JUST PUBLISHED. 
 
 THE ONE FAIB WOMAN. 
 
 A fascinating new novel by Joaquin Miller. One of 
 the most poetical romances ever written. The 
 scenes laid chiefly on the shores of the Medi 
 terranean, and abounding in picturesque 
 sketches of Italian life in Genoa, 
 Naples, Home, Milan, Como, 
 Venice, etc. Beautifully print 
 ed, with exquisite orna 
 mental initial letters, 
 of Egyptian and 
 Poinpeiian 
 designs. 
 
 Price, S3. 00. 
 
 The Providence Press calls it, u One of the most 
 brilliant, original, and impressive novels they have 
 read for many a year." 
 
 G. W. CAKLETON & CO., Publishers, 
 
 Madison Square, New York. 
 
THE 
 
 BARONESS OF NEW YORK. 
 
 4s^~ 
 
 BY 
 
 JOAQUIN MILLER, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 SONGS OF THE SIERRAS," " THE ONE FAIR WOMAN," ETC., ETC. 
 
 " Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge 1 therefore 
 liave I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, 
 which I knew not." Job xlii. 3. 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 
 G. W. Carleton & Co., Publishers. 
 
 MDCCCLXXVII. 
 
 [DRAMATIC BIGHTS RESKKVHD.] 
 
Copyright, 1877, by 
 C. H. MILLER, 
 
TO 
 
 831 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PRELUDE, ......... 11 
 
 IN THE FOREST, 
 
 PARTIL 
 
 PRELUDE, ..... . 105 
 
 ON FIFTH AVENUE, ...... 107 
 

 \ v\V ; 
 
 PART I. 
 
 IN THE FOREST 
 
By the great gold store of the vast West sea, 
 Full half way to Tieavenfrom your marts of the East; 
 Where maids are as true as the rock-rooted tree; 
 Where man is as pure as the Jiairy wild beast. 
 
vv- 
 
 } f 
 
 fr 
 
 
 THE 
 
 BARONESS OF NEW YORK. 
 
 PRELUDE. 
 
 TN a land so far that you wonder whether 
 
 The God would know it should you fall dead, 
 In a land so far through the wilds and weather, 
 That the sun falls weary and flushed and red, 
 That the sea and the sky seem coming together, 
 Seem closing together as a book that is read : 
 
 In the nude weird West, where an unnamed river 
 Rolls restless in bed of bright silver and gold ; 
 Where white flashing mountains flow rivers of silver 
 As a rock of the desert flowed fountains of old; 
 By a dark wooded river that calls to the dawn, 
 And makes mouths at the sea with his dolorous swan 
 
12 PRELUDE. 
 
 In the land of the wonderful sun and weather, 
 "With green under foot and with gold over head, 
 Where the sun takes flame and you wonder whether 
 J Tis an isle of fire in his foamy bed : 
 Where the ends of the earth they are welding together 
 In a rough-hewn fashion, in a forge flame red : 
 
 In the land where the rabbits dance delicate measures, 
 
 At night by the moon in the sharp chapparral ; 
 
 Where the squirrels build homes in the earth and 
 hoard treasures : 
 
 Where the wolves fight in armies, fight faithful and 
 well, 
 
 Fight almost like Christians ; fight on and find pleas 
 ures 
 
 In strife, like to man turning earth into hell : 
 
 Where the plants are as trees ; where the trees are as 
 
 towers 
 
 That toy, as it seems, with the stars at night ; 
 Where the roses are forests ; where the wild-wood 
 
 flowers 
 
 Are dense unto darkness ; where, reaching for light, 
 They spill in your bosom their fragrance in showers 
 Like incense spilled down in some sacrament rite : 
 
PREL UDE. 13 
 
 Tis the new-finished world; how silent with wonder 
 Stand all things around you : the flowers are faint 
 And lean on your shoulder. You wander on under 
 The broad gnarly boughs so colossal and quaint, 
 You breathe the sweet balsam where boughs break 
 
 asunder 
 The world seems so new, as if smelling of paint. 
 
 The place is unfinished. Yon footfall retreating, 
 It might be the Maker disturbed at his task. 
 The footfall of God or the far pheasant beating, 
 It is one and the same whatever the mask 
 It may wear unto man. The woods keep repeating 
 The old sacred sermons whatever you ask. 
 
 Here brown-muzzled cattle come stealthy to drink, 
 The wild forest cattle, with high horns as trim 
 As the elk at their side. Their sleek necks are slim 
 And alert like the deer ; they come, then they shrink 
 As afraid of their fellows, or of shadow-beasts seen 
 In the deeps of the dark wooded waters of green. 
 
 The settlers are silent; the newly-built mill 
 lias strong burly men, but a dull muffled sound 
 Is all that you hear. The waters are still. 
 
I4 PREL UDE. 
 
 The wagons drag sullen and dull on the ground \ 
 The iron-toothed mill in the moss-mantled trees 
 Makes only a sound like the buzzing of bees. 
 
 Lo ! all things are awed ; the wild is so vast, 
 The hush is so loud through the dense gloaming land, 
 No man dares assert. The brute comes at last 
 To turn, to make sign with a black hairy hand 
 And pass unrestrained, while man awed and mute 
 Sees a type of his face in the face of the brute. 
 
 The bull-dog, deep-mouthed, sits sullen and still, 
 
 He turns round and round, and he licks his loose 
 
 jaws, 
 
 He lies down in his bed while the black bear at will 
 Steals forth from his fen and lifts his black paws 
 And points to the white Mason mark on his breast 
 While the awed hunter rests with his rifle at rest. 
 
 By the sea, when the cyclone is wild in the wail ; 
 When the pine -tops are bent like the battle -borne 
 
 spear ; 
 
 And the sea thunders in on the bright shining shale, 
 And the sombre earth shakes as if shaken with fear ; 
 
PRELUDE. 15 
 
 Then the brutes crouching near lift their eyes to men s 
 
 eyes 
 And question such questions as know no replies. 
 
 It is man in his garden scarce wakened as yet 
 
 From the sleep that fell on him when woman was 
 
 made. 
 
 The new-finished garden is humid and wet 
 From the hand that new-fashioned its unpeopled shade; 
 And the wonder still looks from the fair woman s eyes 
 As she shines through the wood like the light from 
 
 the skies. 
 
 And a ship now and then from the far Ophir s shore 
 Draws in from the sea. It lies close to the bank, 
 Then a dull muffled sound of the slow-shuffled plank 
 As they load the black ship, but you hear nothing more, 
 And the dark dewy vines and the tall tow ring wood 
 Like twilight droop over the deep sweeping flood. 
 
 The black masts are tangled with branches that cross, 
 The rich fragrant gums fall from branches to deck, 
 The thin ropes are swinging with streamers of moss 
 That mantle all things like the shreds of a wreck ; 
 
16 PRELUDE. 
 
 The long mosses swing, there is never a breath: 
 The river is still as the river of death. 
 
 One boundless black forest, unnamed and unknown; 
 One sea of black forest, yet at east of that sea 
 Curves a white shining crescent ; then a vast snowy 
 
 cone 
 
 Starts up from mid crescent, sharp, suddenly, 
 And pierces blue heaven. It looms up alone ; 
 As white and as lone as the great white throne. 
 
TN the beginning aye, before 
 
 The six-days labors were well o er, 
 Yea, while the world lay incomplete, 
 Or God had opened quite the door 
 Of this strange land for strong men s feet, 
 There lay against the westmost sea, 
 One wierd-wild land of mystery. 
 
 A far, white wall, like fallen moon, 
 
 Girt out the world. The forest lay 
 
 So deep you scarcely saw the day, 
 
 Save in the high held middle noon : 
 
 It lay a land of sleep and dreams, 
 
 And clouds drew through like shoreless streams 
 
 That stretch to where no man may say. 
 
 Men reached it only from the sea, 
 
 By black-built ships, that seemed to creep 
 2 
 
1 8 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 Along the shore suspiciously, 
 Like unnamed monsters of the deep, 
 That ever wake, yet seem to sleep. 
 It was the wierdest land, I ween, 
 That mortal man has ever seen : 
 
 A dim, dark land of bird and beast, 
 Black, shaggy beasts with cloven claw ; 
 A land that scarce knew prayer or priest, 
 Or law of man or Nature s law, 
 Or aught that good men ever saw ; 
 Where no fixed wall drew sharp dispute 
 Twixt savage man and silent brute. 
 
 It hath a history most fit 
 
 For cunning hand to fashion on ; 
 
 No chronicler hath mentioned it ; 
 
 No buccaneer set foot upon. 
 
 Tis of a wild and outlawed Don ; 
 
 A cruel man, with pirate s gold 
 
 That loaded down his deep ship s hold. 
 
 A deep ship s hold of plundered gold ! 
 The golden cruise, the golden cross, 
 From many a church of Mexico, 
 
IN THE FOREST, 19 
 
 From Panama s mad overthrow, 
 From many a ransomed city s loss, 
 From many a foeman staunch and bold, 
 And many a foeman stark and cold. 
 
 He fled with prices on his head; 
 
 He found this wild, wierd land. He drew 
 
 His ship to shore. His ruthless crew, 
 
 Like Romulus, laid hold and wed, 
 
 The half -wild woman, that had fled, 
 
 And in their bloody forays bore 
 
 Red firebrands about the shore. 
 
 The red men rose at night. They came, 
 A firm, unflinching wall of flame ; 
 They swept, as sweeps some fateful sea, 
 O er land of sand and level shore, 
 And howls in far fierce agony. 
 The red men swept that deep, dark shore 
 As threshers sweep a threshing-floor. 
 
 And yet beside the old Don s door 
 They left his daughter, as they fled. 
 They spared her life, because she bore 
 Their Chieftain s blood. 
 
20 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 His gory head 
 
 On pikes was borne away. His gold 
 Was burrowed from the stout ship s hold, 
 And borne in many a slim canoe, 
 To where ? The grey priest only knew. 
 
 Revenge at last came like a tide, 
 Twas sweeping, deep and terrible ; 
 The Saxon found the land and came 
 To take possession in Christ s name. 
 For every white man that had died 
 I think a thousand red men fell; 
 A gentle custom; and the land 
 Lay lifeless, as some burned-out brand. 
 
 Steel struck to flint, and fire flew 
 
 For days; then all was dark as night. 
 
 The Saxon s steel was strong and bright, 
 
 The .gd man s flint was broken quite. 
 
 Now plough-shares plough the fragments through, 
 
 They throw a thousand flints to light, 
 
 And that is all that s left to you. 
 
IN THE FOREST. 21 
 
 II. 
 
 These brave world-builders of the West, 
 
 They came from God knows where, the best 
 
 And worst of four parts of the world. 
 
 With naked blade, with flag unfurled, 
 
 They bore new empires in their plan. 
 
 A motley band; the bearded man, 
 
 The eager and ambitious boy, 
 
 The fugitive from fallen Troy, 
 
 The man of fortune, letters, fame, 
 
 The old-world knight with stainless name, 
 
 The man with heritage of shame. 
 
 And thriftless Esaus, hairy men 
 
 Who roamed and tracked the trackless wood, 
 
 Good, if it pleased them to be good, 
 
 Or cruel as some wild beast when 
 
 He tears a hunter limb by limb 
 
 And so sits gloating over him. 
 
