First we spread
Over all the floor a colour like to blood,
For deep's the stain of blood, and what shall cleanse it?
Also, my husband, from a neighbouring wood,
Had brought a boar-trap, sharp with cruel knives
And jaggèd teeth, to close with a snap and tear
The wild beast caught within it. But I deemed
The risk too great, the prey might slip away;
Therefore, that he might meet his punishment,
And to prevent the sound of cries and groans,
My husband fashioned for his lips a gag,
And on the mantel left it, and the means
To strike a light. And being thus prepared,
We three returned to Paris; there long time
We sate eating and drinking of the best,
As those do who have taken a resolve
Whence no escape is, save to do and die.