Part 4

A little maid was at my side-- She slept--I scarcely slept at all; Until toward the morning-tide A dream possessed me with its thrall. She sweetly breathed; around my breast I felt her warmth like drowsy bliss, Then came the vision of unrest-- I saw your face and felt your kiss.

I woke and knew with what dismay She read my secret and surprise; She only said, "Again 'tis day! How red your cheeks, how bright your eyes!"

THE SIGN

There's not a soul on the square, And the snow blows up like a sail, Or dizzily drifts like a drunken man Falling, before the gale.

And when the wind eddies it rifts The snow that lies in drifts; And it skims along the walk and sifts In stairways, doorways all about The steps of the church in an angry rout. And one would think that a hungry hound Was out in the cold for the sound.

But I do not seem to mind The snow that makes one blind, Nor the crying voice of the wind-- I hate to hear the creak of the sign Of Harmon Whitney, attorney at law: With its rhythmic monotone of awe. And neither a moan nor yet a whine, Nor a cry of pain--one can't define The sound of a creaking sign.

Especially if the sky be bleak, And no one stirs however you seek, And every time you hear it creak You wonder why they leave it stay When a man is buried and hidden away Many a day!

WILLIAM MARION REEDY

He sits before you silent as Buddha, And then you say This man is Rabelais. And while you wonder what his stock is, English or Irish, you behold his eyes As big and brown as those desirable crockies With which as boys we used to play. And then you see the spherical light that lies Just under the iris coloring, Before which everything, Becomes as plain as day.

If you have noticed the rolling jowls And the face that speaks its chief Delight in beer and roast beef Before you have seen his eyes, you see A man of fleshly jollity, Like the friars of old in gowns and cowls To make a show of scowls. And when he speaks from an orotund depth that growls In a humorous way like Fielding or Smollett That turns in a trice to Robert La Follette Or retraces to Thales of Crete, And touches upon Descartes coming back Through the intellectual Zodiac That's something of a feat. And you see that the eyes are really the man, For the thought of him proliferates This way over to Hindostan, And that way descanting on Yeats. With a word on Plato's symposium, And a little glimpse of Theocritus, Or something of Bruno's martyrdom, Or what St. Thomas Aquinas meant By a certain line obscure to us. And then he'll take up Horace's odes Or the Roman civilization; Or a few of the Iliad's episodes, Or the Greek deterioration. Or skip to a word on the plasmic jelly, Which Benjamin Moore and others think Is the origin of life. Then Shelley Comes in a for a look of understanding. Or he'll tell you about the orientation Of the ancient dream of Zion. Or what's the matter with Bryan. And while the porter is bringing a drink Something into his fancy skips And he talks about the Apocalypse, Or a painter or writer now unknown In France or Germany who will soon Have fame of him through the whole earth blown.

It's not so hard a thing to be wise In the lore of books. It's a different thing to be all eyes, Like a lighthouse which revolves and looks Over the land and out to sea: And a lighthouse is what he seems to me! Sitting like Buddha spiritually cool, Young as the light of the sun is young, And taking the even with the odd As a matter of course, and the path he's trod As a path that was good enough. With a sort of transcendental sense Whose hatred is less than indifference, And a gift of wisdom in love. And who can say as he classifies Men and ages with his eyes With cool detachment: this is dung, And that poor fellow is just a fool. And say what you will death is a rod. But I see a light that shines and shines And I rather think it's God.

A STUDY

If your thoughts were as clear as your eyes, And the whole of your heart were true, You were fitter by far for winning-- But then that would not be you.

If your pulse beat time to love As fast as you think and plan, You could kindle a lasting passion In the breast of the strongest man.

If you felt as much as you thought, And dreamed what you seem to dream, A world of elysian beauty Your ruined heart would redeem.

If you thought in the light of the sun, Or the blood in your veins flowed free, If you gave your kisses but gladly, We two could better agree.

If you were strong where I counted, And weak where yourself were at stake, You would have my strength for your giving, You would gain and not lose for my sake.

If your heart overruled your head, Or your head were lord of your heart, Or the two were lovingly balanced, I think we never should part.

If you came to me spite of yourself, And staid not away through design, These days of loving and living Were sweet as Olympian wine.

If you could weep with another, And tears for yourself controlled, You could waken and hold to a pity You waken, but do not hold.

If your lips were as fain to speak As your face is fashioned to hide-- You would know that to lay up treasure A woman's heart must confide.

If your bosom were something richer, Or your hands more fragile and thin, You would call what the world calls evil, Or sin and be glad of the sin.

If your soul were aflame with love, Or your head were devoted to truth, You never would toss on your pillow Bewildered 'twixt rapture and ruth.

If you were the you of my dreams, And the you of my dreams were mine, These days, half sweet and half bitter, Would taste like Olympian wine.