 Then cunning Jacobs, crafty men, 
 With spotted herds, who loved to keep 
 Along the hills a thousand sheep, 
 
22 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 Who strove with men and strove as when 
 The many sons digged down a wall 
 And gloried in their fellows fall. 
 
 Then black-eyed pirates of the sea, 
 That sailing came from none knew where, 
 That sought deep wooded inlets there, 
 And took posession silently; 
 To rest, they said, in loved repose 
 To rest or rob, God only knows. 
 
 I only know that when that land 
 Lay thick with peril, and lay far 
 It seemed as some sea-fallen star, 
 The weak men never reached a hand 
 Or sought us out that primal day, 
 And cowards did not come that way. 
 
 My brave world-builders of the West ! 
 Why, who doth know ye ? Who shall know 
 But I, who on thy peaks of snow 
 Brake bread the first ? Who loves ye best ? 
 Who holds ye still, of more stern worth 
 Than all proud peoples of the earth ? 
 
IN THE FOREST. 23 
 
 Yea, I, the rhymer of wild rhymes, 
 
 Indifferent of blame or praise, 
 
 Still sing of ye, as one who plays 
 
 The same shrill air in all strange climes 
 
 The same wild piercing highland air, 
 
 Because, because, his heart is there. 
 
 III. 
 
 My wild world-builders of the West! 
 What sinewy warp, what wire-like woof! 
 What brawn breasts, builded arrow-proof! 
 What generous and open breast 
 Or brigand thee or pirate thou, 
 I knew not then, I care not now. 
 
 Whence came they ? Pirate? Rover? Priest? 
 
 These people who did dare dispute 
 
 Possession with the hairy brute ? 
 
 From out that West, that was the East? 
 
 From sulky North or sultry South ? 
 
 Or spewed from some sick city s mouth ? 
 
 Go ask the wind-born grasshopper; 
 Nay, ask the four winds if they know 
 
24 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 From where they come or whither go, 
 Or why at all they rise or stir. 
 The world is round. Tides rise and fall. 
 Sail on. All seas are free to all. 
 
 The world is round. All things repeat. 
 Another Jason seeks the fleece. 
 Another Seacrops founds a Greece. 
 The twins, the shaggy she-wolf s teat, 
 The Palentine, her heroes bold, 
 In time shall be new tales new told. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Below a leafy arch as grand 
 
 As ever bended heaven spanned, 
 
 Tall trees like mighty columns grew 
 
 They loomed as if to pierce the blue, 
 
 They reached as reaching heaven through. 
 
 A shadowed stream rolled dark and slow, 
 Some men moved noiseless to and fro 
 As in some vast cathedral when 
 The calm of prayer comes to men. 
 
IN THE FOREST. 25 
 
 One trackless wood ; one snowy cone 
 That lifted from the wood alone. 
 A wild, wide river dark and deep, 
 A ship against the shore asleep. . 
 
 An Indian woman crept a crone, 
 Remote around the camp alone, 
 The relic of her perished race. 
 She wore rich, rudely-fashioned bands 
 Of gold above her bony hands: 
 She hissed her curses on the place : 
 
 Go seek the red man s last retreat! 
 
 A lonesome land, the haunted lands, 
 
 Red mouths of beasts, red men s red hands : 
 
 Did ever it occur to you 
 
 While tramping unknown forests through, 
 
 That this same wrapt half prophet stands 
 
 All nude and voiceless, nearer to 
 
 The awful God than I or you ? 
 
 A maiden by the river s brink, 
 Stood fair to see as you can think, 
 As tall as tules at her feet. 
 As fair as flowers in her hair, 
 
26 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 As sweet as flowers over-sweet. 
 
 As fair as wood-nymph, more than fair. 
 
 How beautiful she was ! How wild ! 
 How pure as water-plant, this child 
 This one wild child of nature here 
 Grown tall in shadows. And how near 
 To God, where no man stood between 
 Her eyes and scenes no man hath seen. 
 Stop still, my friend, and do not stir, 
 Shut close your page and think of her. 
 
 This maiden by her cabin stood, 
 The one sweet woman of the wood. 
 The birds sang sweeter for her face. 
 Her lifted eyes were like a grace 
 To woodmen of that solitude. 
 
 Aye, she was fair and very fair. 
 The rippled rivers of her hair 
 That ran in wondrous waves, somehow 
 Flowed down divided by her brow, 
 And flooded all her breast of snow 
 In its uncommon fold and flow. 
 

 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 A red bird built beneath her roof, 
 The squirrels crossed her cabin sill 
 And frisking came and went at will. 
 A hermit spider wove his web 
 And up against the roof did spin 
 A net to catch mosquitos in. 
 
 The silly elk, the spotted fawn, 
 
 And all dumb beasts that came to drink, 
 
 That stealthy stole upon the brink, 
 
 In that weird while that lies between 
 
 The drowsy night and noisy dawn, 
 
 On seeing her familiar face 
 
 Would fearless stop and stand in place. 
 
 She was so kind the beasts of night 
 Gave her the road as if her right. 
 The panther crouching overhead 
 In sheen of moss would hear her tread 
 And bend his eyes but never stir 
 Least he by chance might frighten her. 
 
 Yet in her splendid strength, her eyes, 
 There lay the lightning of the skies; 
 The love-rage of the lioness, 
 
28 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 To kill the instant, or caress: 
 
 A pent-up soul that sometimes grew 
 
 Impatient ; why, she hardly knew. 
 
 She sometimes sighed, then rousing, threw 
 
 Her strong arms out as if to hand 
 
 Her great love, sun-born and complete 
 
 At birth, to some fair high god s feet 
 
 On some far, fair and unseen land. 
 
 And when the priest her only friend, 
 The half-clad hairy, hated priest, 
 By Saxon shunned as some wild beast, 
 Would tell of cities and intend 
 Instruction, she would lean, would rise, 
 And all the glory of her eyes 
 Would fill the humble home, and she 
 Would clasp her hands, and at his knee 
 Compel long tales of stormy life, 
 Of love, of hate, of social strife 
 And conquest, till the proud girl grew 
 Far wiser than the good priest knew. 
 
 Yea, all men hated him. They said 
 
 His hands were red with human blood. 
 
 *? 
 
 They said he oft times in the flood 
 
IN THE FOREST, 
 
 Plunged in, yet still his hands were red. 
 
 He seemed so utterly cast out 
 
 That woodman, meeting, did dispute 
 
 And seem to hold in lusty doubt 
 
 If he, so hairy-clad and mute, 
 
 Was more than some misshapen brute. 
 
 Mostlike they hated him because 
 Adora loved him. Then she drew 
 From him deep knowledge of the laws 
 Of God and man, and therefore grew 
 Beyond their tallest growth, and stood 
 The one fair flower of the wood. 
 
 Brown woodmen came, brawn woodmen wooed- 
 
 Tall hunters from the solitude; 
 
 They saw her face, then stood as tall 
 
 And kingly as the sons of Saul. 
 
 But ever prowled the grey priest near, 
 
 And men felt more than mortal fear. 
 
 None knew just where he dwelt, but well, 
 
 Black Mungo muttered, "Down in hell." 
 
 One twilight, as the priest "flid stoop 
 And humbly pass a laughing group 
 
 29 
 
3 o IN THE FOREST. 
 
 Of mocking, men, one plucked his beard 
 While others peered and leaning jeered. 
 He signaled to the wood. There came, 
 With measured and majestic tread, 
 A great, black beast, with glossy mane, 
 A broad-foot beast, with eyes that shone 
 Like sentry stars that stand alone 
 On edge of storms where cyclones reign. 
 
 He made, men said, some fiendish sign 
 To this huge brute, and pointing to 
 The maid Adora, hastened through 
 The dim path, dark with wood and vine, 
 And ere they dared lay hand upon 
 Or stir, the hairy man was gone. 
 
 They started, terrified. They knew 
 No fear akin to this. They flew 
 To arms, they called black Mungo, ran 
 To stout-built cabins, and each man 
 That erst, that oft, had laughed at death, 
 Went crouching low with bated breath. 
 
 This man commanded beasts, and they 
 Came forth bright-eyed and did obey ! 
 
IN THE FOREST. 31 
 
 What if the million beasts should come ? 
 The red-mouthed monsters ? You could hear 
 Their sheath-knives shiver as with fear ; 
 And hairy lips were white and dumb. 
 
 V. 
 
 How beautiful she was ! Why, she 
 Was inspiration. She was born 
 To walk God s summer-hills at morn 
 Nor waste her by a wood-dark sea. 
 What wonder, then, her soul s white wings 
 Beat at the bars, like living things ? 
 
 She ofttime sighed, and wandered through 
 The sea-bound wood, then stopped and drew 
 Her hand above her head, and swept 
 The lonesome sea, and ever kept 
 Her face to sea, as if she knew 
 Some day, some near or distant day, 
 Her destiny should come that way. 
 
 How proud she was ! How purely fair ! 
 How full of faith, of love and strength ! 
 
32 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 Her great, proud eyes! Her great hair s 
 
 length 
 
 Her long, strong, tumbled, careless hair, 
 Half curled and knotted anywhere, 
 From brow to breast, from cheek to chin, 
 For love to trip and tangle in. 
 
 At last a weary sail was seen. 
 It came so slow, so wearily, 
 Came creeping cautious up the sea, 
 As if it crept from out between 
 The half -closed sea and sky that lay 
 Tight wedged together, far away. 
 
 She watched it, wooed it. She did pray 
 It might not pass her by, but bring 
 Some love, some hate, some anything, 
 To break the awful loneliness 
 That like a nightly nightmare lay, 
 Upon her proud and pent-up soul, 
 Until it hardly brooked control. 
 
 To think of it ! This hairy priest : 
 Then men as rude as ruthless beast : 
 And that was all this great soul knew 
 
IN THE FOREST. 33 
 
 Of empire she was born unto. 
 
 O, it was pitiful to see ! 
 
 Here hung a ripe peach from the tree, 
 
 And not one man among them all 
 
 That stood up strong enough, or tall 
 
 Enough to pluck it ere it fall. 
 
 The ship crept feebly up the sea, 
 And came You cannot understand 
 How grand she was, how sudden she 
 Had sprung, full-grown, to womanhood : 
 How gracious, yet how tall and grand ; 
 How glorified, yet fresh and free, 
 How human, yet how more than good. 
 
 The ship stole slowly, slowly on 
 If you in Californian field 
 In ample flower time have seen 
 Her soft, south rose lift like a shield 
 Against the sudden sun, at dawn 
 If you in far-famed flower-land, 
 In middle summer-time have seen 
 The China rose, like Orient Queen 
 In court extravagance, uphold 
 Her gorgeous self, all suddenly 
 
34 
 
 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 A double handf ull of heaped gold, 
 "Why you, perhaps, may understand 
 How splendid and how sudden she 
 Shot up beside that South-west sea. 
 
 The storm-worn ship scarce seemed to creep 
 From wave to wave. It scarce could keep 
 How grand my lady stood, how tall ! 
 How proud her presence as she stood 
 Between the vast sea and west wood! 
 How large and liberal her soul, 
 How confident, how kind to all, 
 How trusting ; how untried the whole 
 Great heart, grand faith, defying fall ! 
 
