953 
 659 
 tfcr 
 1696 
 
 IC-NRLF 
 
 B 3 315 
 
\The Torrent <fr 
 \TIie Night Before 
 
OROSVENOR LIBRARY, 
 
 BUFFALO. N. Y. 
 
 NO. 
 
 19 \3oo 
 
 . 
 
 
THE TORRENT 
 AND THE NIGHT BEFORE 
 BY EDWIN ARLINGTON 
 ROBINSON, GARDINER 
 1889-1896 
 
 Qui pirTal$ii Imittr four Hn original 7 
 
 PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR 
 
 nocccxcvi 
 
! oJte 
 
 S 
 
 
Reproduced by 
 
 DUOPAGE PROCESS 
 
 in the 
 U.S. of America 
 
 Micro Photo Division 
 Bell & Howell Company 
 Cleveland 12, Ohio 
 
Copyright, 1KW, 
 B KDWIN ARLINGTON ROIUN8O.V. 
 
 7 Ritvrd.tr Prt, C 
 
 Print*.) by R. O. Hw.fhtou MM! Cou,p.ny. 
 
This book b dedicated to any man, 
 woman, or critic who will cot the 
 H. I hare dot* the top. 
 
THE TORRENT 
 
 > . " * : .-... 7 
 
 ;. I rorxn a torrent falling in a glen 
 
 Where the sun s light shone silvered and leaf- 
 split ; 
 
 The lxom, the foam, and the mad flash of it 
 All ma<le a magic symphony ; but when 
 I thought upon the coming of hard men 
 To out those patriarchal trees away, 
 And turn to gold the silver of that spray, 
 I shuddered. Hut a gladness now and then 
 I>id wake me to myse.f till I was glad 
 In earnest, and was welcoming the time 
 For streaming saws to sound above the chime 
 Of idle waters, and for me to know 
 The jealous visionings that I had had 
 Were steps to the great place where trees and 
 torrents go. 
 
 
 AARON STARK 
 
 WITHAL a meagre man was Aaron Stark 
 Cursed and unkempt, shrewd, shrivelled, and 
 
 morose : 
 
 A miser was he, with a miser s nose, 
 And eyes like little dollars in the dark. 
 His thin, pinched mouth was nothing but a mark ; 
 And when he spoke there came like sullen blows 
 Through scattered fangs a few snarled words 
 
 and close, 
 ;.. . As if a cur were chary of its bark. 
 
6 
 
 (ilad for the murmur of his hard re iio>vn, 
 
 Yearafteryear he shambled through tin- town, 
 
 A loveless exile moving with a st;i!l ; 
 
 And oftentimes there, erept into his earn 
 
 A Hound of alien pity, touched with tear*, 
 
 And then (and only then) did Auron laugh. 
 
 THE DEAD VILLAGE 
 
 II KICK there U death. Hut oven here, they Hay 
 II re where the dull sun shine* this afteruoou 
 AH deHolute as ever the M.-.id moon 
 Did glimmer on tle.id S;u-li-> - men were gay; 
 Ami there were little children here to play, 
 With small soft hand* that once did keep in tune 
 The string thut streteh from heaver, till tooi>oti 
 The change came, and the music passed uway. 
 
 Now their i.s nothing hut the ghosis of thinga: 
 No life, no love, no ehildren, and no men; 
 And over the forgotten plaee then- eliugn 
 The strange and unremrml>eral>le light 
 That is in dreams. The muie failed, and then 
 <Jod frowned, and >hut the village from KUftigtti 
 
 BALLADE OP A SHIP 
 
 DOWN hy the tla>h of the re>^ess water 
 The dim White Ship like a white bird lay; 
 Iaughing at lite and the world tht -y snught her, 
 And out she Huung to the silvering hay. 
 Then oil they tit w on their ro\>tering way, 
 And the keen moon tired the light foam Hying 
 I p from the MOM! ^here the faint xtarn play, 
 Aiul the 1 >onei of the hr.ive in the wave are lying. 
 
 T was a king s fair son with a king s fair 
 
 daughter, 
 
 And full three hundred beside, they nay, 
 Revelling on for the lone, cold slaughter 
 So soon to sei/e them and hide them for ave; 
 
7 
 
 Nor ever they knew of a ghoul s eye spying 
 Their splendor a flickering phantom to stray 
 Where the bones of the brave in the wave are 
 lying. 
 
 Through the mist of a drunken dream they 
 
 brought hf*r 
 
 (This wild wLiifc bird) for the sea-fiend s prey: 
 The pitiless reef in his hard clutch caught her, 
 And hurled her down where the dead men stay. 
 A torturing silence of wan dismay 
 Shrieks and curses of mad souls dying 
 Then down they sank to slumber and sway 
 Wher^ the bones of the brtve in the ware arc 
 
 lying. 
 
 Prince, do you sleep to the sound alway 
 Of the mournful surge and the sea-birds cry 
 ing? 
 
 Or does love still shudder and steel still slay, 
 Wherethobones of the brave in the wave are lying? 
 
 DEAR FRIENDS 
 
 DEAR friends, reproach me not for what I do, 
 Nor counsel me, nor pity me; nor say 
 That I am wearing half my life away 
 For bubble-work that only fools pursue. 
 And if my bubbles be too small for you, 
 Blow bigger then your own: the games we 
 
 play 
 
 To fill the frittered minutes of a day, 
 Good glasses are to read the spirit through. 
 
 And whoso reads may get him some shrewd skill ; 
 And some unprofitable scorn resign, 
 To praise the very thing that be deplores: 
 So friends (dear friends), remember, if you will, 
 The shame I win for singing is all mine, 
 The gold I miss for dreaming is all yours. 
 
8 
 SONNET 
 
 WHF.N we can all so excellently give 
 
 The mcasui e of love s wisdom with a blow, 
 
 Whv can wo nut in turn receive it so, 
 
 Ami end this murmur for the life we live ? 
 
 And when we do so frantically strive 
 
 To win strange faith, why do we shun to know 
 
 Tlmt in love s elemental over-glow 
 
 (lod s wholeness gleams with light superlative ? 
 
 brother men, if you have eyes at all, 
 Look at a branch, a bird, a ehild, a rose 
 Or anything (iod ever made that grows 
 Nor let the smallest vision of it .slip 
 
 Till you can read, as on BeUbazzar wall, 
 TI.e glory of eternal partnership! 
 
 HER EYES 
 
 1 i from i In- street and the crowds that went, 
 Morning and midnight, to and I m, 
 
 Still was tiie room where bin ditvs he spent, 
 Anil the .stars were bleak, and the nights were slow. 
 
 Year after year, with his dream shut fast, 
 . He sufYcred and strove till his eyes were dim 
 Fort he love that his brushes had earned at List 
 And the whole world rang with tin- praise of him, 
 
 lint he cloaked his triumph, andscarched, instead, 
 Till his eheekiiwere sere and his luiirsweregray, 
 "There are women enough, (Iod knows," he 
 
 said. ... ,.- 
 
 "There art* stara enough whenthe sun s away." 
 
 Then he went back to the same still room 
 That had held his dream in the long ago, 
 When he buried his days in a nameless tomb, 
 And the.starswerebleak,and the nights were slow. 
 
 Seized him and held him, until there grew 
 
Like life on his canvas, plowing and fair, 
 A perilous face and an angel s, too. 
 
 AniM-1 and maiden, and all in one. 
 All but the eyes. They were there, hut yet 
 They seemed somehow like a soul half done; 
 What was the matter ? Did God forget ? . , . 
 
 Hut he wrought them at last with a skill so sure 
 That her eyes were the eyes of a deathless 
 
 woman, 
 
 With a gleam of heaven to make them pure, 
 And a glimmer of hell to make them human. 
 
 God never forgets. And he worships her 
 
 There in that same still room of his, 
 
 For his wife, and his constant arbiter 
 
 Of the world that was and the world that is. 
 
