Part 3

And yet again: “Fields hath she trod arugged, aye, and weed agrown. Aye, and e’en now, where she hath set abloom the blossoms o’ her very soul, weed aspringeth. And lo, she standeth head ahigh and eye to sky and faith astrong. And foot abruised still troddeth rugged field. But I do promise ye ’tis such an faith that layeth low the weed and putteth ’pon the rugged path asmoothe, and yet but bloom shalt show, and ever shalt she stand, head ahigh and eye unto the sky.”

Upon an evening after she had showered such compliments upon the ladies present she exclaimed:

“I be a wag atruth, and lo, my posey-wreath be stripped!”

* * * * *

She seldom favors the men in this way. She has referred to herself several times as a spinster, and this may account for a certain reluctance to saying complimentary things of the other sex. “A prosy spinster may but plash in love’s pool,” she remarked once, and at another time she said: “A wife shall brush her goodman’s blacks and polish o’ his buckles, but a maid may not dare e’en to blow the trifling dust from his knickerbockers.” With a few notable exceptions, her attitude toward men has been expressed in sarcasm, none the less cutting to those for whom she has an affection manifested in other ways. To one such she said:

“Thee’lt peg thy shoes, lad, to best their wearing, and eat too freely of the fowl. Thy belly needeth pegging sore, I wot.”

“Patience doesn’t mean that for me,” he protested.

“Nay,” she said, “the jackass ne’er can know his reflection in the pool. He deemeth the thrush hath stolen of his song. Buy thee a pushcart. ’Twill speak for thee.”

And of this same rotund friend she remarked, when he laughed at something she had said:

“He shaketh like a pot o’ goose jell!”

“I back up, Patience,” he cried.

“And thee’lt find the cart,” she said.

Of a visitor, a physician, she had this to say:

“He bindeth and asmears and looketh at a merry, and his eye doth lie. How doth he smite and stitch like to a wench, and brew o’er steam! Yea, ’tis atwist he be. He runneth whither, and, at a beconing, (beckoning) yon, and ever thus; but ’tis a blunder-mucker he he. His head like to a steel, yea, and heart a summer’s cloud athin (within), enough to show athrough the clear o’ blue.”

* * * * *

But it is upon the infant that Patience bestows her tenderest words. Her love of childhood is shown in many lines of rare and touching beauty.

“Ye seek to level unto her,” she said of a baby girl who was present one evening, “but thou art awry at reasoning. For he who putteth him to babe’s path doth track him high, and lo, the path leadeth unto the Door. Yea, and doth she knock, it doth ope.

“Cast ye wide thy soul’s doors and set within such love. For, brother, I do tell thee that though the soul o’ ye be torn, aye, and scarred, ’tis such an love that doth heal. The love o’ babe be the balm o’ earth.

“See ye! The sun tarrieth ’bout the lips o’ her; aye, and though the hand be but thy finger’s span, ’tis o’ a weight to tear away thy heart.”

And upon another occasion she revealed something of herself in these words:

Know ye; in my heart’s mansion There be apart a place Wherein I treasure my God’s gifts. Think ye to peer therein? Nay. And should thee by a chance To catch a stolen glimpse, Thee’dst laugh amerry, for hord (hoard) Would show but dross to thee: A friend’s regard, ashrunked and turned To naught—but one bright memory is there; A hope—now dead, but showeth gold hid there; A host o’ nothings—dreams, hopes, fears; Love throbs afluttered hence Since first touch o’ baby hands Caressed my heart’s store ahidden.

Returning to the femininity of Patience, it is also shown in her frequent references to dress. Upon an evening when the publication of her poems had been under discussion, when next the board was taken up she let them know that she had heard, in this manner:

“My pettieskirt hath a scallop,” she said. “Mayhap that will help thy history.”

“Oh,” cried Mrs. Curran, “we are discovered!”

“Yea,” laughed Patience—she must have laughed, “and tell thou of my buckled boots and add a cap-string.”