 This child was as Madonna to 
 The tawny, brawny, lonely few 
 Who touched her hand and knew her soul. 
 She drew them, drew them as the pole 
 Points all things to itself. She drew 
 Men upward as a moon of spring, 
 High wheeling, vast and bosom full, 
 Half clad in clouds and wbite as wool, 
 Draws all the strong seas following. 
 
IN THE FOREST. 35 
 
 And yet she was as sad, as lone 
 
 As that same moon that leans above 
 
 And seems to search all heaven through, 
 
 For one brave love to be her own 
 
 For some strong, all-sufficient love 
 
 To lean upon, to love, to woo 
 
 To walk her high, blue world, to seek 
 
 Some place to rest her pallid cheek. 
 
 O ! I did know a sad white dove 
 That died for some sufficient love 
 Some high-born soul with wings to soar, 
 That stood nip equal in his place, 
 That looked her level in the face, 
 Nor wearied her with leaning o er, 
 To lift him where she lonely trod, 
 In sad delight the hills of God. 
 
 How slow before the sultry wind, 
 That lazy ship from isles or Ind. 
 How like to Dido by her sea, 
 When reaching arms imploringly, 
 Her large, round, rich, expressive arms, 
 Suggesting hoards of hidden charms, 
 
36 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 This one fair lady leaning stood 
 Above the sea by belt of wood. 
 
 The sea winds housed within her hair. 
 
 She wooed the brave ship to the shore 
 
 With thoughts she had not felt before. 
 
 The ship rolled o er the lazy seas, 
 
 Her shrouds were shreds, her masts were trees. 
 
 The maiden held her blowing hair, 
 
 That bound her swelling neck about, 
 
 She let it go, it blew in rout 
 
 About her bosom full and bare. 
 
 Her round, full arms were free as air, 
 
 Her hands were clasped as clasped in prayer. 
 
 The breeze sprang up, the battered ship 
 Began to flap his weary wings ; 
 The tall, torn masts began to dip 
 And walk the wave like living things. 
 Sho- rounded in, she struck the stream, 
 She moved like tall ship in a dream. 
 
 A captain kept the deck. He stood 
 
 A Hercules among his men, 
 
 And now he watched the sea and then 
 
IN THE FOREST. 37 
 
 He peered as if to pierce the wood. 
 
 And then he laughed in merry mood, 
 
 As mocking fate, half desperate, 
 
 And cheered his men with ready wit, 
 
 Of Irish sort, as counting it 
 
 A jolly jest to find, at last 
 
 The land, and all their perils past. 
 
 He now looked back, as if pursued, 
 
 Then swept the shore with glass, as though 
 
 He fled or feared some mortal foe. 
 
 And yet he jested all the whiles 
 
 And wreathed his lifted lips in smiles. 
 
 Slow sailing up th? river s mouth, 
 
 Slow tacking north and tacking south, 
 
 He touched the steep shore where she stood ; 
 
 He touched the overhanging wood ; 
 
 He tacked his ship, his tall, black mast 
 
 Touched tree-top mosses as he passed. 
 
 Her hands still clasped as if in prayer ; 
 Sweet prayer set to silentness ; 
 Her great, white throat uplifted, bare 
 And beautiful. Her eager face 
 
38 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 Illum d with love and tenderness, 
 And all her presence gave a grace 
 Dark shadowed in her cloud of hair. 
 
 He saw. He could not speak. No more 
 With lifted glass he sought the sea. 
 No more he laughed all carelessly; 
 No more he watched the wild, new shore. 
 Now foes may come or friends may flee, 
 He will not speak, he would not stir, 
 He sees but her, he fears but her. 
 
 The black ship rounded to the shore, 
 She ground against the bank as one 
 With long and weary journey done, 
 That would not rise to journey more. 
 Yet still the tall, proud captain stood 
 And gazed against that wall of wood. 
 
 At last he roused and stepped to land, 
 Like some Columbus. 
 
 They laid hand 
 
 On land and fruit, and rested there. 
 And who was he ? And who were they, 
 
IN THE FOREST. 39 
 
 The few he found that landing day ? 
 We do not know. They did not care. 
 
 Convenient custom. No man knew 
 His neighbor s creed. Each man began 
 A fair race with his fellow man, 
 As Christian-like as ancient Jew ; 
 As if twere some earth-fashioned heaven 
 Where all who came had been forgiven. 
 Where each man s oak-ancestral stood 
 Above his head, the native wood. 
 
 They met, this maiden and this man: 
 He, laughing in the face of fate, 
 Yet proud and resolute and bold. 
 She, coy at first, and mute and cold, 
 Held back and seemed to hesitate 
 Half frightened at this love that ran 
 Hard gallop till her hot heart beat 
 Like sounding of swift courser s feet. 
 
 Two strong streams of a land must run 
 Together surely as the sun 
 Succeeds the moon. Who shall gainsay 
 The gods that reign ? That wisely reign. 
 
40 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 Love is, love was, shall be again. 
 Like death, inevitable it is 
 Perchance like death, the dawn of bliss. 
 Let us then love the perfect day, 
 The twelve o clock of life, and stop 
 The two hands pointing to the top, 
 And hold them tightly while we may. 
 
 How beautiful she was ! The walks 
 By wooded ways ; the silent talks 
 Beneath the broad and fragrant bough, 
 The dark, deep wood, the dense, black dell, 
 Where scarce a single gold beam fell 
 From out the sun. They rested now 
 On mossy trunk. They wandered then 
 By paths of beasts, through tall fern fen 
 Where never fell the foot of men. 
 And yet she was as pure and white 
 As angel, and as fearless quite. 
 
 Of fear, of falsehood, or of shame 
 She did not even know the name 
 Of doubt, of falsehood or deceit. 
 How firmly set her honest feet 
 
IN THE FOREST. 41 
 
 By square and compass and the rule 
 Of truth that needs nor creed or school. 
 
 And looking in this stranger s eyes, 
 This man that overtopped all men, 
 She heard him tell, in hushed surprise 
 And pity, of his battles, when 
 He bled for freedom, how he fell 
 A prisoner the prison cell 
 The banishment from holy home, 
 Green Erin, in her girt of foam, 
 To far Australian fetters, and 
 His flight in perils from the land 
 In stolen ship. Then at his feet 
 She sat, all tenderness and tears ; 
 She bade him rest, put by his fears 
 And rest forever. This retreat 
 Were surely safe and sweet with peace. 
 Then springing up she raised her hand, 
 " Behold, behold, this boundless land ! 
 Here God has built high freedom s wall, 
 And drawn a line that tyranny 
 Shall not invade. Here fat increase 
 Awaits the gathering. Why strive 
 And stir the thickly-peopled hive 
 
42 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 While here all lone the "honey tree 
 Droops fragrant and forever free ? " 
 
 And as she spake, her great arms bare 
 Save when the folds and flow of hair 
 Blew down about them, and her face 
 Upheld to heaven with a grace 
 That shamed man s eloquence, this man 
 Believed he loved her, and the zest 
 Of enterprise and battle s plan 
 He thought to put aside and rest, 
 Forever rest and deem it best. 
 
 How beautiful ! How proud and free ! 
 
 How more than Greek or Tuscan she 
 
 In full development. Her mouth 
 
 Was majesty itself. Give me 
 
 A mouth as warm as summer south 
 
 A great, Greek mouth, for through this gate 
 
 Man first must pass to love s estate. 
 
 Her mouth was inspiration. Pride 
 And pity blessed it side by side. 
 Twas large and generous, arched out 
 
IN THE FOREST. 43 
 
 By dimples and a tempting pout ; 
 Playful, proud ; lips ne er the same, 
 Yet ever warm as weded flame. 
 
 She scarcely spoke. All seemed a dream, 
 She would not waken from. She lay 
 All night but waiting for the day 
 When she might see his face and deem 
 This man, with all his perils passed, 
 Had found his Lotus-land at last. 
 
 Then longer walks, then deeper woods, 
 Then tender words, sufficient sweet, 
 In denser, greener solitudes 
 Sweet, careless ways for careless feet, 
 Sweet talks of paradise for two, 
 And only two, to watch or woo. 
 
 Betime upon the ancient moss 
 With mighty boughs high clanged across, 
 The man with sweet words, over-sweet, 
 Fell pleading plaintive at her feet. 
 
 She sat upon a mossy throne, 
 An ancient pine, long ages prone, 
 
44 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 And overgrown with brown green moss, 
 And many a frail vine twined across. 
 The wood was dark as caverned seas, 
 Save where one gold-beam through the trees, 
 Shot down about her throne and shed 
 A still, soft halo round her head. 
 
 He spoke of love, of boundless love, 
 Of love that knew no other land, 
 Or face, or place, or anything ; 
 Of love that like the wearied dove 
 Could light nowhere, but kept the wing 
 Till she alone put forth her hand, 
 And so received it in her ark, 
 From outer seas and storm and dark. 
 
 He clasped her hand, climbed past her knees, 
 
 Forgot her hands and kissed her hair : 
 
 The while her two hands clasped in prayer, 
 
 And fair face lifted to the trees. 
 
 Her proud breast heaved, her pure, white breast 
 
 Rose like some sea in its unrest. 
 
 Her mouth was lifted as if she 
 Disdained the cup of passion he 
 
IN THE FOREST. 45 
 
 Had pressed her pouting lips to touch. 
 She stood as some storm-stricken tree ; 
 She stood a tower, tall as when 
 Old Roman mothers suckled men 
 Of old-time truth and taught them such. 
 
 At last she bended down her face, 
 She leaned, then pushed him back apace, 
 Then caught his eye. Calm, silently 
 Her eyes looked down into his eyes, 
 As one looks down some . mossy well 
 In hope by some weird chance to tell 
 By image there what future lies 
 Before him, and what face shall be 
 The pole-star of his destiny. 
 
 "And you do love me, Doughal?" She 
 Was trembling as the courser when 
 His thin flank quivers, and his feet 
 Touch velvet on the turf, and he 
 Is all afoam, alert, and fleet 
 As sunlight glancing on the sea 
 And full of triumph before men. 
 
46 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 She rose in all her majesty. 
 "And you do love me, Doughal?" He, 
 Forgetting then his careless air, 
 Uprose like some great, gathered sea, 
 Some strong, third wave that thunders on 
 In hollow hoarseness, daring all 
 Resistance that might rise or fall: 
 
 " I do swear, yea, swear 
 
 By all the peace and love that lies 
 
 Through upper paths of Paradise, 
 
 I love. I seem to rise or fall 
 
 With you. My stormy past is gone, 
 
 A tale that s told. I shall grow old 
 
 And die with you. Your blown black hair 
 
 Shall be my banner in the fight 
 
 By day, and mantle me by night." 
 
 " Nay, swear not, Doughal ! you do love " 
 Her arms were wide with welcome. She 
 Stood tall and worthy conquest now, 
 And sweet love sat her lifted brow 
 A diadem. The storm-blown dove 
 Took refuge from the deluged sea 
 
IN THE FOREST. 47 
 
 And her two hands went out for it 
 In eager welcome, warm and fit. 
 
