Far in the crimson orient land,
On many a mountain’s happy head
Dawn lightly laid her rosy hand.”
“A Ballad of a Nun” seems to me Mr. Davidson’s crowning achievement; yet “A Ballad of Heaven” and “A Ballad of Hell” are scarcely less striking. In “A Ballad of Heaven” there is a musician who works for years at one great composition. The world ignores him. His wife and child, clothed in rags, are starving in their windy garret; but he does not know it, for he dwells in the strange, far heaven of his music.
“Wistful he grew, but never feared;
For always on the midnight skies
His rich orchestral score appeared,
In stars and zones and galaxies.”
He turns, at last, from his completed score to seek the sympathy of love; but wife and child are lying dead. He gathers to his breast the stark, wan wife with the baby skeleton in her arms.
“‘You see you are alive,’ he cried.