Oh, subtle and mystic Egyptians! Who chiseled the Sphinx in the East, With head and the breasts of a woman, And body and claws of a beast.

And gave her a marvellous riddle That the eyeless should read as he ran: What crawls and runs and is baffled By woman, the sphinx--but a man?

Many look in her face and are conquered, Where one all her heart has explored; A thousand have made her their sovereign, But one is her sovereign and lord.

For him she leaps from her standard And fawns at his feet in the sand, Who sees that himself is her riddle, And she but the work of his hand.

PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN

The pathos in your face is like a peace, It is like resignation or a grace Which smiles at the surcease Of hope. But there is in your face The shadow of pain, and there is a trace Of memory of pain.

I look at you again and again, And hide my looks lest your quick eye perceives My search for your despair. I look at your pale hands--I look at your hair; And I watch you use your hands, I watch the flare Of thought in your eyes like light that interweaves A flutter of color running under leaves-- Such anguished dreams in your eyes! And I listen to you speak Words like crystals breaking with a tinkle, Or a star's twinkle. Sometimes as we talk you rise And leave the room, and then I rub a streak Of a tear from my cheek.

You tell me such magical things Of pictures, books, romance And of your life in France In the varied music of exquisite words, And in a voice that sings.

All things are memory now with you, For poverty girds Your hopes, and only your dreams remain. And sometimes here and there I see as you turn your head a whitened hair, Even when you are smiling most. And a light comes in your eyes like a passing ghost, And a color runs through your cheeks as fresh As burns in a girl's flesh. Then I can shut my eyes and feel the pain That has become a part of you, though I feign Laughter myself. One sees another's bruise And shakes his thought out of it shuddering. So I turn and clamp my will lest I bring Your sorrow into my flesh, who cannot choose But hear your words and laughter, And watch your hands and eyes.

Then as I think you over after I have gone from you, and your face Comes to me with its grace Of memory of unfound love: You seem to me the image of all women Who dream and keep under smiles the grief thereof, Or sew, or sit by windows, or read books To hide their Secret's looks. And after a time go out of life and leave No uttered words but in their silence grieve For Life and for the things no tongue can tell: Why Life hurts so, and why Love haunts and hurts Poor men and women in this demi-hell.

Perhaps your pathos means that it is well Death in his time the aspiring torch inverts, And all tired flesh and haunted eyes and hands Moving in painéd whiteness are put under The soothing earth to brighten April's wonder.

IN THE CAGE

The sounds of mid-night trickle into the roar Of morning over the water growing blue. At ten o'clock the August sunbeams pour A blinding flood on Michigan Avenue.

But yet the half-drawn shades of bottle green Leave the recesses of the room With misty auras drawn around their gloom Where things lie undistinguished, scarcely seen.

You, standing between the window and the bed Are edged with rainbow colors. And I lie Drowsy with quizzical half-open eye Musing upon the contour of your head, Watching you comb your hair, Clothed in a corset waist and skirt of silk, Tied with white braid above your slender hips Which reaches to your knees and makes your bare And delicate legs by contrast white as milk. And as you toss your head to comb its tresses They flash upon me like long strips of sand Between a moonlit sea, pale as your hand, And a red sun that on a high dune stresses Its sanguine heat.

And then at times your lips, Protruding half unconscious half in scorn Engage my eyes while looking through the morn At the clear oval of your brow brought full Over the sovereign largeness of your eyes; Or at your breasts that shake not as you pull The comb through stubborn tangles, only rise Scarcely perceptible with breath or signs, Firm unmaternal like a young Bacchante's, Or at your nose profoundly dipped like Dante's Over your chin that softly melts away.

Now you seem fully under my heart's sway. I have slipped through the magic of your mesh Freed once again and strengthened by your flesh, You seem a weak thing for a strong man's play. Yet I know now that we shall scarce have parted When I shall think of you half heavy hearted. I know our partings. You will faintly smile And look at me with eyes that have no guile, Or have too much, and pass into the sphere Where you keep independent life meanwhile. How do you live without me, is the fear? You do not lean upon me, ask my love, or wonder Of other loves I may have hidden under These casual renewals of our love. And if I loved you I should lie in flame, Ari, go about re-murmuring your name, And these are things a man should be above.

And as I lie here on the imminent brink Of soul's surrender into your soul's power, And in the white light of the morning hour I see what life would be if we should link Our lives together in a marriage pact: For we would walk along a boundless tract Of perfect hell; but your disloyalty Would be of spirit, for I have not won Mastered and bound your spirit unto me. And if you had a lover in the way I have you it would not by half betray My love as does your vague and chainless thought, Which wanders, soars or vanishes, returns, Changes, astonishes, or chills or burns, Is unresisting, plastic, freely wrought Under my hands yet to no unison Of my life and of yours. Upon this brink I watch you now and think Of all that has been preached or sung or spoken Of woman's tragedy in woman's fall; And all the pictures of a woman broken By man's superior strength.