 Her proud throat swelled, her lips were dumb, 
 
 But all her presence bade him come. 
 
 Her eyes looked level in his eyes. 
 
 They flowed with love. Her half -pent sighs 
 
 Were drowned by his strong, flowing sea 
 
 Of passion, surging ceaselessly. 
 
 Pure child of nature, as she was, 
 
 And lawless lover ; loving him 
 
 With love that made all pathways dim 
 
 And difficult where he was not, 
 
 And knowing only nature s laws 
 
 That laid hard tribute on desire 
 
 And tried her as a seven-fold fire 
 
 Then marvel not at form forgot. 
 
 She sighed, she bended down her brow, 
 
 She battled not with nature now. 
 
 \ Why should she ? Doth the priest know aught 
 Of sign, or holy unction brought 
 From over sea that ever can 
 Make man love maid or maid love man 
 
48 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 One whit the more, one bit the less, 
 For all his mummeries to bless ? 
 Yea, all his blessing or his ban ? ) 
 
 Her form bent down, a laden bough 
 Of ripest, richest kisses now. 
 A kiss of passion ? More or less ? 
 I do not say. You dare not guess. 
 And yet do what he dared or might 
 She kept her white soul snowy white. 
 
 "I love you, Doughal." And her arms 
 Wound round his neck, and all her charms 
 Lay like ripe fruit for gathering. 
 He drowned his hot face in her hair, 
 He felt her bosom swell. The air 
 Swooned sweet with essence of her form. 
 Her breast was warm, her breath was warm, 
 And warm her warm, tremendous mouth 
 As summer journey through the South. 
 
 The air was rich as Araby : 
 She swooned upon his breast. She lay, 
 Long tossed by passion, on his breast, 
 Hot blushing for this IOVP confessed : 
 
IN THE FOREST. 49 
 
 Like some poor wreck and cast-away 
 All breathless and unconscious lay. 
 Yet mind, I say, do what he might 
 She kept her pure soul snowy white. 
 
 A bright brown nut dropped like a star 
 From woody heaven overhead, 
 A wild beast trumpeting afar 
 Aroused her ere the light had fled. 
 
 A stray, dead leaf was in her hair 
 Her long, strong, tumbled storm of hair ; 
 Her eyes seemed floating anywhere. 
 Her proud development, half bare, 
 And beautiful as chiseled stone 
 Of famed far ISTapoli, leaned there 
 Like some fair Thracian overthrown. 
 
 She was not shamed. Her love was 
 And pure and fair as heaven s blue. 
 Her love was passionate, yet true 
 As upward flame. A stifled sigh 
 And then a flood of tears, and lo ! 
 A sigh that shook her being so 
 
5 o IN THE FOREST. 
 
 It startled Doughal where he stood, 
 Like some bowed monarch of the wood. 
 
 Her proud face now fell white as wool, 
 Her lips fell pale and pityf ul. 
 Her great, proud mouth, a splendid flower 
 Drooped pale and passionless. Her arms 
 Reached out in suppliance. Her charms 
 Like ravished lilies lay. 
 
 Until this hour 
 
 She had been all herself. But now 
 She trusted not herself. Somehow 
 The sighs would come, and come, and come, 
 Though eyes bent down, though lips kept dumb, 
 As seas that beat upon the shore. 
 Her soul was beaten as a shore 
 Is beaten by a storm just o er 
 That will but beat and beat the more. 
 
 She did essay to go. Again 
 
 She drooped, a goddess slain. 
 
 She lay half lounging in a strange surprise, 
 
 Scarce knowing what she wholly knew. 
 
 She did not lift her face, her eyes 
 
IN THE FOREST. 5I 
 
 Her eyes were on the ground. They grew 
 Familiar with the meek-eyed plant, 
 
 <H 
 
 Familiar with the little ant, * 
 And other insects as they ran 
 And built their lowly world : all wise, 
 In perfect carelessness of man. 
 
 He rose before her, sighed, " Alas ! " 
 Looked down as if to catch her eyes, 
 Recall her soul and bid her rise 
 Her soul that kept its snowy white, 
 Dare what he dared, do what he might. 
 
 He spoke. She did not answer him. 
 Her small hand clutched a tuft of grass 
 As if she feared the world might pass 
 From out her hand, she was so weak. 
 And lifting, doubtfully and dim, 
 Her brimming eyes she could not speak 
 For flood of tears upon her cheek. 
 
 O it was pitiful ! He fell 
 Upon his knees. He took her hand, 
 But not with ardor now, and well 
 She marked the difference. 
 
5 2 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 The land, 
 
 Seemed reeling still. Yet with a will 
 She rose and stood up tall and grand. 
 
 No words she spoke. With drooping eyes 
 She passed along the path. The pride 
 Of yesterday was overthrown. 
 She would have crept along alone, 
 But he came stealing at her side 
 Half looking back. 
 
 In mad surprise 
 
 He saw that priest with black-beast eyes 
 Still at their side, with waving hand, 
 As if to wave him from the land 
 As waving him from Paradise. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Her great love grew a steady flame. 
 The moons rolled by. At last he came 
 To shorten this long, wayward walk, 
 To careless turn and careless talk 
 Of far-off land, of friendships rare, 
 Of warlike men, of maidens fair, 
 
IN THE FOREST. 53 
 
 Of brave old obligations bound 
 
 By circumstance to lead him round 
 
 The world from her dear presence there. 
 
 She heard, she spoke not all this while, 
 Nor answered save with half -feigned smile. 
 He talked of fates that girt them round 
 Quite lightly, and he came to deem 
 His rest had been some South-sea dream 
 From which he now must rise and go, 
 Cross seas, strong girt to front the foe. 
 
 To front the foe or seek a maid 
 That his long dalliance delayed, 
 She could not guess. She did not know, 
 She did not care. She could not speak, 
 For tears that flooded her pale cheek. 
 
 One morn the sound of hammer fell 
 From out the ship. And then a mast 
 New-hewn uprose and pointed past 
 The solid land to mobile seas. 
 Then days and days that coffin knell 
 Kept sounding through the silent trees ; 
 
54 
 
 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 And he did hint of ship and sail 
 And lightly laugh of storm and gale. 
 
 She questioned why he would depart. 
 He careless spoke with careless heart 
 Of poverty, of pride, of shame, 
 That he, high born, with honored name, 
 Should walk upon the world s wide rim 
 And die with none to honor him. 
 
 He said he had one friend, but one, 
 Who roamed the world in want, alone, 
 A fellow-prisoner, who fled 
 With him, with prices on his head. 
 
 That they together long had lain, 
 Bound hand to hand in felons chain 
 For freedom s cause : that to this end, 
 To find his friend forlorn and lone, 
 And beggared, aye, perchance half dead 
 That moment, for a crust of bread, 
 He now must rise and roam again, 
 And seek the world for that one friend. 
 
IN THE FOREST. 55 
 
 She sprang erect, let loose her hold 
 Of his hard hand. O, ne er till then 
 Had she cared aught for shining gold 
 Or lands, or guild to purchase men. 
 She sought the priest, fell at his feet, 
 Implored, and patient did entreat 
 If he knew aught where that great hoard 
 Of her dead father s gold was stored, 
 To tell her true, that she might give 
 It all, that this man s friend might live. 
 
 He shook her off. He turned away, 
 
 He tore his long beard, blown and grey, 
 
 Then glanced at her. " There s blood ! there s blood ! 
 
 There s heathen blood that all yon flood 
 
 Might not for ages wash away ! 
 
 My child, look here ! For many a day, 
 
 For many a month, and many a year, 
 
 These dim eyes watched your growth, and now 
 
 Whose hand shall gather from the bough? 
 
 " That ship, my lady, shall not pass 
 To seaward, while I live. Alas ! 
 He takes your heart, your love, and he 
 Would leave the hollow husk to me. 
 
56 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 And now, so less than buccaneer, 
 Would beg the gold that s buried here. 
 Your father won it with his sword, 
 Yet he would beg his gold, this hoard, 
 From you, poor girl, then take the sea. 
 He shall not go! He shall not go, 
 While white moons wane or full tides flow." 
 
 VII. 
 
 One morn a new-sewn strip of sail 
 Had blossomed on the new-hewn mast. 
 A chain that long had grappled fast 
 The solid earth had loosened now, 
 And dangled at her lifted prow. 
 A screeching anchor cried in wail. 
 My lady did not start or stir; 
 The sturdy stroke of carpenter 
 Struck as on coffin lid to her. 
 
 And yet she never spoke one word, 
 For all she saw, for all she heard ; 
 For all she felt, she would not lay 
 One feather in his ruthless way. 
 He came to think her tame and cold, 
 
IN THE FOREST. 57 
 
 He questioned of the buried gold, 
 He questioned of the hag with bands 
 Of gold about her bony hands, 
 And lightly laughed of finding prize, 
 Of pirate s gold to glad his eyes. 
 
 She never spoke one word at all, 
 
 Her breast would heave, her eyes would fall 
 
 Upon the ground ; her nervous foot 
 
 In gold-bright, beaded moccasin 
 
 Would tap the ground or out and in 
 
 Half nervously would dart and shoot, 
 
 And shoot and dart, but that was all. 
 
 His air grew careless quite and cold ; 
 Again he came to talk of gold ; 
 And, too, to hint of ship and sail, 
 And sad regrets that fates prevail. 
 
 She heard it all ! She heard it all ! 
 Aye, every hateful word did fall 
 Like lead dropped in her sinking heart. 
 She had not spoken yet. Nay, she 
 Had only looked her soul. Her part 
 
58 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 Had not been words, but deeds. Her all 
 She gave, so generous, so free, 
 So lordly gave, so grand, that he 
 Had grown love-surfeited. He thought 
 The maiden passionless, with naught 
 That lifts above life s common lot. 
 
 Yin. 
 
 One still, soft, summer afternoon 
 
 In middle deep of wood, the two, 
 
 Where tangled vines twined through and through, 
 
 Together sat upon the tomb 
 
 Of perished pine, that once had stood 
 
 The tall-plumed monarch of the wood. 
 
 The far-off pheasant thrummed a tune, 
 
 The faint far billows beat a rune 
 
 Like heart regrets. The sombre gloom 
 
 Was ominous. Around her head 
 
 There shone a halo. Men have said 
 
 Twas from the dash of Titian hue 
 
 That flooded all her storm of hair 
 
 In gold and glory. But they knew, 
 
 Yea, all men know there ever grew 
 
IN THE FOREST. 59 
 
 *v * 
 
 A halo round about her head 
 Like sunlight scarcely vanished. 
 
 Her mouth had taken back its hue 
 
 Of rosy red. Her lips had more 
 
 Intense and proud expression now ; 
 
 And now they bent as if they knew 
 
 To send the deadly arrow through 
 
 And pierce the centre. Now her heart 
 
 Had grown to know, to act a part. 
 
 One small foot tapped the fallen leaves, 
 
 The other, lightly to and fro 
 
 Went shooting, as the shuttle weaves 
 
 Through woof and warp. Her eyes bent down, 
 
 Her dark brow gathered in a frown, 
 
 She mused as if she would explore 
 
 The mysteries that lay before. 
 