Further illustrative of her feminine characteristics and of her interest in dress, as well as of a certain fun-loving spirit which now and then seems to sway her, is this record of a sitting upon an evening when Mr. Curran and Mr. Hutchings had gone to the theater, and the ladies were alone:

_Patience._—“Go ye to the lighted hall to search for learning? Nay, ’tis a piddle, not a stream, ye search. Mayhap thou sendest thy men for barleycorn. ’Twould then surprise thee should the asses eat it.”

_Mrs. H._—“What is she driving at?”

_Mrs. P._—“The men and the theater, I suppose.”

_Mrs. H._—“Patience, what are they seeing up there?”

_Patience._—“Ne’er a timid wench, I vum.”

_Mrs. C._—“You don’t approve of their going, do you, Patience?”

_Patience._—“Thee’lt find a hearth more profit. Better they cast the bit of paper.”

_Mrs. C._—“What does she mean by paper? Their programmes?”

_Patience._—“Painted parchment squares.”

_Mrs. P._—“Oh, she means they’d better stay at home and play cards.”

_Mrs. H._—“Are they likely to get their morals corrupted at that show?”

_Patience._—“He who tickleth the ass to start a braying, fain would carol with his brother.”

_Mrs. C._—“If the singing is as bad as it usually is at that place, I don’t wonder at her disapproval. But what about the girls, Patience?”

_Patience._—“My pettieskirt ye may borrow for the brazens.”

_Mrs. P._—“Now, what is a pettieskirt? Is it really a skirt or is it that ruff they used to wear around the neck?”

_Patience._—“Nay, my bib covereth the neckband.”

_Mrs. H._—“Then, where do you wear your pettieskirt?”

_Patience._—“’Neath my kirtle.”

_Mrs. C._—“Is that the same as girdle? Let’s look it up.”

_Patience._—“Art fashioning thy new frock?”

_Mrs. H._—“I predict that Patience will found a new style—Puritan.”

_Patience._—“’Twere a virtue, egad!”

_Mrs. H._—“You evidently don’t think much of our present style. In your day women dressed more modestly, didn’t they?”

_Patience._—“Many’s the wench who pulled her points to pop. But ah, the locks were combed to satin! He who bent above might see himself reflected.”

_Mrs. C._—“What were the young girls of your day like, Patience?”

_Patience._—“A silly lot, as these of thine. Wait!”

There was no movement of the board for about three minutes, and then:

“’Tis a sorry lot, not harming but boresome!”

_Mrs. H._—“Oh, Patience, have you been to the theater?”

_Patience._—“A peep in good cause could surely ne’er harm the godly.”

_Mrs. C._—“How do you think we ought to look after those men?”

_Patience._—“Thine ale is drunk at the hearth. Surely he who stops to sip may bless the firelog belonging to thee.”

When the men returned home they agreed with the verdict of Patience before they had heard it, that it was a “tame” show, “not harming, but boresome.”

The exclamation of Mrs. Curran, “Let’s look it up,” in the extract just quoted from the record, has been a frequent one in this circle since Patience came. So many of her words are obsolete that her friends are often compelled to search through the dictionaries and glossaries for their meaning. Her reference to articles of dress—wimple, kirtle, pettieskirt, points and so on, had all to be “looked up.” Once Patience began an evening with this remark:

“The cockshut finds ye still peering to find the other land.”

“What is cock’s hut?” asked Mrs. H.

“Nay,” said Patience, “Cock-shut. Thee needeth light, but cockshut bringeth dark.”

“Cockshut must mean shutting up the cock at night,” suggested a visitor.

“Aye, and geese, too, then could be put to quiet,” Patience exclaimed. “Wouldst thou wish for cockshut?”

Search revealed that cockshut was a term anciently applied to a net used for catching woodcock, and it was spread at nightfall, hence cockshut acquired also the meaning of early evening. Shakespeare uses the term once, in Richard III., in the phrase, “Much about cockshut time,” but it is a very rare word in literature, and probably has not been used, even colloquially, for centuries.