 And he wonders yet what her love could be 
 To punish him after that .strife so prim; 
 But the longer he lives with her eyes to see, 
 The plainer it all comes hack to him. 
 
 SONNET 
 
 TIIK master ami the slave go hand in hand, 
 Though touch l>e lost. The poet is a slave, 
 Ami there he kings do sorrowfully crave 
 The joyanee that a scullion may command. 
 Hut ah, the sonnet-slave must understand 
 The mission of his Inmdage, or the grave 
 May clasp his hones or ever he shall save 
 The perfect word that is the poet s wand. 
 
 The sonnet is a crown, whereof the rhymes 
 Arc for Thought s purest gold the jewel-stones; 
 Hut shapes and echoes that are never done 
 Will haunt the workshop, as regret sometimes 
 Will bring with human yearning to sad thrones 
 The crash of battles that are never won. 
 
10 
 
 ZOLA 
 
 BECAUSE he puts the compromising ehaH 
 Of hell before your eyes, you are afraid; 
 Because he count thu price that you have paid 
 For innocence, and counts it from the start, 
 You loathe him. But he sees the human heart 
 Of God meanwhile, and in God s hand has 
 
 weighed 
 
 Your squeamish and emasculate crusade 
 Against the grim dominion of his art. 
 
 Never until we conquer the uncouth 
 Conniving* of our shamed indifference 
 (We call it Christian faith !) are we to Mean 
 The racked and shrieking hideousncss of Truth 
 To Hud, ill hate s polluted self -de fence. 
 Throbbing, the puUe, the divine heart of man. 
 
 BALLADE 
 
 IN dreams I crowed a barren laud, 
 A land of ruin, far away ; 
 Around me hung on every hand 
 A deathful stillness of decay; 
 And silent, as in bleak dismay 
 That song should thus forakca 1*-, 
 On that forgotten ground there lay 
 The broken flutes of A ready. 
 
 Hie forcitt that was ail HO grand 
 
 When pi|>cs and tabors had their away 
 
 Stood leatless now, a gluntly band 
 
 Of skeletons in cold array. 
 
 A lonely surge of aneu-nt spray 
 
 Told of an unforgetful .-ea, 
 
 But iron blows had hn-died for ayo 
 
 The broken Hutcs of A ready. 
 
 No more by Hummer breezes fanned, 
 The place wan desolate and gray I 
 
-11- 
 
 . - 
 
 I ut still my dream was to command 
 
 (fy. v New life into that shrunken clay. 
 I tried it. Yes, you scan to-day, 
 With uncommiseratiiig glee, 
 Hie songs of one who strove to play 
 The broken flutes of Arcady. 
 
 ... 
 
 ENVOY 
 
 So, Rook, I join the common fray, 
 ; .!. . To tight where Mammon may decree; 
 And leave, to crumble as they may, 
 The broken flute* of Arcady. 
 
 FOR SOHE POEHS 
 : .BY HATTHEW ARNOLD 
 
 SWKFPINO the chords of Hellas with firm liaud 
 He wakes lost echoes from song s classic shore. 
 And brings their crystal cadence back once more 
 To touch the clouds and sorrows of a land 
 Where (lod s truth, cramped and fettered with 
 
 a band 
 
 Of iron creeds, he cheers with golden lore 
 Of hcrocii and the men that long before 
 Wrought the romance of ages yet unscanned. 
 
 Still docs a cry through sad Valhalla go 
 For Balder, pierced with look s unhappy spray 
 For Haider, all but spared by Frca s charms; 
 And still does art s im|>rial visU show, 
 On the hushed sands of Oxus, far away, 
 Young Suhrab dying in his father s arms. 
 
 
 
 GEORGE CRABBE 
 
 GIVE him the darkest inch your shelf allows, 
 Hide him in lonely garrets, if you will, 
 But his hard, human pulse is throbbing still 
 With the sure strength that fearless truth eu- 
 dows: 
 
12 
 
 In spite of nil flue science disavows, 
 Of hi* plain excellence and stubborn skill 
 There vet remains what fashion cannot kill, 
 Though \ ears have thinned the laurel from his 
 brows. 
 
 Whether ur not we read him, we can frel 
 Front time to time the \igor of his namu 
 A^ain\t us like u tinker for the shame 
 And emptiness of vthat our hoiils reveal 
 In bol - that are as altars when \ve kneel 
 To on -. .-rate the tiirker, not the tlaiue. 
 
 5ONNET 
 
 On, for a poet for a beacon bright 
 To rift this changeless glimmer of dead gry: 
 To spirit back the Muses, long astray, 
 And flush Parnassus with u newer light: 
 To put thrse little sonnet-men to ill-lit 
 Who fashion, in a .shrewd meehanic way, 
 Son^s without sou l.t that flicker for u day 
 To vanish in irrevocable night. 
 
 What does it mean, this barren age of ours? 
 Here arc the men, thu women, and the Howen, 
 The h asns, and the sunset, as before. 
 What does it mean? Shall not one burd arise 
 To wrench one banner from the western 
 And mark it with his name for evermore? 
 
 THE ALTAR 
 
 AI.ONK, remote, nor witting where I went, 
 1 found an altar huildrd in u dream 
 A fiery place, whereof there was a gleam 
 So uwift, so Hcarchintf, and MO eloquent 
 Of upward promise that IOVC M murmur, blent 
 With sorrow s warning, gave but a supreme 
 Intending impulse to that human stream 
 Whose Hood was all for the flame * fury U tit. 
 
} 
 
 13 
 
 Alas! I said, the world is in the wrong. 
 Hut the same quenchless ferer of unrest 
 That thrilled the foremost of that martyred throng 
 Thrill, il me, and I awoke . . . and was the same 
 Bewildered insect plnnging for the flame 
 That burns, and must bum somehow for the best. 
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE HILL 
 
 TIIFY are all gone away. 
 The House is shut and still, 
 There is nothing more to say. 
 
 Through broken walls and gray 
 The winds blow bleak and shrill; 
 They are all g<ne away. 
 
 Nor is there one to-dav 
 
 To speak them good or ill: . 
 
 There is nothing more to say. 
 
 Why is it then we stray 
 Around that sunken sill? 
 They are all gone away, 
 
 ;:* And our poor fancy-play 
 For them is wasted skill: 
 There is nothing more to say. 
 
 
 There is ruin and decay 
 In the House on the Hill: 
 They are all gone away, 
 There Ls nothing more to say. 
 
 THE WILDERNESS 
 4, 
 
 COMF away ! come away ! there s a frost along 
 
 the marshes, 
 
 And a frozen wind that skims the shoal where 
 it shakes the dead black water; 
 
 There a moan across the lowland and a wail 
 ing through the woodland 
 
 . 
 
-H- 
 
 Of a dirge that sings to gend us back to the anna 
 
 of those that love us. 
 There is nothing left hut ashen now where the 
 
 crimson chills of autumn 
 Put off the summer s languor with a touch that 
 
 made us glad 
 For the glory that is gone from us, with a flight 
 
 we eanuot follow, 
 To the :>lii|. s of oilier valley* and the kounds of 
 
 other shores. 
 
 _ 
 Come airaiff com? atrtiy! you <vm hear them 
 
 cnlliny, callini/, 
 
 Calling n. to come to thtin, and roam no more. 
 Oi tr thrre beyond the ritfyct and the Inml that lie* 
 
 There * an old tot\g calling us to come! 
 
 Come away! come away! for the iceue we 
 
 leave behind us 
 Are barren for the lights of home ami a flame 
 
 that a young forever; 
 And the lonely trees around us creak the warn 
 
 ing of the night-wind, 
 That love and all the dreams of love are away 
 
 beyond tin- mount aiiiH. 
 The songs that call for us to-night, they have 
 
 called for men In-fore us, 
 And the winds that hlow the message, they have 
 
 blown ten thousand years; 
 Hut this will end our wander-time, for we know 
 
 the joy that waits us 
 In the NtrangeiieMN of home-coming, ami a faith 
 
 ful woman ii eyes. 
 