 Her thoughts were far away. She thought 
 
 Of peopled cities, shoreless seas 
 
 White sown and blown with blossomed sail. 
 
 She thought of Doughal roving these 
 
 In glory and alone. She caught 
 
 Her breath convulsively. The while 
 
60 IN THE .FOREST. 
 
 She wore a calm and careless smile 
 The calm that ushers in the gale. 
 
 A calm more awful is than storm. 
 
 Beware of calms in any form. 
 
 This life means action. Ancient earth 
 
 Rests not. The agonies of birth, 
 
 The brave endeavor to express 
 
 Herself in beauty evermore, 
 
 Evermore to bloom and bless 
 
 Her many children with her store 
 
 Of luscious fruits and golden grain 
 
 The wooing winds, the driving rain 
 
 Are well. But dead calm in the land 
 
 Means reeling earthquakes where you stand. 
 
 How still she was. She only knew 
 His love. She saw no life beyond. 
 She loved with love that only lives 
 Outside itself and selfishness : 
 A loves that glows in its excess: 
 A love that melts red gold, and gives 
 Thenceforth to all who come to woo 
 No coins but his face stamped thereon 
 
IN THE FOREST. 61 
 
 Aye, that one image stamped upon 
 Its face, with some dim date long gone. 
 
 She tapped her foot, half forced a smile 
 
 And did recall his splendid tale 
 
 Of promises, that all time through 
 
 They two should range the world. She knew, 
 
 Her woman s instinct taught her well, 
 
 He now had other tales to tell. 
 
 He, too, was far away. Yet now 
 
 His eyes fell on her troubled brow 
 
 And all her beauty. Well he knew 
 
 That he might search God s garden through 
 
 And l^hen not find one single flower 
 
 Like this that blessed him in that hour. 
 
 And yet he wearied. She seemed dumb 
 And passionless. Life lay all glow 
 For him ; for him the scroll of fame, 
 For him a proud, high hall, a name 
 That men should bend their heads to hear. 
 Yea, lie would sail the seas, would come 
 Some later day, by ship draw near 
 
62 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 And touch the land, take kiss, and so 
 Sail on to land of sun or snow. 
 
 She knew his thought. The day before 
 She heard the black ship s creaking cranks 
 Draw in the wood. The water tanks 
 Had made a muffled, hollow roar 
 As if their oak staves, shrunk and dried, 
 Felt iron piercing in the side. 
 
 He restless rose to leave the wood. 
 
 She knew his thought. She rose and stood 
 
 Before him, tall and queenly tall. 
 
 Her hair in black abundant fall 
 
 And fringe of faint, dim flame fell down, 
 
 About her loose, ungathered gown 
 
 Like starlit night along a wood. 
 
 " And would you leave me, Doughal ? You, 
 
 Who swore by heaven to be true 
 
 To her who fed you, famishing, 
 
 And all your loud, unruly crew ? 
 
 Nay, that were little. Bread is due 
 
 To all who hunger. But the thing 
 
 That rends me, Doughal, is, that you 
 
IN THE FOREST. 63 
 
 Should add to falsehood, coward flight, 
 Like some dark felon in the night." 
 
 He sprang back, jerked his head sidewise, 
 
 And tried to front her level eyes. 
 
 Yet do his best, he ever fouud 
 
 His glance fall feebly to the ground. 
 
 "And you would leave me in disgrace?" 
 She scarce did whisper, and her face 
 Was as a woman s that had died. 
 " These men, my savage, simple friends, 
 Frown dark and angered where I come. 
 I stand abashed, my priest is dumb 
 With shame and anger. To these ends 
 Did I surrender love and pride." 
 
 Her low voice trembled. Like a tree, 
 -The tall and topmost tree, that feels 
 The coming storm, and rocks and reels 
 Ere yet the storm strikes strong and free 
 The under wood, her form did shake 
 With passion man should not mistake. 
 
6.| IN THE FOREST. 
 
 " You speak of your proud birth, your line 
 Of ancient- lords, your storied name, 
 That I, you fear, might bring to shame 
 liefore the priest and sacred shrine. 
 
 "Why spoke, you not of this before 
 
 Your pillage? Late, <|iiit<- lale, too late, 
 
 You thought, my Doughal, of wucli fate ; 
 
 You speak of poverty, of mine. 
 
 My poverty ! Ah ! it is 1 rue 
 
 Thai I am poor. Yet not so poor 
 
 IXut you came begging j m y door ; 
 
 A strange, half-naked, limited tiling, 
 
 And when you <j;a,thered slren^lh onc(! more 
 
 Why you turne<l rohlx-r, thief, and you 
 
 Did find it pleasant plundering!" 
 
 He started, stung to anger. lie 
 Knew not, the dark enormity 
 Of his long purposed deed till now. 
 lie raided his )>road hand to his brow. 
 
 His was the cnmmoii rode of men 
 To pillage, plunder hearls, ami then, 
 Thief-like, depart before the dawn, 
 
IN THE FOREST. 65 
 
 And leave behind a haunted hall 
 With broken statues on the floor 
 With household idols scattered o er, 
 And only shadows on the wall, 
 That never, never are withdrawn. 
 He stood abashed, held down his head, 
 Half turned, as if he would have fled. 
 
 "I know not who you are. I see 
 
 Now at the last you know not me. 
 
 Do you suppose come, lift your face, 
 
 Act not the felon in disgrace ! 
 
 But if a villain you must be, 
 
 Why, be a brave one, and the curse 
 
 Is half o ercome do you suppose 
 
 That ship shall ever cross the sea ? 
 
 Or ever touch on other shore ? 
 
 No chief shall keep that deck. Nay, more, 
 
 Than this, my man. Your many foes 
 
 That were your friends but yesterday 
 
 Have sworn that ship shall rot away 
 
 Beneath these same bent, burning skies 
 
 Against the black beach where she lies." 
 
 He trembled. Then he bowed at last 
 
 As bends a strong tree to the blast, 
 5 
 
66 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 A touch of fear, a tinge of shame, 
 Swept o er his face. "The priest," he said, 
 As rising with half-lifted head, 
 " Shall give to you another name. 
 
 " And then, why if you choose to chance 
 Uncertain fate where men advance 
 On peril s front, to face a foe, 
 Or toss, a very fortune s ball, 
 Why, then, since you will have it so 
 Come, call your priest and we will go." 
 
 He paused, he held his head quite low, 
 And thought a time deep down, as one 
 In game of chess that is outdone. 
 Then lifting up he gaily said, 
 His hot cheek mounting high with red, 
 " Yea, we will go, though death befall, 
 Come fame or shame, fall friend or foe ; 
 Go man and wife ; for, after all, 
 Perhaps my duty bids it so." 
 
 She did not answer him. The blood 
 Sank from her face like sinking flood 
 
IN THE FOREST. 67 
 
 That only leaves the clodden clay, 
 She could not stir, she would not say. 
 
 The priest came forth as if he came 
 From twixt twin monarchs of the wood 
 That like cathedral columns stood. 
 And Doughal started. Was he there 
 To keep his fair maid from despair ? 
 To keep her white, sweet soul from shame ? 
 Had this same priest forever stood 
 And ever watched him, in this wood? 
 
 The silent priest placed hand in hand, 
 Upheld his cross against the sun, 
 As in most solemn service done 
 In any clime or Christian land; 
 Then, falling on his knees, he prayed 
 Before the pure and pallid maid, 
 As to Madonna. Doughal fell 
 Upon his knees, and all was well. 
 
 High overhead the surging pine 
 Swung conser-cones, as at a shrine. 
 Below, the breathing ocean beat 
 Like mighty organ at their feet. 
 
68 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 Adora kneeled as in a dream ; 
 She could not speak nor understand ; 
 She scarcely knew to give her hand, 
 But was as one borne down a stream 
 That helpless reaches to the land. 
 
 The good priest rose, outspread his hand ; 
 He said his prayer, and so passed on 
 Like some still shadow slow withdrawn, 
 And, in the custom of the land, 
 The two were wed and made as one. 
 
 Then Doughal rose, took in his breath 
 As one that just had fronted death. 
 He rallied with an effort now 
 And dashed a hand across his brow. 
 
 He careless turned, put forth his hand, 
 Half stooped as if to heedless kiss 
 The lips the priest had now made his 
 Those lips, the proudest in the land 
 Had died to touch in that brave time 
 When valor had a name sublime, 
 When Spain s proud banners blew along 
 
IN THE FOREST. 69 
 
 The rock-built hills of Jebus, and 
 A woman s name and woman s fame 
 Was chorus to the soldier s song. 
 
 She started back. She dashed his hand 
 Aside, as if a serpent s head 
 Had thrust at her to strike her dead, 
 And stood, as high built statues stand. 
 
 Her hair shook back, her splendid hair 
 Rolled back from, round her lifted face, 
 Her round, right arm was in the air, 
 Like Justice rising to her place. 
 
 " Your duty, Doughal, bids it so ! 
 Your duty bade you wed me ! Go ! 
 If God will let you. Go, and say, 
 When gathered with your comrades gay, 
 That you once had a royal day, 
 When resting, hungered and outworn, 
 Upon a far-off land forlorn, 
 And laugh at me. Go, safely. I 
 Shall not detain you. Kneel and lie 
 To other maidens if you may, 
 
70 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 And swear to studied lies ! Go now ! 
 Take back your freedom and your vow." 
 
 She towered up. She seemed to grow, 
 To grasp the grandeur of the trees, 
 To catch the fervor and the glow 
 Of flushing sunset on the seas. 
 
 " And take my curse ! Why, I would kill, 
 Would clutch and kill you where you stand, 
 Would strangle you with this right hand, 
 And hide you underneath the hill 
 In hollows of the wood, and I 
 Would come alone, in twilight dim, 
 To see your corse torn limb from limb 
 By wild beasts fattening their fill, 
 Were you but worthy so to die. 
 
 " Nay ! Nay ! Start not, lest you do die ! 
 
 The hunter looks the lioness 
 
 Hard face to face, eye set to eye, 
 
 And flinches not a hair. Nor less 
 
 Than that fierce forest-beast am I, 
 
 I, I the forest maid whom you 
 
 Would rob of all she hath, and fly 
 
IN THE FOREST. 71 
 
 To pltTnder other souls while yet 
 Your very hands with blood are wet, 
 And lips with nests of lies are blue. 
 
 "What gifts God gave you ! Think of it ! 
 A form well-fashioned, strong and tall. 
 A face all manliness, and all 
 A woman loves. Then words, and wit, 
 And knowledge of the world. Yet these 
 You prostitute and sell to please 
 The basest part of you, and bring 
 Disgrace, dishonor, darkness, shame, 
 Destruction on the dearest thing, 
 Beside your mother, you might name. 
 
 " And then to lie ! Why, had you not 
 Enough with all your gifts to win 
 The wood-born girl ? Have I forgot 
 The thousand falsehoods you let in 
 The open flood-gates of my soul, 
 Swung wide to welcome you, and all 
 Your cursed plans, plotting to my fall ? 
 