There are many such words used by Patience—relics of an age long past. The writer was present at a sitting when part of a romantic story-play of medieval days was being received on the board. One of the characters in the story spoke of herself as “playing the jane-o’-apes.” No one present had ever heard or seen the word. Patience was asked if it had been correctly received, and she repeated it. Upon investigation it was found that it is a feminine form of the familiar jackanapes, meaning a silly girl. Massinger used it in one of his plays in the seventeenth century, but that appears to be the only instance of its use in literature.

These words may be not unknown to many people, but the point is that they were totally strange to those at the board, including Mrs. Curran—words that could not possibly have come out of the consciousness or subconsciousness of any one of them. The frequent use of such words helps to give verity to the archaic tongue in which she expresses her thoughts, and the consistent and unerring use of this obsolete form of speech is, next to the character of her literary production, the strongest evidence of her genuineness. It will be noticed, too, that the language she uses in conversation is quite different from that in her literary compositions, although there are definite similarities which seem to prove that they come from the same source. In this also she is wholly consistent: for it is unquestionably true that no poet ever talked as he wrote. Every writer uses colloquial words and idioms in conversation that he would never employ in literature. No matter what his skill or genius as a writer may be, he talks “just like other people.” Patience Worth in this, as in other things, is true to her character.

* * * * *

It may be repeated that in all this matter—and it is but a skimming of the mass—one may readily discern a distinct and striking personality; not a wraith-like, formless, evanescent shadow, but a personality that can be clearly visualized. One can easily imagine Patience Worth to be a woman of the Puritan period, with, however, none of the severe and gloomy beliefs of the Puritan—a woman of a past age stepped out of an old picture and leaving behind her the material artificialities of paint and canvas. From her speech and her writings one may conceive her to be a woman of Northern England, possibly: for she uses a number of ancient words that are found to have been peculiar to the Scottish border; a country woman, perhaps, for in all of her communications there are only two or three references to the city, although her knowledge and love of the drama may be a point against this assumption; a woman who had read much in an age when books were scarce, and women who could read rarer still: for although she frequently expresses disdain of book learning, she betrays a large accumulation of such learning, and a copious vocabulary, as well as a degree of skill in its use, that could only have been acquired from much study of books. “I have bought beads from a pack,” she says, “but ne’er yet have I found a peddler of words.”

And then, after we have mentally materialized this woman, and given her a habitation and a time, Patience speaks again, and all has vanished. “Not so,” she said to one who questioned her, “I be abirthed awhither and abide me where.” And again she likened herself to the wind. “I be like the wind,” she said, “who leaveth not track, but ever ’bout, and yet like to the rain who groweth grain for thee to reap.” At other times she has indicated that she has never had a physical existence. I have quoted her saying: “I do plod a twist o’ a path and it hath run from then till now.” At a later time she was asked what she meant by that. She answered:

“Didst e’er to crack a stone, and lo, a worm aharded? (a fossil). ’Tis so, for list ye, I speak like ye since time began.”

It is thus she reveals herself clearly to the mind, but when one attempts to approach too closely, to lay a hand upon her, as it were, she invariably recedes into the unfathomable deeps of mysticism.

THE POETRY

Am I a broken lyre, Who, at the Master’s touch, Respondeth with a tinkle and a whir? Or am I strung in full And at His touch give forth the full chord? —PATIENCE WORTH.

As the reader will have observed, the poetry of Patience Worth is not confined to a single theme, nor to a group of related themes. It covers a range that extends from inanimate things through all the gradations of material life and on into the life of spiritual realms as yet uncharted. It includes poems of sentiment, poems of nature, poems of humanity; but the larger number deal with man in relation to the mysteries of the beyond. All of them evince intellectual power, knowledge of nature and human nature, and skill in construction. With the exception of one or two little jingles, the poems are rhymeless. Patience may not wholly agree with Milton that rhyme “is the invention of a barbarous age to set off wretched matter and lame metre,” but she seldom uses it, finding in blank verse a medium that suits all her moods, making it at will as light and ethereal as a summer cloud or as solemn and stately as a Wagnerian march. She molds it to every purpose, and puts it to new and strange uses. Who, for example, ever saw a lullaby in blank verse? It is, I believe, quite without precedent in literature, and yet it would not be easy to find a lullaby more daintily beautiful than the one which will be presented later on.