And there you stand Your heart and life as firmly in command Of your resolve as mine is, knowing all Of man, the master, and his power to harm, His rulership of spheres material, Bread, customs, rules of fair repute-- What are they all against your slender arm? Which long since plucked the fruit Of good and evil, and of life at last And now of Life. For dancing you have cast Veil after veil of ideals or pretense With which men clothe the being feminine To satisfy their lordship or their sense Of ownership and hide the things of sin-- You have thrown them aside veil after veil; And there you stand unarmored, weirdly frail, Yet strong as nature, making comical The poems and the tales of woman's fall.... You nod your head, you smile, I feel the air Made by the closing door. I lie and stare At the closed door. One, two, your tuftèd steps Die on the velvet of the outer hall. You have escaped. And I would not pursue. Though we are but caged creatures, I and you-- A male and female tiger in a zoo. For I shall wait you. Life himself will track Your wanderings and bring you back, And shut you up again with me and cage Our love and hatred and our silent rage.

SAVING A WOMAN: ONE PHASE

To a lustful thirst she came at first And gave him her maiden's pride; And the first man scattered the flower of her love, Then turned to his chosen bride.

She waned with grief as a fading star, And waxed as a shining flame; And the second man had her woman's love, But the second was playing the game.

With passion she stirred the man who was third; Woe's me! what delicate skill She plied to the heart that knew her art And fled from her wanton will.

Now calm and demure, oh fair, oh pure, Oh subtle, patient and wise, She trod the weary round of life, With a sorrow deep in her eyes.

Now a hero who knew how false, how true Was the speech that fell from her lips, With a Norseman's strength took sail with her, And landed and burnt his ships.

He gave her pity, he gave her mirth, And the hurt in her heart he nursed; But under the silence of her brows Was a dream of the man who was first.

And all the deceit and lust of men Had sharpened her own deceit; And down to the gates of hell she led Her friend with her flying feet.

For a bitten bud will never bloom, And a woman lost is lost! And the first and the third may go unscathed, But some man pays the cost.

And the books of life are full of the rune, And this is the truth of the song: No man can save a woman's soul, Nor right a woman's wrong.

LOVE IS A MADNESS

Love is a madness, love is a fevered dream, A white soul lost in a field of scarlet flowers-- Love is a search for the lost, the ever vanishing gleam Of wings, desires and sorrows and haunted hours.

Will the look return to your eyes, the warmth to your hand? Love is a doubt, an ache, love is a writhing fear. Love is a potion drunk when the ship puts out from land, Rudderless, sails at full, and with none to steer.

The end is a shattered lamp, a drunken seraph asleep, The upturned face of the drowned on a barren beach. The glare of noon is o'er us, we are ashamed to weep-- The beginning and end of love are devoid of speech.

ON A BUST

Your speeches seemed to answer for the nonce-- They do not justify your head in bronze! Your essays! talent's failures were to you Your philosophic gamut, but things true, Or beautiful, oh never! What's the pons For you to cross to fame?--Your head in bronze?

What has the artist caught? The sensual chin That melts away in weakness from the skin, Sagging from your indifference of mind; The sullen mouth that sneers at human kind For lack of genius to create or rule; The superficial scorn that says "you fool!" The deep-set eyes that have the mud-cat look Which might belong to Tolstoi or a crook. The nose half-thickly fleshed and half in point, And lightly turned awry as out of joint; The eyebrows pointing upward satyr-wise, Scarce like Mephisto, for you scarcely rise To cosmic irony in what you dream-- More like a tomcat sniffing yellow cream. The brow! 'Tis worth the bronze it's molded in Save for the flat-top head and narrow thin Backhead which shows your spirit has not soared. You are a Packard engine in a Ford, Which wrecks itself and turtles with its load, Too light and powerful to keep the road. The master strength for twisting words is caught In the swift turning wheels of iron thought. With butcher knives your hands can vivisect Our butterflies, but you can not erect Temples of beauty, wisdom. You can crawl Hungry and subtle over Eden's wall, And shame half grown up truth, or make a lie Full grown as good. You cannot glorify Our dreams, or aspirations, or deep thirst. To you the world's a fig tree which is curst. You have preached every faith but to betray; The artist shows us you have had your day.