 Comf tuniff! t-innr nirmj! tttrrf in imthiny non- 
 
 to clut-r in 
 
 \utfiinif non to comfort m, hut lotr t road komf: 
 Over there twi/und thf dnrinest there * a window 
 
 f/lniim to t/reet nx, 
 And a wartn hmrth icttitafor u* uithtn. 
 

 15 
 
 Cone away! come away! or the roring-fiend 
 
 will hold us, 
 And make us all to dwell with him to the end 
 
 of human faring: 
 There are no men yet can leave him when bis 
 
 hands are clutched upon them, 
 There are nue will own his enmity, there are 
 
 none will call him hrother. 
 80 we 11 !*> up and on the way, and the less we 
 
 hrag the better 
 For the freedom that God gave us and the dread 
 
 we do not know: 
 The frost that skips the willow-leaf will again 
 
 IK? hack to hlight it, 
 . And the doom we cannot fly from is the doom 
 
 we do not see. 
 
 Come awy. CWTS airay! there are dead men all 
 
 an Hind H* 
 
 Frozen mm thai muck >i. irilh n iri W, hard laugh 
 That fhrifk* and nini.ii and trhimpen in the thrill 
 
 And the long fall trind on the lake. 
 LUKE HAVERQAL 
 
 Go to the western gate, Luke Havergal, 
 There where the vines cling crimson on the 
 
 wall, 
 
 And in the twilight wait for what will come. 
 The wind will moan, the leaver will whisper 
 
 some 
 
 Whisper of her, and strike yon as they fall; 
 But go, and if you trust her she will call, 
 Go to the western gate, Luke Havergal, 
 
 ** 1 
 
 Luke Havergal. * 
 
 . ! . 
 
 No, there is not a dawn in eastern skies 
 
 To rift the fiery night that s in your eyes ; V"-* *i- 
 
 But there, where western glooms are gathering, 
 
 The dark will end the dark, if anything: 
 
 . . 
 v , , 
 
-10 
 
 God idaya Himself with every leaf that flie, 
 And hell in inort* than half of paiadi.se. 
 No, then* is nut a dawu iu i .1- 1 i n skies, 
 lu eastern bkics. 
 
 Out of a grave I come to tell you tin-., 
 Out of a grave I come to quench the kis4 
 That ll.iMu-s UJMHI your forehead with a glow 
 That blinds you to the way that >-u must fro. 
 Yes, there is yet one way to where she is 
 Hitter, hut one th.it faith can never mi-,. 
 Out of a grave I come to tell you this, 
 To tell you tin*. 
 
 There is the western gate, Luke Havcrgul, 
 There are. the crimson leaven upon the wall. 
 (io, for the winds are tearing them away 
 Nur think to riddle the dead words they hay, 
 Nor any IMI in- to feel them an they fall; 
 Hut p>! and if you trust her she will call. 
 There is the western gate, Luke llavergul, 
 Luke Havergal. 
 
 THE CHORUS OF 
 OLD HEN IN 
 
 YK god* that have u home beyond the world, 
 
 Ye that have eye:) for all in.iu s agotiVi 
 
 Ye that have seen this woe that we have nceii, 
 
 Look with a jut regard, 
 
 And with an even grace, 
 
 Here on the shattered corpse of a shattered king, 
 
 Here on a biitVering world where men grow old 
 
 And wander like Had shadow* till, at hist, 
 
 Out of the Hare of life, 
 
 Out of the whirl of years, 
 
 Into the mLst they go, 
 
 Into the mUt of death. 
 
 O hhadct of you that loved him long before 
 The cruel threads of that black s.ul were spun, 
 
17 
 
 May loyal anus and ancient welcomiugs 
 
 Receive him once a^ain 
 
 Who now no longer moves 
 
 Here in this flickering dance of changing days 
 
 Where a battle is lost and won for a withered 
 
 wreath. 
 
 And the Mack master Death is over all, 
 To chill with his approach, 
 To level with his touch, 
 The reigning strength of vonth, 
 The fluttered heart of age. 
 
 Woe for the fateful day when Delphi s word 
 was lost 
 
 Woe for the loveless prince of ..Tithra s line! 
 
 Woe for a father s tears and the curse of a 
 king s release 
 
 Woe for the wings of pride and the shafts of 
 doom! * 
 
 And thott the saddest wind 
 
 Tliat ever blew from Crete, 
 
 Sing the fell tidings Itack to that thrice un 
 happy ship! 
 
 Sing to the western flame, 
 
 Sing to the dying foam, 
 
 A dirge for the snndered years and a dirge for 
 the years to he! 
 
 JJetter his end had l>eeu as the end of A cloud 
 less day, 
 
 Bright, ly the word of Zens, with a golden star, 
 
 Wrought of a golden fame, and flnng to the 
 central sky, 
 
 To gleam on a stormless tomh for evermore: 
 
 Whether or not there fell 
 
 To the touch of an alien hand 
 
 The sheen of his purple robe and the shine of 
 his diadem, 
 
 (letter his end had Wen 
 
 To die as an old man dies, 
 
 But the fates are ever the fates, and a crown i 
 ever a crown. 
 
 _JL 
 
18 
 
 THE niRACLE 
 
 14 DKAR brother, dearest friend, when I am dead, 
 
 And you shall see no more this faee of mine, 
 
 Let nothing but red roses be the sign 
 
 Of tho white life I lost for him," she said; 
 
 14 No, do not curse him, pity him instead; 
 
 Forgive him! forgive me! . . . (iod s anodyne 
 
 Fur human hate is pity; and the wine 
 
 That makes men wise, forgiveness. 1 have read 
 
 Love s message, in love s murder, and I die." 
 
 And so they laid her just where she would lie, 
 
 Under red roses. Ked they bloomed and fell; 
 
 Hut when Hushed autumn and the snows went by, 
 
 And spring came, lo, from every bud s green . . 
 
 shell 
 Burst a white blossom. Can love reason why? 
 
 HORACE TO LEUCONOE 
 
 I PRAY you not, IxMiconoe, to jmre 
 With unpermittcd eyes on what may be 
 Appointed by tin- gods for you und me, 
 Nor on Chuldfuu figures any more. 
 T were infinitely better to implore 
 The present only: whether Jove decree 
 Mure winters yrt to come, or whether he 
 Make even this, whose hard, wavc-cutcn shore 
 Shutters the Tuscan seas to-day, the last 
 He wise withal, and rack your wine, nor fill 
 Your bosom with large hopes; for while 1 sing, 
 The envious close of time is narrowing:- 
 So seize the day, or ever it be past 
 And let the morrow come for what it will. 
 
 THE BALLADE 
 
 OF DEAD FRIENDS 
 
 As we the withered ferns 
 By the roadway lying, 
 Time, the jester, spurns 
 
19 
 
 All our prayers and prying, 
 All our tears and sighing, 
 Sorrow, change, and woe, 
 All our where-and-whying 
 For friends that come and go. 
 
 Life awakes and burns, 
 
 Ape and death defying, 
 
 Till at last it learns 
 
 All but Ixve i* dying; 
 
 Love s the trade we re plying, 
 
 God has willed it so; 
 
 Shrouds are what we re buying 
 
 For friends that come and go. 
 
 Man forever yearns 
 For the thing that f s flying: 
 Everywhere he turns, 
 Men to dust are drying 
 Dust that wanders, eyeing 
 (With eyes that hardly glow) 
 New faces, dimly spying 
 For friends that come and go. 
 
 ENVOY 
 
 And thus we all are nighing 
 The truth we fear to know: 
 Death will end our crying 
 For friends that come and go. 
 
 VILLANELLE OF CHANGE 
 
 SINCE Persia fell at Marathon, 
 
 The yellow years have gathered fast: 
 
 Long centuries have come and gone. 
 