 "Who talked of duty, Doughal, then ? 
 Who talked of duty, Doughal, when 
 
72 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 I walked these woods with love-filled soul, 
 When all life filled to flowing tide 
 As when the great, third billows roll ? 
 When you walked, wooing at my side, 
 And named my forest s paradise? 
 Who talked of duty, Doughal, say, 
 All that half-year, that seemed a day ? 
 
 " How my heart swelled, and thrilled and beat 
 
 That day I rested at your feet 
 
 And bade you tell your battles o er ! 
 
 God ! I could see the moving men ! 
 
 Could hear the clash, the battle s roar 
 
 And when you talked of honor ! when 
 
 You said twas all for others ! said 
 
 You freely staked for your fair land, 
 
 Your life, your fortune, freedom, and 
 
 Your love, and so lost all but life, 
 
 I longed to be your soldier wife. 
 
 "How I sprang up and clasped your hand 
 
 In my two hands ! I kissed your brow, 
 
 Your sword-scarred brow, your brave sword-hand 
 
 To die for others ! That were grand 
 
 Beyond all else. Aye, even now 
 
IN THE FOREST. 
 
 I feel the same proud pulse as then 
 
 How I did love you ! Why, I said, 
 Poor fool, I know right well that he 
 Would bravely die the same for me, 
 For he a thousand times has told 
 He loves me more than lands or gold. 
 
 "Stand back ! Stop fast your lips, lest lies 
 Creep out like drone bees from a hive. 
 For they are breeding lies; they thrive 
 As on corruption. 
 
 Honor dies, 
 
 Then lies breed in his corpse, as breed 
 White worms, that on corruption feed. 
 
 "Forgive? Forgive! Do you not know 
 What mixed and counter-currents flow 
 In my hot veins? The blood of Spain 
 And, too, a tinge of red man s blood ! 
 And list ! You hear that throbbing main ? 
 It is my mother s voice, for lo ! 
 Here was I born, here fearless grown, 
 And all her anger is mine own. 
 The majesty of mighty wood, 
 
 73 
 
74 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 The fury of the winter flood. 
 
 Behold ! their grandeur and their truth 
 
 Grown in me all my tranquil youth. 
 
 "My youth ! My youth ! Tis far away. 
 
 And yet was I this very day, 
 
 This very season, but a child. 
 
 Why, Doughal, I this hour have grown 
 
 To tall and perfect womanhood. 
 
 This hour I have crossed the zone 
 
 That separates the girl and she 
 
 Who sits in matron council. I 
 
 Am old and thoughtful now. I stood 
 
 But this one hour since, half-wild, 
 
 Half -rent and torn with agony, 
 
 And praying God to let me die. 
 
 "But I am calm now. Quick, then ! Go! 
 Go quickly ! while I keep me so. 
 Go now, while I affect the child : 
 Begone, lest I grow strong and wild 
 Beyond endurance, and that blood, 
 That surging, rising, red man s blood, 
 Breaks forth like some fierce, pent-up flood. 
 
IN THE FOREST. 
 
 "Go, go, and go with curses hot 
 To hound you to the utmost spot 
 Of land or sea your ship shall touch. 
 Aye, we did talk of journeys. Much 
 You talked in pretty lies, of lands 
 Where summer sat eternally 
 By green-girt shore, on golden sands, 
 To sing in sea-shells of the sea 
 Of anchorage against that shore, 
 And peace and love forevermore. 
 
 "To think of far-off lands! Of towns 
 That stretch away like woodless downs. 
 O, how I panted when my priest 
 Described great cities populous 
 And proud with consequence. The least 
 Were great to me. I could not guess 
 That one should come to me from thence, 
 With lies for his inheritance. 
 Yet I shall see those cities, aye, 
 Possess, before tis time to die." 
 
 Her voice fell low. Her great, proud lips 
 Curled full and passionless. She stood 
 
 75 
 
?6 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 All pallid to her finger-tips 
 
 And trembled like an aspen wood. 
 
 He now fell down upon his knees. 
 He loved her now. His cruel heart 
 Had been pierced deeper than she knew. 
 He lifted up his face. He threw 
 His two hands wildly to the trees. 
 He prayed and plead she would depart 
 At once, go forth upon the seas 
 And sail with him for aye, and be 
 His white dove of the deluged sea. 
 
 " Adora, come. I swear to you, 
 I love you, love you, ardent, true ; 
 I love you as the fervid sun 
 Loves earth. I am undone, undone, 
 With this dark curse upon my head, 
 And fall before you as one dead." 
 
 She stood as obdurate as Fate. 
 She did disdain to turn her head, 
 Lest she might heed the love he said 
 And let her love outrun her hate. 
 
IN THE FOXES T. 77 
 
 " I hate him with a searching hate 
 That shall pursue him to the gate 
 Of outer darkness ! ... I do hate 
 This man . . . and yet I love him still, 
 Despite my hate, despite my will." 
 
 Her face rose like a rising morn. 
 That great curled lip of hers was scorn 
 Enough to shame a court of kings. 
 As some poor child at night outworn, 
 Puts wearied by its worn playthings, 
 So she, with an impatient sigh, 
 Still scorning, reached and put him by. 
 
 Then as he passed, she turned and said 
 
 Half hissed, with reaching, shaking head, 
 
 " I hate you, I abhor you so ! 
 
 I hate as only woman can. 
 
 I hate your sex, your shape, and O, 
 
 I almost hate my God to know 
 
 His sex and form is that of man." 
 
 At last she rose, all tears, but he 
 
 Had gone. He sought his ship, his men, 
 
7 8 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 And as he hastened through the wood, 
 
 It seemed that every rock and tree 
 
 Or clump of undergrowth had been 
 
 The shelter for- some savage beast, 
 
 That through the twilight roamed or stood. 
 
 The hairy beast or hairy priest, 
 
 Or many hairy beasts, he knew 
 
 Not truly whence or what they were, 
 
 Or why they roamed the forest through, 
 
 Thick clad in shaggy coats of hair. 
 
 IX. 
 
 He neared his ship ; the night came on 
 The night to sudden sail, and he 
 Had set his men at post. The sea 
 Lay calm and luminous as dawn 
 There lay at sea the strangest light 
 That ever fell on mortal sight. 
 
 " You shall not set your ship to sea," 
 
 The old priest sprang up angrily. 
 
 The men came down, they caught the priest, 
 
 He turned, he called a howling beast. 
 
IN THE FOREST. 79 
 
 " Witchcraft ! witchcraft ! " they cried, and bound 
 The black priest, bound him foot and hand, 
 And cast him in the deep. They said, 
 " If innocent, why, he will drown." 
 These pirates were as bad, almost, 
 As pilgrims of that other coast. 
 
 The sailors watched the wave. They stood 
 
 Expecting he would rise again. 
 
 Three bubbles and a little stain 
 
 Along the black, forbidding flood, 
 
 A crimson cenotaph in blood 
 
 Three bubbles as from falling rain, 
 
 And all was dark and still again. 
 
 Strange sounds were heard along the flood 
 Strange sounds that seemed to chill the blood. 
 Men started ! From the dense, dark wood 
 A thousand beasts came peering out, 
 And now was thrust a long, black snout, 
 And now a tusky mouth. It was 
 A sight that made the stoutest pause. 
 
 And now a red mouth in the air, 
 Wide open, made most hideous moan, 
 
80 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 And now a howl and now a groan, 
 And now a wild wail of despair. 
 Then as men looked, behold, those beasts 
 Had faces like that hairy priest s. 
 
 " The land is cursed ! " strong Doughal cried ; 
 " Cut loose my ship ! I take the sea; 
 The roomy, lawless seas for me, 
 And dear Adora for my bride. 
 Cast loose my ship; I know that she 
 Will come, proud girl, to love and me." 
 He turned his face to sea. It lay 
 As light as ever middle day. 
 
 X. 
 
 Men said that fires up the coast, 
 And down the coast in copse and fen, 
 Had pushed the beasts from gorge and den, 
 And sudden turned the hairy host 
 A maddened million, on the men. 
 I know not if the guess were true, 
 
IN THE FOREST. 81 
 
 I doubt me if men ever knew. 
 But such a howling, flame-lit shore, 
 ISTo mortal ever saw before. 
 
 Strange beasts above the shining sea, 
 Wild, hideous beasts in shaggy hair, 
 Withrgd mouths lifting in the air, 
 Stood fifty deep, and plaintively 
 They howled and howled across the sea; 
 I think it was the wierdest sight 
 That ever saw the blessed light. 
 
 All time they howled, with lifted head, 
 To dim and distant isle that lay 
 Wedged tight along a line of red, 
 Caught in the closing gates of day 
 Twixt sky and sea and far away 
 It was the saddest sound to hear 
 That ever struck on mortal ear. 
 
 They ever called; and answered they 
 The great sea cows that called from isle 
 Away a weary watery mile, 
 With dripping mouth and lolling tongue, 
 
 As if they called for captured young 
 6 
 
82 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 Their great mouths mouthing green sea moss 
 The while they doleful called across 
 From isle away a watery mile. 
 No sound can half so doleful be 
 As sea cows calling from the sea. 
 
 The drowned sun sank and died. He lay 
 In seas of blood. He sinking drew 
 The gates of heaven sudden to. 
 Yet long, strong ribbons stretched away 
 As if the gate still jarred agape 
 Tied back by ribbons and red tape. 
 
 XI. 
 
 The long, gray moss swung grim and drear. 
 
 The leaves lay yellow crisp and sere. 
 
 Long ancient boughs lay inter-cross 
 
 All tangled in one mesh of moss. 
 
 The keepers of the forest fled, 
 
 The red man prisoned, banished, dead, 
 
 No cautious, constant hunter stood 
 
 To guard with guarded flame the wood, 
 
 And with his annual bonfire clear 
 
IN THE FOREST. 83 
 
 The gathered mosses of the year. 
 
 But all lay one entangled mass 
 
 So matted scarce the beast could pass. 
 
 Twas burning autumn time. The mill 
 
 Was swathed with long gray swinging moss : 
 
 Broad reaching boughs in gold andjred 
 
 Did clash and inter-clang across 
 
 Like swords of fire swung overhead. 
 
 The nuts fell ripe upon the hill 
 
 Where quails were piping sharp and shrill. 
 
 At dusk the wrinkled, ghostly crone 
 Dashed suddenly from out the wood 
 And close beside black Mungo stood. 
 She reached her arms, held up her head 
 As if the princess of a throne, 
 And so, demanded from his hand 
 Some sign of tribute for her land, 
 If but the smallest crumb of bread. 
 
 Black Mungo bit his nether lip 
 
 Then sullenly he shook his head, 
 
 Then sudden stooped and clutched a stone. 
 
 He called his dog from out the ship, 
 
84 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 He snapped his fingers, let him slip, 
 And bade him take her, as she fled. 
 She turned, she struck the mastiff dead. 
 Then lifting high, defiant hands 
 That shone with gleaming, golden bands 
 She stretched her arms in mighty moan ; 
 She hew d the air above her head 
 And wailing still, she turned and fled. 
 
 The tall trees blossomed into stars. 
 The moon climbed slowly up the cone, 
 She sat an empress on her throne. 
 Her silver beams fell down in bars 
 Between the mighty, mossy trees 
 Grand, kingly comrades of the wood, 
 That shoulder unto shoulder stood 
 With friendships knit through centuries. 
 