A giant as we hoped, in truth a dwarf; A barrel of slop that shines on Lethe's wharf, Which seemed at first a vessel with sweet wine For thirsty lips. So down the swift decline You went through sloven spirit, craven heart And cynic indolence. And here the art Of molding clay has caught you for the nonce And made your shame our shame--your head in bronze! Some day this bust will lie amid old metals Old copper boilers, wires, faucets, kettles. Some day it will be melted up and molded In door knobs, inkwells, paper knives, or folded In leaves and wreaths around the capitals Of marble columns, or for arsenals Fashioned in something, or in course of time Successively made each of these, from grime Rescued successively, or made a bell For fire or worship, who on earth can tell? One thing is sure, you will not long be dust When this bronze will be broken as a bust And given to the junkman to re-sell. You know this and the thought of it is hell!

ARABEL

Twists of smoke rise from the limpness of jewelled fingers, The softness of Persian rugs hushes the room. Under a dragon lamp with a shade the color of coral Sit the readers of poems one by one. And all the room is in shadow except for the blur Of mahogany surface, and tapers against the wall.

And a youth reads a poem of love: forever and ever Is his soul the soul of the loved one; a woman sings Of the nine months which go to the birth of a soul. And after a time under the lamp a man Begins to read a letter having no poem to read. And the words of the letter flash and die like a fuse Dampened by rain--it's a dying mind that writes What Byron did for the Greeks against the Turks. And a sickness enters our hearts. The jewelled hands Clutch at the arms of the chairs--about the room One hears the parting of lips, and a nervous shifting Of feet and arms.

And I look up and over The reader's shoulder and see the name of the writer. What is it I see? The name of a man I knew! You are an ironical trickster, Time, to bring After so many years and into a place like this This face before me: hair slicked down and parted In the middle and cheeks stuck out with fatness, Plump from camembert and clicquot, eyelids Thin as skins of onions, cut like dough 'round the eyes. Such was your look in a photograph I saw In a silver frame on a woman's dresser--and such Your look in life, you thing of flesh alone!

And then As a soul looks down on the body it leaves-- A body by fever slain--I look on myself As I was a decade ago, while the letter is read:

I enter a box Of a theater with Jim, my friend of fifty, I being twenty-two. Two women are in the box One of an age for Jim and one of an age for me. And mine is dressed in a dainty gown of dimity, And she fans herself with a fan of silver spangles Till a subtle odor of delicate powder or of herself Enters my blood and I stare at her snowy neck, And the glossy brownness of her hair until She feels my stare, and turns half-view and I see How like a Greek's is her nose, with just a little Aquiline touch; and I catch the flash of an eye, And the glint of a smile on the richness of her lips. The company now discourses upon the letter But my dream goes on:

I re-live a rapture Which may be madness, and no man understands Until he feels it no more. The youth that was I From the theater under the city's lights follows the girl Desperate lest in the city's curious chances He never sees her again. And boldly he speaks. And she and the older woman, her sister Smile and speak in turn, and Jim who stands While I break the ice comes up--and so Arm in arm we go to the restaurant, I in heaven walking with Arabel, And Jim with her older sister. We drive them home under a summer moon, And while I explain to Arabel my boldness, And crave her pardon for it, Jim, the devil, Laughs apart with her sister while I wonder What Jim, the devil, is laughing at. No matter To-morrow I walk in the park with Arabel.

Just now the reader of the letter Tells of the writer's swift descent From wealth to want.

We are in the park next afternoon by the water. I look at her white throat full as it were of song. And her rounded virginal bosom, beautiful! And I study her eyes, I search to the depths her eyes In the light of the sun. They are full of little rays Like the edge of a fleur de lys, and she smiles At first when I fling my soul at her feet.

But when I repeat I love her, love her only, A cloud of wonder passes over her face, She veils her eyes. The color comes to her cheeks. And when she picks some clover blossoms and tears them Her hand is trembling. And when I tell her again I love her, love her only, she blots her eyes With a handkerchief to hide a tear that starts.

And she says to me: "You do not know me at all, How can you love me? You never saw me before Last night." "Well, tell me about yourself." And after a time she tells me the story: About her father who ran away from her mother; And how she hated her father, and how she grieved When her mother died; and how a good grandmother Helped her and helps her now. And how her sister Divorced her husband. And then she paused a moment: "I am not strong, you'd have to guard me gently, And that takes money, dear, as well as love. Two years ago I was very ill, and since then I am not strong."

"Well I can work," I said. "And what would you think of a little cottage Not too far out with a yard and hosts of roses, And a vine on the porch, and a little garden, And a dining room where the sun comes in, When a morning breeze blows over your brow, And you sit across the table and serve me And neither of us can speak for happiness Without our voices breaking, or lips trembling."

She is looking down with little frowns on her brow. "But if ever I had to work, I could not do it, I am not really well."

"But I can work," I said. I rise and lift her up, holding her hand. She slips her arm through mine and presses it. "What a good man you are," she said. "Just like a brother-- I almost love you, I believe I love you."

The reader of the letter, being a doctor, Is talking learnedly of the writer's case Which has the classical marks of paresis.