In all of her verse, the iambic measure is dominant, but it is not maintained with monotonous regularity. She appreciates the value of an occasional break in the rhythm, and she understands the uses of the pause. But she declines to be bound by any rules of line measurement. Many of her lines are in accord with the decasyllabic standard of heroic verse, but in no instance is that standard rigidly adhered to: some of the lines contain as many as sixteen syllables, others drop to eight or even six.

It should be explained, however, that the poetry as it comes from the ouija board is not in verse form. There is nothing in the dictation to indicate where a line should begin or where end, nor, of course, is there any punctuation, there being no way by which the marks of punctuation could be denoted. There is usually, however, a perceptible pause at the end of a sentence. The words are taken down as they are spelled on the board, without any attempt, at the time, at versification or punctuation. After the sitting, the matter is punctuated and lined as nearly in accord with the principles of blank verse construction as the abilities of the editor will permit. It is not claimed that the line arrangement of the verses as they are here presented is perfect; but that is a detail of minor importance, and for whatever technical imperfections there may be in this particular, Patience Worth is not responsible. The important thing is that every word is given exactly as it came from the board, without the alteration of a syllable, and without changing the position or even the spelling of a single one.

As a rule, Patience spells the words in accordance with the standards of today, but there are frequent departures from those standards, and many times she has spelled a word two or three different ways in the same composition. For example, she will spell “spin” with one n or two n’s indifferently: she will spell “friend” correctly, and a little later will add an e to it; she will write “boughs” and “bows” in the same composition. On the other hand she invariably spells tongue “tung,” and positively refuses to change it, and this is true also of the word bosom, which she spells “busom.”

There are indications that the poems and the stories are in course of composition at the time they are being produced on the ouija board. Indeed, one can almost imagine the author dictating to an amanuensis in the manner that was necessary before stenography was invented, when every word had to be spelled out in longhand. At times the little table will move with such rapidity that it is very difficult to follow its point with the eye and catch the letter indicated. Then there will be a pause, and the pointer will circle around the board, as if the composer were trying to decide upon a word or a phrase. Occasionally four or five words of a sentence will be given, then suddenly the planchette will dart up to the word “No,” and begin the sentence again with different and, it is to be presumed, more satisfactory words.

Sometimes, though rarely, Patience will begin a composition and suddenly abandon it with an exclamation of displeasure, or else take up a new and entirely different subject. Once she began a prose composition thus:

“I waste my substance on the weaving of web and the storing of pebbles. When shall I build mine house, and when fill the purse? Oh, that my fancy weaved not but web, and desire pricketh not but pebble!”

There was an impatient dash across the board, and then she exclaimed:

“Bah, ’tis bally reasoning! I plucked a gosling for a goose, and found down enough to pad the parson’s saddle skirts!”

At another time she began:

“Rain, art thou the tears wept a thousand years agone, and soaked into the granite walls of dumb and feelingless races? Now——”

There was a long pause and then came this lullaby:

Oh, baby, soft upon my breast press thou, And let my fluttering throat spell song to thee, A song that floweth so, my sleeping dear: Oh, buttercups of eve, Oh, willynilly, My song shall flutter on, Oh, willynilly. I climb a web to reach a star, And stub my toe against a moonbeam Stretched to bar my way, Oh, willynilly. A love-puff vine shall shelter us, Oh, baby mine; And then across the sky we’ll float And puff the stars away. Oh, willynilly, on we’ll go, Willynilly floating.

“Thee art o’erfed on pudding,” she added to Mrs. Curran. “This sauce is but a butter-whip.”

And now, having briefly referred to the technique of the poems, and explained the manner in which they are transmitted we will make a more systematic presentation of them. For a beginning, nothing better could be offered than the Spinning Wheel lullaby heretofore referred to.