 And yet (they say) the place will don 
 A phantom fury of the past, 
 Since Persia fell at Marathon; 
 
20 
 
 And as of old, when Helicon 
 
 Trembled and swayed with rapture viwt 
 
 (Long centuries have coiue and gone), 
 
 This ancient plain, when night comes on, 
 Shakes to a ghostly battle-blast, 
 Since Persia fell at Marathon. 
 
 Hut into soundless Acheron 
 
 The glory of (ireek shame was cant: 
 
 Long centuries have come and 
 
 The suns of Hellas have all shone, 
 The first has fallen to the last: 
 Since 1 ersia fell at Marathon, 
 Long centuries have conic and gone. 
 
 THOHAS HOOD 
 
 Tut: man who cloaked his bitterness within 
 Thitt vrituling-idicet of puns and pleasantries, 
 (i.>l never - i\r to look with common ejes 
 I IMIU a world of anguish and of hin: 
 His brother was the branded man of Lynn; 
 And there are woven with his jollities 
 The nameless and eternal tragedies 
 That render hope and hopcleitiiuett akin. 
 
 We laugh, and crown him; but anon we feel 
 A still chord sorrow swept, a weird unrest; 
 And thin dim shadows home to midnight steal, 
 As if the very ghost of mirth were dead 
 As if the joys of time to dreams had tied, 
 Or sailed away with lues to the Writ. 
 
 FOR A BOOK 
 
 BY THOflAS HARDY 
 
 WITH searching feet, through dark circuitous 
 
 ways, 
 I plunged and stumbled; round me, far and near, 
 
21 
 
 Quaint horde* of eyeless phantoms did appear, 
 Twisting and turning in a bootless chase, - 
 When, like an exile given by God s grace 
 To feel onee more a human atmosphere, 
 I caught the world s first murmur, large and 
 
 clear, 
 Flung from a Ringing river s endless race. 
 
 Then, through a magic twilight from below, 
 
 I heard its grand sad song as in a dream: 
 
 Life s wild infinity of mirth and woe 
 
 It sang me; and, with many a changing gleam, 
 
 Across the music of its onward flow, 
 
 I saw the cottage lights of Wessei beam. 
 
 SUPREMACY 
 
 TUFRF. is a drear and Ir.nely tra-t of hell 
 From all the common gloom removed afar: 
 A Hat, sad land it is, where shadows are 
 Wh.sc lorn estate my vers,e may never tell. 
 1 walked among them and I ku^w them well: 
 Men I hud slandered on life s little star 
 For churl* and sluggard*; and I knew the sear 
 t pon their brows of woe Ineffable. 
 
 Hut as I went majestic on my way, 
 Into the dark they vanished, one by one, 
 Till, with a shaft "of God s eternal day, 
 The dream of all my glory was undone, 
 And, with a fool s importunate dismay, 
 I heard the dead men singing in the sun. 
 
 THREE QUATRAINS 
 
 As long as Fame s imperious music rings 
 Will poets mock it with crowned words august; 
 Ami haggard men will clamber to be kings 
 As long as Glory weighs itself in dust. 
 
22 
 
 Drink to the splendor of the unfulfilled, 
 Nor shudder for the revel* that are done: 
 The wines tli.it Hushed Luenllu* are all spilled, 
 The string* that Nero fingered are all gone. 
 
 HI .- 
 
 We cunuot crown ourselves with everything, 
 Nor e.m we coax the Fates for us to quarrel: 
 No matter \%h it we air, or what we sing, 
 Time tiiuU a withered leaf in every laurel. 
 
 FOR CALDERON 
 
 AND now, inv brother, it is time 
 
 For mi- to tell the truth to you: 
 
 To tell the story of a erime 
 
 As blaek as Mona s eyes wen- blue. 
 
 Yen, here to -night, before I die, 
 
 1 11 .speak the words that burn in me; 
 
 And you may send them, bye-and-bye, 
 
 To Calderon acroa* the sea. 
 
 Now get Mime paper atid a pen, 
 
 And hit tight here, beside my U-d. 
 
 Write every word I say, and then 
 
 And then . . . well," what then? I 11 be 
 
 dead! 
 
 . . . Hut here I am alive enough, 
 And I remember all I vo done . . . 
 (iod knows Nvli.it I was thinking of! 
 Hut send it home to Calderon. 
 
 And you, Franeisco, brother, say, 
 What is there for a man like me?- 
 1 tell you (104! sounds far away 
 AH far almost as far as she! 
 I killed her! . , . Yes, I i>oi*oned her 
 So slowly that ho never knew . v , / 
 Franeiseo, I m a murderer. 
 Now tell me what there \.-> to do! 
 
23 
 
 To die of course ; but after that, 
 
 I wonder if I live again! 
 
 And if I live again, for what? 
 
 To suffer ? . . . Hah! there is DO pain 
 
 But on-; and that I know so well 
 
 That I can shame the devil s eyes! . . . 
 
 For twenty years I ve heard in hell 
 
 What Mona sings in Paradise! 
 
 Strange, that a little Xorthern girl 
 
 Should love niv brother Caldcrou, 
 
 And set my brain so in a whirl 
 
 That I was mad till she was gone! ... 
 
 I wonder if all men le such 
 
 As I ? I wonder what love is! 
 
 I never loved her very much 
 
 I ntil I saw that she was his; 
 
 And then I knew that I was lost: 
 And then I knew that I was mad." 
 I reasont d what it all would cost, 
 But that wax nothing. I was glad 
 To feel myself so foul a thing! 
 And I was glad for Calderon. ... 
 My God! if he could hear her sing 
 Just oisce, as I do! There! she s done. 
 
 Xo, it was only something wrong 
 A minute something in my head. 
 (tod, no ! she *11 never stop that song 
 As long as I m alive or dead! 
 As long as I am here or there, 
 She 11 sing to me, a murderer! 
 Well, I suppose the gods are fair. . . . 
 I killed her . . . yes, I poisoned her! 
 
 But yon, Francisco, you are young; 
 So take my hand and hear me, now: 
 There are no lies upon jour tongue, 
 There is no guilt upon your brow. 
 But there is blood upon jour name ? 
 And blood, you say, will rust the steel 
 
24 
 
 That strike* for honor or for shame? . . . 
 FrancUco, it u feur you feel! 
 
 And Mich a miserable fear 
 That you, my boy, will coll it pride; 
 Hut you will grope from year to year 
 Until at hist the clouds divide, 
 And all at once you meet the truth, 
 And curse yourself, with helpless rage, 
 For something you have lost with youth 
 And found again, too late, with age. 
 
 The truth, my brother, is just this: 
 \our title here, is nothing more 
 Or less than what your courage, is: 
 The in. in must put himself IK- fore 
 Tin- mime, and onee the master stay 
 Forever or forever fall. 
 Ciood-bye! Kememher what I say . . . 
 (iood-hye! (iood-hye ! . . . Ami that waa all. 
 
 The lips were, still: the man \\;is dead. 
 FraiUMM-o, with a weird aurprUo, 
 Stood like abtranger hv the l>ed, 
 And there were no tears in his eves. 
 Hut in In > heart there watt a grief 
 Too strong for human tears to free, 
 And in his hand a written leaf 
 For C alderon across the sea. 
 
 JOHN eVI;KI;UX)WN 
 
 \V liner are you going to-night, to-night, 
 Where are you going, John Kvereldown? 
 There *s never the higu of a star in sight, 
 Nor a lamp that s nearer than Tilbury Town. 
 Why do you stare as a dead man might? 
 Where are you pointing away from the light? 
 And where are you going to-night, to-night, 
 Where are you going, John Kvereldown? 
 
23 
 
 Right through the forost, where none can se* t 
 
 There s where I m going to Tilbury Town. 
 
 The men ar asleep or awake, may be 
 
 Hut the women arc calling John Evereldown. 
 
 Ever and ever they call for me, 
 
 And while they enll can a man be free? 
 