 The night came, moving in dim flame, 
 
 As lighted by round autumn sun 
 
 Descending through the hazy blue. 
 
 It were a gold and amber hue 
 
 And all hues blended into one. 
 
 The moon spilled fire where she came 
 
 And filled the yellow wood with flame. 
 
IN THE FOREST. 85 
 
 The moon slid down, and leaning low, 
 The far sea isles were all aglow. 
 She fell along the ainber flood 
 An isle of flame in seas of blood. 
 It was the strangest moon, ah me ! 
 That ever settled on that sea. 
 
 Adora stood within her door, 
 
 She heard the anchor clank a chain, 
 
 As one that moaned in very pain. 
 
 The crone crouched, crooning as before, 
 
 She screamed, and then was seen no more. 
 
 It was the wierdest eve, I ween 
 
 That man or maid has ever seen. 
 
 Black Mungo smoked his pipe and kept 
 
 His deck with pike and gun at hand. 
 
 A mastiff waiting his command 
 
 Coiled up and watching, waked and slept. 
 
 The very dog drew in his breath, 
 
 As if he snuffed the scent of death. 
 
 Black Mungo turned. A grizzly beast, 
 With glaring eyes so like the priest, 
 Rushed out along the west-most wood, 
 
86 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 And snuffed his hot breath from the flood. 
 The water was as still as death, 
 The very heaven held its breath. 
 
 The woodmen sat subdued and grave 
 Beside the wide and soundless wave. 
 And then a half -blind bitch that sat 
 All slobber-mouthed and monkish cowled 
 With great broad floppy leathern ears, 
 Amid the men, sprang up and howled, 
 And doleful howled her plaintive fears, 
 And all looked mute amaze thereat. 
 It was the damn dest eve, I think, 
 That ever hung on Hades brink. 
 
 Then broad-winged bats possessed the air, 
 Went whirling blindly everywhere. 
 It was such a still, wierd, twilight eve, 
 As never mortal would believe. 
 
 "Will she not come ?" strong Doughal cried 
 In terror from his tall ship s side. 
 " The air hangs hot, the beasts howl fierce, 
 There hangs a haze no eye can pierce ! " 
 
IN THE FOREST. 87 
 
 "And Doughal will not come to me. 
 His ship is rounding to the sea," 
 She said, with bowed and shaking head, 
 And shook her long, disheveled hair, 
 And clasped her helpless hands in prayer. 
 
 A panther s scream ? or woman s screech ? 
 Or fiend of hell encompassed there ? 
 It was the wildest, wierdest yell 
 That ever yet from mortal fell. 
 
 It rolled like death-knell through the air, 
 It echoed through the woods and ran 
 From forests deep to open beach, 
 And w r here they sat each silent man 
 Leapt up, and as transfixed in place, 
 Stood staring in his fellow s face. 
 
 A woman s screech ! a panther scream: 
 A wild hag howling as she fled 
 With bony hands above her head 
 Beyond the broad and wooded stream ! 
 
 It ceased ! Then all things fell so still, 
 Men heard the black hearth cricket trill. 
 
88 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 Then suddenly the silent wood 
 Was sounding like a broken flood. 
 And far adown some dark smoke curled 
 As if from out an under- world. 
 
 Slim snakes slid quick from out the grass, 
 From wood, from fen, from everywhere : 
 As if they sped pursuing her : 
 They slid a thousand snakes, and then, 
 You could not step, you would not pass, 
 And you would hesitate to stir 
 Least in some sudden, hurried tread, 
 Your foot struck some unbruised head. 
 It was so weird, it seemed withal, 
 The very grass began to crawl. 
 
 They slid in streams into the stream, 
 They rustled leaves along the wood, 
 They hissed and rattled as they ran 
 As if in mockery of man. 
 It seemed like some infernal dream : 
 It seemed as they would fill the flood. 
 
 They curved, and graceful curved across, 
 Like deep and waving sea-green moss 
 
IN THE FOREST. 89 
 
 There is no art of man can make 
 A ripple like a running snake. 
 
 The wild beasts leapt from out the wood ; 
 They rent the forest as they fled, 
 They plunged into the foaming flood 
 And swam with wild, exalted head. 
 
 It seemed as if some mighty hand 
 Had sudden loosened all command. 
 They howled as if the hand of God 
 Pursued and scourged them with a rod. 
 
 The black smoke mantled flood and wood, 
 
 Where Doughal mute and helpless stood. 
 
 He lifted not his face or spoke. 
 
 He felt as if her curse had broke 
 
 In justice on his guilty head, 
 
 And he was as a man that s dead. . , . 
 
 He prays not, makes command, nor stirs, 
 
 He bows beneath this curse of hers. 
 
 Yet he would die for sign or trace 
 
 Of that loved woman s lifted face. 
 
90 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 A rift of wind ! The smoke rolls by ! 
 He sees a form, he hears a cry, 
 And two hands stretch above the flood 
 From out the frowning, flaming wood. 
 
 " Come back, my Doughal ! Come to me ! 
 O, leave me not to death and shame ! 
 O, I will dare the utmost sea, 
 Yea, dare, defy this sea of flame, 
 With you, could I but only know 
 You loved, nor sought my overthrow. 
 I can but call, this once more call 
 The flames consume me." Like a pall 
 The black smoke mantled : yet his name 
 Seemed calling through the leaping flame. 
 
 He started, sprung, as if to land 
 From ship to flame. A black, hard hand 
 Thrust out, and with a giant s strength 
 It threw him back on deck full length. 
 " And would you leave your men to die ?" 
 Black Mungo cried, with flashing eye. 
 " The land is cursed, and cursed that maid ! 
 Your men shrink trembling and afraid. 
 
IN THE FOREST. 91 
 
 Come! be their Moses, lead them through 
 The terrors that you brought them to." 
 
 Then bent Black Mungo ceased to rail ; 
 
 He caught an axe, the cable fell ; 
 
 The winds took up an empty sail; 
 
 The ship swung loosely round ; the swell 
 
 Of ebbing current slowly bore 
 
 The crowded ship from off the shore. 
 
 He sprang, he caught the helm, and he 
 Stood grimly out towards the sea. 
 For utmost seas, unnamed, unknown, 
 Black Mungo steered mid beasts alone. 
 Yet seeing him you well might think 
 He was the very missing link. 
 
 A grizzly monster sat the poop, 
 A panther held the chicken-coop 
 The hold had wombats by the score, 
 A she-bear sat at his right hand, 
 While at his feet an hundred more 
 Seemed calmly waiting his command. 
 And with this motley company 
 He grimly steered toward the sea. 
 
92 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 A bat kept creeping up his sleeve, 
 A spider then began to weave 
 A little web of rope and sail, 
 As if to help to catch the gale. 
 And with this screeching company 
 He slowly drifted tow rd the sea. 
 
 He held the helm right true. He steered 
 Between the burning walls of wood 
 Adown the broad and burning flood. 
 His brawn and hairy arms were bare. 
 A rat kept creeping through his hair, 
 And pink-eyed mice peered from his beard. 
 His teeth were set, for now he knew 
 That he with this same motley crew, 
 Somewhere upon the lonesome sea 
 Must sail and sail eternally. 
 
 The great sea-cows from out their isle, 
 The while they mouthed full mouths of moss, 
 Looked up, and as he sailed across 
 They called and called a weary while. 
 
IN THE FOREST. 93 
 
 XII. 
 
 The flames leapt like some winged steed 
 When furies ride in tempest flight, 
 They leapt from tossing top and height 
 Of rosin pine to fragrant fir 
 They seemed to lose themselves, to whir 
 Like sportive birds and in their speed 
 Leap on in long advance and dart 
 Red lances through the forest s heart. 
 
 The birds rose dense, a feathered cloud, 
 And flew with croakings lorn and loud, 
 With drooping, weary wings and slow 
 And blew toward the cone of snow. 
 The fierce flame saw them, and he came, 
 A sounding full red sea of flame. 
 
 The winds came like some great, third wave 
 Across the tossing tops of fire. 
 The flame leapt high, then high, then higher- 
 He sounded like some hollowed cave. 
 Like battle steed, all undismayed, 
 He leapt like some mad steed. He neighed. 
 
94 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 He laughed at clouds of birds. He laid 
 The forest level where he came, 
 He fanned the very stars to flame. 
 
 He then drew back, then neighed aloud, 
 Then drew a breath that made a cloud, 
 Then breathed, then saw the birds once more, 
 Then leapt more furious than before 
 And when he now careering came 
 That cloud of feathers was a flame. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 And still she trusted he would come ; 
 Still stood with hands clasped sad and dumb, 
 All patient in her trust and hope. 
 But when she saw the strong ship ride 
 Through smoke and flame along the tide, 
 And heard the clank of chain and rope, 
 Her love gave place to rage once more 
 And wild she called along the shore. 
 
 Then like a startled deer she stood ! 
 Her high head lifted, and her hair 
 
IN THE FOREST. 95 
 
 Blew wild and stormy. Strong and bare 
 Her two arms stretched across the flood. 
 Her foot struck hard the solid land, 
 Her face looked fury and command. 
 The while the hag crept from the tide, 
 And cat-like crouched close at her side. 
 
 " Betrayed ! betrayed, and only you 
 My tawny, wrinkled creature, true." 
 The wrinkled hag with grinning face 
 Then drew her slim bark from its place, 
 And bade her enter in and fly 
 With her beyond the flames, or die. 
 
 Curs d Dough al kept his deck and cried 
 
 For her aloud. His wild words died 
 
 Amid the awful din. She knew 
 
 Kot any heart or hand so true 
 
 As this last relic of her race, 
 
 Who bore her fainting from the place, 
 
 And laid her in her slim canoe. 
 
 Black Mungo strode his deck and swore, 
 With pike and pistol clutched in hand, 
 As seamen never swore before. 
 
96 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 He saw the hag s bark pass hard by, 
 He heard Adora s fainting cry. 
 He saw, but could not understand, 
 The wrack that rent on every hand. 
 " That horrid hag 1 " he cursing cried, 
 And sent a bullet in her side. 
 
 Yet still she rowed against the flood, 
 And as she leaned a stream of blood 
 Fell from her side into the tide. 
 And all the while Adora lay 
 As some dead body borne away. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 It was a sight ! her long, black hair 
 Drawn darkly through the waters there. 
 The while the hag struck up the stream 
 Like some black demon in a dream. 
 Yet all the dark, descending flood 
 Bore by a current of red blood 
 No sight does half so horrid seem 
 As warm blood streaming down a stream. 
 
IN THE FOREST. 97 
 
 The hag struck up the stream with main, 
 The men struck down toward the sea. 
 Black Mungo strode the deck, and he 
 Implored his men stand fast again, 
 Steer safe the sable ship from shore, 
 And keep the decks with him once more. 
 
 " God ! help ! the world is all on fire ! 
 The winds come driving from the sea. 
 The long flames leap up higher, higher 
 The flames are leaping angrily, 
 From lowly leaf to lofty tree. 
 