In it we can see the mother of, perhaps, the Puritan days, seated at the spinning wheel while she sings to the child which is supposed to lie in the cradle by her side. One can view through the open door the old-fashioned flower garden bathed in sunlight, can hear the song of the bird and the hum of the bee, and through it all the sound of the wheel. But!—it is the song of a childless woman to an imaginary babe: Patience has declared herself a spinster.

Strumm, strumm! Ah, wee one, Croon unto the tendrill tipped with sungilt, Nodding thee from o’er the doorsill there.

Strumm, strumm! My wheel shall sing to thee. I pull the flax as golden as thy curl, And sing me of the blossoms blue, Their promise, like thine eyes to me.

Strumm, strumm! ’Tis such a merry tale I spinn. Ah, wee one, croon unto the honey bee Who diggeth at the rose’s heart.

Strumm, strumm! My wheel shall sing to thee, Heart-blossom mine. The sunny morn Doth hum with lovelilt, dear. I fain would leave my spinning To the spider climbing there, And bruise thee, blossom, to my breast.

Strumm, strumm! What fancies I do weave! Thy dimpled hand doth flutter, dear, Like a petal cast adrift Upon the breeze.

Strumm, strumm! ’Tis faulty spinning, dear. A cradle built of thornwood, A nest for thee, my bird. I hear thy crooning, wee one, And ah, this fluttering heart.

Strumm, strumm! How ruthlessly I spinn! My wheel doth wirr an empty song, my dear, For tendrill nodding yonder Doth nod in vain, my sweet; And honey bee would tarry not For thee; and thornwood cradle swayeth Only to the loving of the wind!

Strumm, strumm! My wheel still sings to thee, Thou birdling of my fancy’s realm!

Strumm, strumm! An empty dream, my dear! The sun doth shine, my bird; Or should he fail, he shineth here Within my heart for thee!

Strumm, strumm! My wheel still sings to thee.

Who would say that rhyme or measured lines would add anything to this unique song? It is filled with the images which are the essentials of true poetry, and it has the rhythm which sets the imagery to music and gives it vitality. “The tendrill tipped with sungilt,” “the sunny morn doth hum with lovelilt,” “thy dimpled hand doth flutter like a petal cast adrift upon the breeze”—these are figures that a Shelley would not wish to disown. There is a lightness and delicacy, too, that would seem to be contrary to our notions of the adaptiveness of blank verse. But these are technical features. It is the pathos of the song, the expression of the mother-yearning instinctive in every woman, which gives it value to the heart.

And yet there is a pleasure expressed in this song, the pleasure of imagination, which makes the mind’s pictures living realities. In the poem which follows Patience expresses the feelings of the dreamer who is rudely awakened from this delightful pastime by the realist who sees but what his eyes behold:

Athin the even’s hour, When shadow purpleth the garden wall, Then sit thee there adream, And cunger thee from out the pack o’ me. Yea, speak thou, and tell to me What ’tis thou hearest here.

A rustling? Yea, aright! A murmuring? Yea, aright! Ah, then, thou sayest, ’tis the leaves That love one ’pon the other. Yea, and the murmuring, thou sayest, Is but the streamlet’s hum.

Nay, nay! For wait thee. Ayonder o’er the wall doth rise The white faced Sister o’ the Sky. And lo, she beareth thee a fairies’ wand, And showeth thee the ghosts o’ dreams.

Look thou! Ah, look! A one Doth step adown the path! The rustle? ‘Tis the silken whisper o’ her robe. The hum? The love-note o’ her maiden dream. See thee, ah, see! She bendeth there, And branch o’ bloom doth nod and dance. Hark, the note! A robin’s cheer?

Ah, Brother, nay. ’Tis the whistle o’ her lover’s pipe. See, see, the path e’en now Doth show him, tall and dark, aside the gate.

What! What! Thou sayest ’Tis but the rustle o’ the leaves, And brooklet’s humming o’er its stony path! Then hush! Yea, hush thee! Hush and leave me here! The fairy wand hath broke, and leaves Stand still, and note hath ceased, And maiden vanished with thy word.