 So right through the forest, where none can 
 
 see, 
 There *s where I *m going to Tilbury Town. 
 
 But why are you going so late, so late, 
 Whv are vou going, John Kvereldown? 
 Though the road be smooth and the path be 
 
 straight, 
 
 There are two long leagues to Tilbury Town. 
 Come in bv the fire, old man, and wait! 
 Why do you chatter out there by the gate? 
 
 And why are you going so late, so late, 
 
 Why are you going, John Evcreldown? 
 
 I follow the women wherever they call, 
 That s why I *ni going to Tilbury Town. 
 God knows if I pray to be done with it all, 
 But God is no friend to John Evereldown. 
 So the clouds may come and the rain may fall. 
 The shadows may creep and the dead men 
 
 crawl ; 
 
 But I follow the women wherever they call, 
 And that s why I m going to Tilbury Town. 
 
 THE WORLD 
 
 SOME are the brothers of all humankind, 
 And own them, whatsoever their estate; 
 And some, for sorrow and self-worn, arc blii?d 
 With enmity for man s unguarded fate. 
 
 For some there is a music all day long 
 Like flutes in paradise, they are so glad; 
 And there is hell s eternal under-soug 
 Of corses and the cries of men gone mad. 
 
-26 
 
 Some My the Scheme with love htam.K ItiininoiiH, 
 Some sav t wore better hack to chaos hurled; 
 And to t U what we at- that makes for u 
 The measure and the m< Miiiug of the world. 
 
 CREDO 
 
 i CANNOT find my way : there is no htar 
 In all the shrouded hea\t n> anv \\here; 
 And there is not a whi>|. r m the air 
 Of anv living voice hut out MO far 
 That 1 can hear it only us i kn 
 ot lost, inijM liiil ttttftU , |>la\cd when fair. 
 And angel tinkers wove, and unaware, 
 Dead leaves to garlands where no roses are. 
 
 No, there U not a glimmer, nor a call, 
 Fr one that welcomes, welcomes when he fear*. 
 The black and awful chaos of the night. 
 KIT through it all above, beyond it all 
 I know the fur-sent message of the yearn, 
 I feel the coming tfhj r y of the Li^ht! 
 
 THE CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT 
 
 1 ou those that never know the light, 
 The darkness is a Hulleii thing; 
 And they, the Children of the Night, 
 Seem lost ia Fortune * winnowing. 
 
 Hut some arc strong and some are weak, - 
 And there s the .->t<rv. House and home 
 Are shut from countless hearts tint seek 
 World-refuge that will never come. 
 
 And if there he. no other life, 
 And if there he no other ch:iucc 
 To weigh their sorrow and their strife 
 Thau in the scales of circumstance 
 
 T were better, ere the sun go dow n 
 Uj>ou the tint day we embark, 
 
, 
 
 27 
 
 In life s embittered sea to drown 
 Than sail forever in the dark. 
 
 But if there be a soul on earth 
 So blinded with its own misuse 
 Of man s revealed, jnoessant worth, 
 Or worn with anguish that it views 
 
 No linht but for a mortal eye 
 No rest but of a mortal sleep 
 No (iod but in a prophet s lie 
 No faith for " honest doubt " to keep 
 
 If there be nothing, good or bad, 
 But ehaos for a soul to trust, 
 God counts it for a soul gone mad, 
 And if God be God, He b just. 
 
 And if God be God, He is Love; 
 And though the Dawn be still so dim, 
 It shows us we have played enough 
 With creeds that make a- tic ml of Him. 
 
 There is one creed, and only one, 
 That glorifies God s excellence; 
 So cherish, that His will be- done, 
 The common creed of common sense. 
 
 It is the crimson, not the gray. 
 That charms the twilight of all time; 
 It is the promise of the day 
 That makes the starry sky sublime ; 
 
 It is the faith within the fear 
 That holds us to the life we cane; 
 So let as in ourselves revere 
 The Self which is the Universe! 
 
 Let us, the Children of the Night, 
 Put off the cloak that hides the scar! 
 Let us be Children of the Light, 
 And tell the aged what we are! 
 
28 
 
 THE CLERKS 
 
 I DID not think that I should flnd them there 
 When I came back again ; but there they stood, 
 A* in the days they dreamed of when voumr 
 
 blood 
 Was in their cheeks and women called them 
 
 fair. 
 
 He sure, they met mo with an ancient air, 
 And ye*, there wan u hliop-woru brotherhood 
 About them ; but the men were just as good, 
 Ami just a* human as they over were. 
 
 Anil you that aehe HO much to be sublime, 
 And you that feed yourselves with your de- 
 
 eent, 
 What fume* of all your vi>i.m and vour 
 
 fear*? 
 
 I oets and kings are but the elerka of Time, 
 Tiering the .same dull webn of diseoiitent,. 
 C lii|iiitf the Hame Had alna^e of the years. 
 
 A BALLADE BY THE FIRE 
 
 SLOWLY I amoke and hu^ my knee, 
 The while a witless masquerade 
 Of thing* that only i-hildren &eo 
 Float* ii: a mi..t of light and shade : 
 They pass, u flimsy euvaleade, 
 And with a weak, remindful glow, 
 The fulling embers break and fade, 
 As one by one the oiiuntoms go. 
 
 Then, with a melaneholy glee 
 To think where onee my funey htrayed, 
 I muse on wliat the years may bo 
 WlioM- eoming titles are all unsaid, 
 Till tongs and shovel, snugly laid 
 Within their shadowed niches, grow 
 Hy grim degrees to pick and spade, 
 AH one by one the phantoms go. 
 
.-,;-. 29 
 
 Hut then, what though the mystic Three 
 Around me ply their merry trade? 
 And Charon soon may carry me 
 Across the gloomy Stygian glade? 
 He up, my soul! nor be afraid 
 Of what some unlwrn year may show; 
 Hut mind your human debts are paid, 
 As one by one the phantoms go. 
 
 Life is the gai.ie that must be played: 
 This truth at least, good friend, we know. 
 So live and laugh, nor be dismayed 
 As one by one the phantoms go. 
 
 W& ON THE NIGHT OF 
 
 A FRIEND S WEDDING 
 
 IF ever I am old, and all alone, 
 I shall have killed one grief, at any rate; 
 For then, thank God, I shall not have to wait 
 Much longer for the sheaves that I have sown. 
 The devil only knows wh.^t I have done, 
 Hut here I am, and here are six or eight 
 Good friends who mos . ingenuously prate 
 About my songs to such and such a one. 
 
 Hut everything is all askew to-night, 
 . . .., As if the time were come, or almost come, 
 For their nntenanted mirage of me 
 To lose itself and crumble out of sight 
 Like a tall ship that floats above the foam 
 A little while, and then breaks utterly. 
 
 - 
 
 VERLAINE 
 
 WHY do you dig like long-clawed scavengers 
 To touch the covered corpse of him that tied 
 The uplands for the fens and rioted 
 Like a sick satyr with doom s worshippers ? 
 Come ! let the grass grow there; and leave his 
 
30 
 
 To tell the tory of the life he led. 
 
 Let the in, ni gu: let the dead flesh be dead, 
 
 And lut the worms be its biographer*. 
 
 Song sloughs away the sin to find redress 
 In uit complete remembrance: nothing clings 
 For lung but laurel to the stricken brow 
 That frit the Mute * tili-er; nothing les* 
 Than hell s fulfilment of the end of thing!* 
 Can blot the star that shines on 1 ai is now. 
 
 THE GARDEN 
 
 TIIF.KK is a fi iieeli-ss gurilen overgrown 
 \N it It liiul.i und bhtM.soiitii and all Mirt* of lea\t->; 
 And oiu-r, uiuong the roses and the >havfM, 
 The ( null iit-r and I were there alone. 
 He led me to the plot when* I had thrown 
 The femii l of my diiys on waited ground, 
 And in that riot of sad weeds I found 
 Thu fruitage of a life that wa* my own. 
 
 My life! . . . Ah yes, there * a-s my life, indeed! 
 And there were all the lives of humankind; 
 And they were like a hook that I eould read, 
 Whose every leaf, miraculous! v Nigued, 
 Outrolled itsrlt from Thought s eternal seed, 
 Iove-roott d in (iod a garden of the mind. 
 
 TWO SONNETS 
 
 Jt KT H.S I wonder at the twofohl soreen 
 Of twihted innoeeiice that you wonhl plait 
 For eyes that uneourageou.sly a \\ait 
 The ruining of a kingdom that has been, 
 So do 1 wonder what (iod a love ean mean 
 To you that all ho strangely estimate 
 The put POM- and the consequent estate 
 Of one short shuddering step to the Unseen. 
 
31 
 
 No, I have not your backward faith to shrink 
 Lone-faring from the doorway of God s home, 
 To find Him in the names of buried men; 
 Nor your ingenious reciranee to think 
 We cherish, in the life tliat is to come, 
 The scattered features of dead friends again. 
 
 NEVER until our souls are strong enough 
 To plunge into the crater of the Scheme 
 Triumphant in the Hash there to redeem 
 love s handsel and for evermore to slough, 
 Like cerements at a played-out masque, the 
 
 rough 
 
 And reptile skins of us whereon we set 
 The stigma of scared years are we to get 
 Where atoms and the ages are one stuff. 
 
 Nor ever shall we know the cursed waste 
 Of life in the beneficence divine 
 Of starlight and of sunlight and soul-shine 
 That we have squandered in sin s frail distress. 
 Till we have drunk, and trembled at the taste, 
 The mead of ITiought s prophetic endlessness. 
 
 WALT WHITHAN 
 
 THE master-songs are ended, and the man 
 That sang them is name. And so is God 
 A name; and so is love, and life, and death, 
 And everything. But we, who are too blind 
 To read what we have written, or what faith 
 Has written for us, do not understand: 
 We only blink, and wonder. 
 
 Last night it was the song that was the roan, 
 But now it is the man that is the song. 
 We do not hear him very much to-day; 
 His piercing and eternal cadence ring* 
 Too pure for us too powerfully pure, 
 
Too lovingly triumphant, and too large; 
 Hut then* art* some that hear him, and they kuuw 
 That he t>hall sing to-morrow for all men, 
 Ami that oil time shall listen. . 
 
 The master-songs are ended? Hather say 
 
 No songs are ended that are ever sung, 
 
 And that no named are dead name*. When we 
 
 write 
 
 Men s letters tut proud marble or on sand, 
 We write them there forever. 
 
 Kosnos 
 
 All, shuddering men that falter and shrink so 
 To look on death, what were the days we live, 
 Where life is half a struggle to forgive, 
 Hut for tin; love that find* us when we go? 
 Is God a jester? lK.es he laugh and throw 
 Poor hranded wretehes here to sweat and strive 
 For some vague end that never shall arrive? 
 And is lie not yet weary of the show? 
 
 Think of it, all ye millions that have planned, 
 And only planm-d, the larges.s of hard youth! 
 Think of it, all ye builder* on the sand, 
 Whose works are down! Is love so small, for 
 sooth? 
 
 lie brave! To-morrow you will understand 
 The doubt, the pain, the triumph, and the Truth! 
 
 AN OLD STORY 
 
 STK \NtiK that I did not know him then, 
 
 That friend of mine! 
 
 I diil not even show him then 
 
 One friendly sign; 
 
 Hut cursed him for the ways he had 
 To make me see 
 My envv of the praise he had 
 For praising me. 
 
. 33 
 
 I would h.ive rid the earth of him 
 Oner, in my pride! . . . 
 I never knew the worth of him 
 Until he died. 
 
 A POEH FOR 
 HAX NORDAU 
 
 IH N shades quiver down the lone long fallow, 
 And thrscared night shudders at the hrown owl s 
 
 ery; 
 
 The Weak reeds rattle as the winds whirl by, 
 And frayed leaves flutter through the clumped 
 
 shnilts callow. 
 
 Chill dews elinging on the low cold mallow 
 Make a steel-keen shimmer where the spent 
 
 stems lie; 
 
 Pan shades quiver down the lone long fallow, 
 And the scared night shudders at the brown 
 
 owl s cry. 
 
 Pale stars peering through the clouds* curled 
 
 shallow 
 
 Make a thin still flicker in a foul round sky; 
 Hlaek damp shadows through the hushed air fly; 
 The lewd gloom wakens to a moon-sad sallow, 
 Dun shades quiver down the lone long fallow. 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 MY northern pines are good enongh for me, 
 But there s a town my memory nprears 
 A town that always like a friend appear?, 
 And always in the sunrise by the sea. 
 And over it, somehow, there seems to be 
 A downward fla^h of something new and fierce 
 That ever strives to clear, but never clean 
 The dimness of a charmed antiquity. 
 
 I know my Boston is a counterfeit, 
 A frameless imitation, all bereft 
 
at 
 
 Of living nearness, imiho, and common tpeech; 
 Hut I am glad for every glimpse of it, 
 And there it is plain ad a name that *s left 
 In letters by warm hands I cunnut reach. 
 
 THE NIGHT BEFORE 
 
 At if God uttol liiiu aiul tlu-n woudorvd why." 
 LOOK yon, Dominc; look yon, and listen. 
 Look in my face, first: search every line there; 
 Mark every feature, chin, lip, and forehead. 
 Look in my eyes, and tell ine the lesson 
 Yon read there; measure my nose, and tell me 
 Where I am wanting. A man s i.ose, Domine, 
 Is often the east of his inward spirit; 
 So mark mine well. . . . Hut why do you smile 
 
 80? - 
 
 Pity, or what? Is it written all over, 
 
 This faee of mine, with a brute** confession? 
 
 Nothing hut aiu there ? nothing but hell- 
 
 sea rn? 
 
 Or is it because there is something better 
 A glimmer of good, mayle, or a shadow 
 Of something that s followed me down from 
 
 childhood 
 
 Followed me all these years and kept me, 
 Spite of my slips and sins and follies 
 Spite of my last red sin, my mimler, 
 Just out of hell? Yes? something of that 
 
 kind? 
 And you smile for that? . . . You re a good 
 
 man, Domine! 
 
 The one good man in the world who knows me 
 My one good friend in a world that moeks me, 
 Here in this hard stone cage. . . . Hut I leave 
 
 it 
 To-morrow. . . . To-morrow! My (lod! am 
 
 I crying? 
 Are thes e things tears? Tears! What! am 
 
 I frightened ? 
 I who swore I should go to the scaffold 
 
35 
 
 With big strong steps, and ... No more, 
 
 I thank you, 
 But no. ... I am all right now! . . . No! 
 
 listen! 
 
 1 am here to l>e hanged: to be lianged to-mor 
 row 
 
 At six o clock, when the sun is rising. 
 And why am I here? Not a soul can tell you 
 But this poor shivering thing before you 
 This fluttering wreck of the man God made 
 
 him. 
 
 For God knows what wild reason. Hear me, 
 And learn from my lips the truth of my story. 
 . There s nothing strange in what I shall tell 
 
 you 
 
 Nothing mysterious, nothing unearthly, 
 But damnably human; and you shall hear it. 
 Not one of those little black lawyers were told 
 
 it; 
 The judge, with his big bald head, never knew 
 
 And the jury (God rest their poor souls! ) never 
 dreamed it, 
 
 Once there were three in the world who could 
 tell it, 
 
 Now there are two. There 11 be two to-mor 
 row : 
 
 You, my friend, aad . . . But there s the story. 
 
 When I was a boy the world was heaven. 
 I never knew then that the men and the women 
 Who petted and called me a brave big fellow 
 Were ever less happy than I ; but wisdom 
 Which comes with the years, you know, soon 
 
 showed me 
 
 The secret of all my glittering childhood 
 The broken key to *the fairies castle 
 That held my life in the fresh glad season 
 When 1 was the king of the earth. Then 
 
 glowly 
 
30 
 
 And yet so swiftly! there came the know 
 ledge 
 That tho marvelous life I hud lived was my 
 
 life; 
 That the glorious world 1 haul loved was my 
 
 world; 
 
 And that every man and every woman 
 And every child was a different being, 
 \Vrou-lt, witli a different heat and tired 
 With pansiouH bom of a iugle hpirit; 
 That tin- pleasure I felt wax nut their pleasure, 
 Nor my orr>w a kind of imim-leh* pity 
 For something, I knew not what their sorrow. 
 And thus wax I tan- lit my that hard lesson, 
 Tin- It >-on we Mill, i the most in learning: 
 That a happy man it a man forfeit id 
 Of all the toi turiiig tll around him. 
 
 When or where I first met tho woman 
 J eheiUhed and made my wife, no matter. 
 Knongh to hay that I found her and kept her 
 Here iji my heart with as pure a devotion 
 AH ever Christ felt for hi* brothers. Forgive me 
 For naming his name iu your patient presence; 
 Hut J feel my words, und the truth I utter 
 Is Hod s own truth. 1 loved that woman! 
 Not for her faee, but for bomething fairer 
 Something diviner I thought than Wanty: 
 1 loved the spirit the human something 
 That seemed to ehime with my own eoudition, 
 And makcsoul-tmiMe when we we it? together; 
 And we were never apart from the moment 
 My eyes flashed into her eyes the mes.sagu 
 That hwept it.ielf in a quivering answer 
 Hack through mv htraiige l<t being. My pnlnes 
 Leapt with an aehing hpeed ; and the measure 
 ()f this great world grew Miiall and Miualler, 
 Till it heemed the riky and the land and the 
 
 oeean 
 
 Closed at last in a nist all golden 
 Around UM two. And we stood for a season 
 
37 
 
 Like gods out flung from chaos, dreaming 
 That we were the king and the queen of the fire 
 That reddened tin- clouds of love that held us 
 Blind to the new world soon to he ours 
 Ours Jo seize and sway. The passion 
 Of that great love was a nameless passion 
 Bright as the hlaze of the sun at noonday, 
 Wild as the flames of hell; hut, uiark you, 
 Never a whit less pure for its fervor. 
 The Imseness in me (for 1 was human) 
 Burned like a worm, and perished; and nothing 
 Was left me then hut a soul that mingled 
 Itself with hers, and swayed and shuddered 
 In fearful triumph. When I consider 
 That helpless love and the cursed folly 
 That w reeked iny life for the sake of a woman, 
 Who broke with a laugh the chains of her 
 
 marriage 
 
 (Whatever the word may mean) I wonder 
 If all the woe was her sin, or whether 
 The chains tlwimelVM were enough to lend her 
 In love s despite to break them. . . .Sinners 
 And saints 1 viv :>n> rooked in the cradle, 
 But never are known till the will within them 
 Speaks in its own good time, So I foster 
 Kven to-night for the woman who wronged me 
 , Xothinjj of hate, nor of hive, but a foeling 
 Of still regret, For the man . . . But hear me, 
 And judge for yourself: 
 
 For a time the seasons 
 Changed and parsed in a sweet succession 
 That seemed to me like n endless music: 
 Life was a rolling psalm, and the choirs 
 Of God were glad for our love. I fancied 
 All this, and more than I dare to tell you 
 To-night, yes, more than I dare to remem 
 ber; 
 And then .... well, the music stopped. There 
 
 are moments 
 In all men s lives when it stops, I fancy, 
 
38 
 
 Or seem* to stop, (ill it comes to cheer them 
 Again with a larger wound. Tin- ciirtuiu 
 Of life just then ia lift, -a a little 
 To give to their sight new joys new sorrows 
 Or nothing at all, HomctimcH. I was watching 
 The H!OW sweet seem-.- of a golden picture, 
 Flushed ami alive with a long delusion 
 That made the murmur of home, when I shud 
 dered 
 
 And felt like a knife th.it awful silence 
 That coineH when the music goe* forever. 
 The trnth came over my life like a darkness 
 Over a forest where one man wanders, 
 Worse than alone. For a time I daggered 
 And stumbled on with a weak persistence 
 After the phantom of hope that darted 
 And dodged like a frightened thing In-fore we, 
 To quit me at last, .tin I vanish. Nothing 
 Was left me then hut the curse of living 
 And Waring through all my da\ , the fever 
 And thir.st of a poiMtned love. Were I stronger, 
 Or weaker, perhaps mv scorn had navcd me 
 (liven me strength to crush my hoi row 
 With hate for her and the world that praised 
 
 her 
 
 To have left her, then and there, to have con 
 quered 
 
 That old falhe life with a new and a wiser; 
 Such things are easy in word*. . . . You listen, 
 And frown, 1 MIJIJM.M-, that 1 never mention 
 That beautiful word, /i/ryu-r / I forgave her 
 First of all; and 1 praised kind heaven 
 That I wan a brave clean man to do it; 
 And then I tried to forget. Forgiveness! . . . 
 What does it mean \\hcii the one forgiven 
 Shivers and weeps and clings and ktsiwt 
 The ereiluloiiM fool that holds her, and tellt 
 
 him 
 
 A thousand thing* of a good man * merry, 
 And then slips .ll with a laugh and plunges 
 Hack to the .sin she has quit for a season 
 
30 
 
 To tell him that boll and the world are better 
 
 For her than a prophet s heaven? Believe me, 
 
 The love that dies ere its flames are wasted 
 
 In search of an : lien soul is In-tter, 
 
 Better by far than the lonely passim 
 
 That bums baek into the heart that feeds it. 
 
 For I loved her still; and the more she mocked 
 
 me, 
 
 Fooled with her endless pleading promise 
 Of future faith, the more I believed her 
 The penitent thing she seemed; and the stronger 
 Her ehoking arms and her small hot kisses 
 Hound me and burned my brain to pity. 
 The more she grew to the heavenly creature 
 That brightened the life I had lost forever. 
 The truth was gone somehow for the moment; 
 The curtain fell for a time; and I fancied 
 We were again like gods together, 
 Loving again with the old glad rapture. 
 But the scenes, like these, too often repeated, 
 Failed nt last and her gnile was wasted, 
 1 made an end of her shrewd caresses 
 And told her a few straight words. She took 
 
 them . - - 
 
 Full at their worth and the faree was over. 
 
 At first my dreams of the past upheld me, 
 But they were a short supj>ort: the present 
 Pushed them away, and I fell. The mission 
 Of life (whatever it was) was blasted; 
 My game was lost. And I met the winner 
 Of that foul deal as a sick slave gathers 
 His painful strength at the sight of his master; 
 And when he WHS past I cursed him, fearful 
 Of that strange chance which makes us mighty 
 Or mean, or both. I cursed him and hated 
 The stones he pressed with his heel; I. followed 
 His easy march with a backward envy, 
 And cursed myself for the beast within me. 
 But pride is the master of love; and the vision 
 Of those old days grew faint and fainter: 
 
40 
 
 The counterfeit wife my mercy idicltered 
 Wan nothing now but a woman; it woman 
 Out of my way, and out of my nature. 
 My buttle with blinded love was over, 
 M v battle with aching pride le^iiming. 
 If I vus the loHcr ut lir.it, I wonder 
 If I ant tin- winner uowt ... I doubt it. 
 My l : .fe is u losing game; and to-morrow . . . 
 TuHnorrow! . . . Christ! did 1 say to 
 morrow ? . . . 
 
 I> ymir brandy gootl for death? . .. . There; 
 listen: 
 
 When love goes out, and a man is driven 
 To bhnii mankind for the sears that make him 
 A joke for all chattering tongues, h* carries 
 A double burden. The wtH-s I suffered 
 After tbat hard Ixurayal made me 
 1 ity, at tii >t, all breathing creature* 
 On this bewildered earth. 1 studied 
 Their faces and made for in) self tbe ntory 
 Of ail their Mcattered liven. Like brother* 
 And HixtrrH they hccmcd to me then; and I 
 
 liourUhrd 
 
 A ntran^er friendship wrought in my fancy 
 Hctweeli thone |ieo|le and me. Hut somehow, 
 AH time went on, there came |iieer ^l.iiu-es 
 Out of their e\es; and the hhamethat stiiiig me 
 llurassed my pride with a era/ed impression 
 That every face in the surging city 
 Was turned to me; and I saw hi/ whis|H rs, 
 Now and then, as I walked and wearied 
 M\ Wasted life twice over in bearing 
 With all my sorrow the sorrows of other*, 
 Till I found myself tbeir fool. Then 1 trem 
 bled 
 
 A poor seared thing and their prving faces 
 Told me the ghastly truth: they were laughing 
 At me, and my fate. My (Jod, 1 could feel it 
 That laughter! And then the children caught 
 
41 
 
 Ami I, like a struck dog, crept and listened. 
 And then when I met tin- man who had weakened 
 A woman s love to his own desire, 
 It seemed to me that all hell were laughing 
 In fiendish concert! I was their victim 
 And his, and hate s. And there was the strug 
 gle ! 
 
 As long as the earth we tread holds something 
 A tortured heart can love, the meaning 
 Of life is not wholly blurred; but after 
 The last loved thing in the world has left us, 
 We know the triumph of hate. The glory 
 Of good goes out forever; the beacon 
 Of sin is the light that leads us downward 
 I>own to the fiery end. The road runs 
 Kight through hell; and the souls that follow 
 The cursed ways where its windings lead them 
 Suffer enough, I say, to merit 
 All grace that a God can give. The fashiou 
 Of our lielief is to lift all beings 
 Born for a life that knows no struggle 
 In sin s tight snares to eternal glory 
 All apart from the branded millions 
 Who carrv through life their faces graven 
 With sure brute scars that tell the story 
 Of their foul, fated passions. Science 
 Has yet no salve to smooth or soften 
 The cradle-sears of a tvrant s visage; 
 Xo drug to purge, from the vital essence 
 Of souls the sleeping venom. Virtue 
 May flower in hell, when its roots are twisted 
 A nd wound withtherootsof vice; butthejstronger 
 Never is known till there comes that battle 
 With sin to prove the victor. PeriloJis 
 Things are these demons we call our passions 
 Slaves are we of their roving fancies, 
 Fools of tiieir devilish glee. You think me, 
 I know, in this maundering way designing 
 To lighten the load of my guilt and cast it 
 Half on the shoulders of God . . . Bat bear 
 met 
 
 
It 
 
 1 in partly u man fur all my wraknc**, 
 If woukiK HH it wrrc tn htand an. I ii iuder 
 llcfo.-o men eyes tlu< IIIHII who had immli i <l 
 Mr, uiul tlrivru my burning forehead 
 With horns fur ihe wurUI tu laugh at ... Tru&t 
 
 mi-! 
 
 And try tu l>elieve my word* hut a portion 
 Of what (i oil s purpose made me ! 1 he coward 
 Within mo cues for tin*; and I beg you 
 Now, as 1 come tu the end, tu remember 
 Th.it women and mm ,iu- on earth tu travel 
 All on a different road, Hereafter 
 i ln- road-, may mcut ... 1 trust in something 
 I know not what . . . 
 
 Well, thin was thr way of it: 
 Stung with the .si, aim- and thr .secret fury 
 That comritto the man who has thro* u hi* pittance 
 Of M-ll at a tr.nttu -. frrt, 1 wandrn-il 
 Wrck and wrrki in a hal llril firn/y, 
 Till at last the devil aimke. I hratrd him, 
 And laughed ut the iovu that htrovu tu touch 
 
 me t . , 
 
 The dead, lost love; and I gripprd thr demon 
 (Mo.se tu my hrra>t, and held him, pr.ii-.ing 
 The fatc .mil tin- furiestlutt gave me the courage 
 Tu follow hit* wild command. forgetful 
 Of all to come ulu-n the work was uver 
 There came tu me then nu htonv vixiuu 
 Of these three hundred days I rhcrisdied 
 An awful joy in my hrain. I pondered 
 And weighed the thing in my mind, and gloried 
 In life tu think tint 1 was to eoinpier 
 l)cath at his own dark door, and chuckled 
 To think of it done MI cleanly. One evening 
 1 knew that my time had come. I shuddered 
 A little, hut rather for douht than terror, 
 And followed him led hy the nameless devil 
 I worshipped and called my brother. The city 
 Shone like a dream that night: the windowrt 
 Flashed with a piercing ilamc,and the pavements 
 
43 
 
 Pulsed nn<l swayed with a warmth or some 
 thing 
 Hint seemed o then to my foot and thrilled 
 
 me 
 
 With a quick, dizzy joy; and the women 
 And men, like marvellous things of magic, 
 Floated and laughed and sang by my shoulder. 
 Sent with a wizard motion. Through it 
 And over and under it all there sounded 
 A nmrnmr of life, like bees; and I listened 
 And laiighrtl again to think of the flower 
 That grew, blood red, for me! . . . This fellow 
 Was one of the popular sort who flourish 
 Uunifiled wheregodswouldfall. Foraconscienee 
 He carried a snug deceit that made him 
 The man of the time and the place, whatever 
 The time or the place might be: were he 
 
 sounding 
 
 With a genial craft that cloaked its purpose, 
 Nigh to itself, the depth of a woman 
 Fooled with his brainless art, or sending 
 The midnight home with songs and bottles, > 
 The cad was there, and his ease forever 
 Shone with the smooth and slippery polish 
 That tells the snake. That night he drifted 
 Into an tip-town haunt and ordered 
 Whatever it was with a soft assurance 
 That made me mad as I stood behind him, 
 Gripping his death, and waited. Coward, 
 I think, is the name the world has given 
 To men like mo; but I 11 swear I never 
 Thought of mv own disgrace when I shot him . . . 
 Yes, in the back; I know it. I know it 
 Now, but what if I do? . . . As I watched him 
 Lying there dead in the scattered sawdust, 
 Wet with a day s blown froth, I noted 
 That things were still: that the walnnt tables, 
 Where men but a moment before were sitting, 
 Were gone ; tlia* a screen of something around 
 
 me 
 Shut them ont of my sight. But the gilded 
 
-44 
 
 Signs of a hundred In ITS aiul whiskies 
 
 Flashed from the walls above, and the mirrors 
 
 Ami glasses In-hind tlu- bar were lighted 
 
 In some ht range way, aiul into my spirit 
 
 A thousand shafts of terrible tiro 
 
 (turned like death, uiul 1 fell. The .story 
 
 Of wlmteamu tlien, you know. 
 
 Hut tell me, 
 What dtH s the whole thing menu? What are 
 
 we 
 
 Slaves of an awful Ignorance? puppets 
 Pulled by attend? or gtnla without knowingit? 
 Do \\e shut from ourselves our own salvation, 
 Or what do we do! 1 tell \on, Homine, 
 There are tim . in the liven of us poor deviU 
 When heaven and hell get mixed: though i-on- 
 
 seieiu-e 
 
 May eoine like a whis(ter of Christ to warn ua 
 Away from our sins, it is lost or laughed at, 
 Anil then we fall. And for all who have fallen 
 Kvell for him - I hold no imtlk e, 
 Nor iniu-h eoinpassion: a mightier mercy 
 Than mine must &hrieve him. And I, 1 am 
 
 going 
 
 Into the light? or into the darkness? 
 Why do 1 sit through these Mrkening hours, 
 And hope? (iood (Jotl! are they hours! 
 
 hours? . . . 
 
 Yes! lam done with days. And to-morrow 
 We two may meet! . . . To-morrow! . . . To 
 morrow! . . .