 " The tide is full of living things, 
 The beasts are on my deck, the wings 
 Of birds are smiting rope and mast. 
 The panthers keep the quarter deck, 
 The wood-rats climb the ropes and fleck 
 The shrouds. God ! were we free at last, 
 This were a motley crew with me, 
 Indeed, to sail the pirate s sea!" 
 
 They sailed below the gleaming light ; 
 The sombre waters rolled as bright 
 
 As sleeping Venice in the morn. 
 
 7 
 
98 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 They sailed right slow. The flames at length 
 On either hand had spent their strength, 
 And lay like some ripe field of corn. 
 Yet all night long came down the flood 
 That horrid sinuous seam of blood. 
 
 The beasts stood flooded to the eyes 
 And saw them pass in dumb surprise. 
 All night they drifted down the flood 
 All night a long bent seam of blood. 
 
 All night ! there was no night. ISTay, nay, 
 There was no night. The night that lay 
 Between that awful eve and day 
 That nameless night was burned away. 
 
 But yesterday the hush and shade. 
 To-day the broad and burning plain, 
 Lies waiting welcome seed and rain. 
 And thus the plasting worlds are made. 
 Yet still they sailed, and down the flood 
 Still came that sinuous seam of blood. 
 
IN THE FOREST. 99 
 
 XV. 
 
 A red hand led from reedy sedge 
 That girt a dark, still island s edge 
 A red hand, red from blood, from flame, 
 Led bowed Adora where she came. 
 She drew her hurried to the shore, 
 And bleeding still, low reaching o er, 
 She, dying, led to wood so deep 
 That only night and shadows keep 
 Companionship for evermore. 
 
 The rej. flames from the further shore 
 Shot brightly shining where they stood, 
 Across the lurid, flowing flood, 
 And struck a gleaming, golden store 
 Of heaped-up treasures that were known 
 To this poor, bleeding wretch alone. 
 " Your father s gold ! " the wild hag cried ; 
 Her high hand fell and so she died. 
 
 Transfixed Adora stood as stone. 
 
 She now was lone as God, as lone 
 
 As Eve, ere yet the iron hand 
 
 Of man had stretched forth in command. 
 
ioo 
 
 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 And she was iron now, or stone, 
 Or steel, or brass, or sodden lead, 
 Or anything that you might name 
 That heeds not love, nor pride or shame, 
 Or hope of love, or honor dead. 
 
 She laughed a little. Hard and cold 
 The sounds fell as a funeral knell. 
 She saw the woman where she fell, 
 She saw the great, high heap of gold 
 Gleam on her like a rising sun. 
 She spurned it with her foot as one 
 Disdaining wealth. This beggar child 
 Curled up her lip and laughed aloud, 
 Laughed like a maniac, sharp and wild ; 
 Then snapped her fingers in the air, 
 Threw back her black, abundant hair, 
 That mantled like a midnight cloud, 
 And made resolve that moment made 
 Resolve of action. She betrayed 
 No tremor, not a touch of fear. 
 No pulse of terror, or hot tear. 
 
 She stooped, and in her arms she bore 
 The stark dead woman to the shore. 
 
IN THE FOREST. 
 
 101 
 
 She laid her decent in her bark 
 
 Below the bent boughs burned and dark, 
 
 And plucked white lilies of the sea 
 
 And tiger lilies of the land. 
 
 Then with a daughter s sympathy, 
 
 And with a sister s tender hand 
 
 She hid her face in leaves, and gave, 
 
 In Indian custom of the land, 
 
 Sad sepulture upon the wave. 
 
 She, down the strong, reversing tide, 
 Strewed lilies for the ocean wide, 
 And left her with her slim canoe. 
 Then as the loosened boat withdrew, 
 She cried aloud, 
 
 "Now shall I be 
 A Baroness indeed ! For me 
 The peopled cities now, the land 
 Of action, conquest and command. 
 And who that lives shall question me, 
 Save he that sails on yonder sea ?" 
 
PART II. 
 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
Tliou calm contradiction ! Thou mystery ! 
 Thou brave cosmopolite; city at sea, 
 Where beggars squander, and where princes hoard! 
 Thou mute confusion ! Thou babel of tongue ! 
 Thou poem in stones! Thou song unsung ! 
 Thou growth of a night ; tJiou Jonahs gourd! 
 Thou fair-girdled mistress! The black-bellied ships 
 From Orient gates gather sweets for thy lips. 
 Thy tall handmaidens from the West rise up 
 And they bring tliee wine in tlieir golden cup. 
 
 beautiful, long, loved Avenue ! 
 So faithless to truth, and yet so true! 
 Thou camp in battle with the shouts in air, 
 The neighing of steeds and the trumpet s blare! 
 Thou iron-faced sphynx ; thy steadfast eyes 
 Encompass all seas. Thy hands likewise 
 Lay hold on the peaks. The land and the sea 
 Make tribute alike, and the mystery 
 Of Time it is thine. . . . Say, what art tfwu 
 But the scroll of the Past rolled into the Now f 
 
 O, throbbing and pulsing proud Avenue! 
 
 Thou generous robber! Thou more than Tyre! 
 
 Thou mistress of pirates! Thou heart of fire! 
 
 Thou heart of the world s heart, pulsing to 
 
 The bald, white poles. So old ; so new. 
 
 So nude, yet garmented past desire. 
 
 Thou tall, splendid woman, I bend to tJiee; 
 
 Hove thy majesty, mystery ; 
 
 Thy touches of sanctity, touches of taint, 
 
 So grand as a sinner, so good as a saint. 
 
PRELUDE. 
 
 k 
 
 AVENUE, dear as an afternoon dream ! 
 
 O Avenue, endless as some far beam 
 From ocean-tossed Argus shot shoreward at night ! 
 O fair as a garden made more than fair 
 With long walks of lovers in calm delight ! 
 O wild as a woman with long, loosened hair ! 
 
 strong and willful as the strange gulf stream, 
 That floweth and goeth we know not where, 
 
 1 exult in thy beauty as a lover might 
 Exult in his bride on her bridal night. 
 
 Thou heaven of lights ! I stood at night 
 
 Far down by a spire where the stars shot through, 
 
 Where commerce throbs strong as a burly sea swell, 
 
 And searched the North Star. O Avenue ! 
 
 If the road up to God were thy long lane of light ! 
 
 I lifted my face, looking upward and far 
 
 By the path of the Bear, underneath-the North Star, 
 
106 PRELUDE 
 
 
 
 ^Beyond the gaslights where the falling stars spin, 
 And lo ! no man can tell, guess he never so well, 
 Where thy gaslights leave off or the starlights begin. 
 
 O, Avenue, splendid Fifth Avenue ! 
 
 Thou world in thyself ! Thou more than Rome, * 
 
 When Rome sat throned and pre-eminent ! 
 
 Thy spires prick stars in the moon-bound blue 
 
 And stand mile-stones on the high road home. 
 
 I behold thy strength like a stream s descent 
 
 When it flows to the sea filled full to the foam: 
 
 My soul it expands as an incense curled, 
 
 And proud as a patriot I point the world 
 
 To thy achievement and to thine intent. 
 
 Dear and delicious, loved Avenue ! 
 
 I have had my day in the Bois de Bologne, 
 
 I have stood very near the first steps of a throne, 
 
 I have roamed all cities of splendor through, 
 
 I have masked on the Corso ; and many bright nights, 
 
 I have dashed Rusk bells down a lane of delights ; 
 
 On gay Rotten Row I have galloped the rounds, 
 
 And, too, have made one of a long line of hounds, 
 
 But nothing neath sun or tide-guiding moon 
 
 Approaches thine populous afternoon. 
 
FIRST CITIZEN OF NEW YORK. But is the lady virtuous f 
 SECOND CITIZEN OF NEW YORK. Virtuous! Sir! s7ie is 
 more than virtuous ; she is even plain. 
 
 O IR Francis had come, the fairest of men. 
 
 At least the ladies pronounced him fair, 
 But none knew whence he had come, or when; 
 And the cautious banker had said, " beware," 
 And a cunning rival had said, "take care," 
 And had spread suspicion everywhere. 
 
 "And who can he be ?" the banker cried, 
 " Sir Francis Jain," his daughter replied. 
 " Sir Francis Jain ! Aye, that is plain, 
 But who the devil s Sir Francis Jain ? " 
 
 And no man knew him. Men only knew 
 He strode direct, like a lion, through 
 The little mouse-traps that society set 
 To cage the yellow-maned lion in, 
 
io8 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 And kept on silent through all their din, 
 And sad, as of grief he might not forget. 
 He was careless of honors and careless of rank ; 
 Quite careless of all the world was he ; 
 Careless of gold in heaps in the bank, 
 Heedless, indeed, of the golden key 
 That opened all doors of the Avenue, 
 To welcome this new-named lion through. 
 
 And why so careless, and why so cold ? 
 Surely the man had love and to spare, 
 Surely the man had titles and gold, 
 Honor at home and everywhere ! 
 
 Why so heedless of honors, he ? 
 Why so careless of the golden key 
 That opened the doors of the Avenue 
 And led the yellow-maned lion through, 
 Where many a languid maiden s eyes 
 Glanced suggestions, and hopes and sighs ? 
 
 The man had all that a man might gain, 
 In a life s endeavor of strife and pain ; 
 Honor of women and envy of men, 
 Grace of manner, of speech, and then, 
 That dash of audacity in his air, 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 109 
 
 That vanquishes failure anywhere, 
 And crowns men kings. Alas ! Alas ! 
 Men only count what their fellow has ; 
 They count his gains, but never the cost 
 Of the jewel, love, that he may have lost. 
 
 n. 
 
 The season passed and the hero passed, 
 Passed as hundreds before had done, 
 Melted away in the summer sun, 
 Like fairy frost from your window slant 
 Where palace and castle and camp are cast 
 But a night, for the fairy inhabitant. 
 
 The season came, and he came again ; 
 Again in the season he galloped through 
 The populous lane of the Avenue: 
 Tossing his head and toying the mane, 
 Galloped the lion, Sir Francis Jain. 
 
 His strong, black steed on his haunches thrown, 
 Struck hard and plunged on the clanging stone, 
 And threw white foam in the air, and beat 
 
no ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 The upward air with his iron feet 
 
 Where the Baroness came. Her marvelous eyes 
 
 Were wide with wonder and a sweet surprise. 
 
 And then they fell, and the lashes lay 
 
 Like dark silk fringes to hide them away ; 
 
 And her face fell down to her heaving breast, 
 
 And silent Sir Francis half guessed the rest. 
 
 The man bowed low. Then over his face 
 There flashed and flooded some sudden trace 
 Of mad emotion. Quick it passed 
 As lightning, threading a thunder-blast. 
 He lifted his hat, turned, bowed again, 
 Toyed a time with the tossing mane, 
 Threaded his fingers quite careless through 
 The curving, waving, silken skein, 
 Leaned him forward, loosened the rein, 
 Looked leisurely up the Avenue ; 
 Then smiling on all with a cold disdain, 
 Forward galloped Sir Francis Jain. 
 
 " I will give yon house," said the butterman s son, 
 Jerking his thumb, as the boor was wont, 
 Back over his shoulder, at a brown-stone front, 
 " I will give yon house to anyone 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. in 
 
 That tells me who this man may be. 
 
 To you, my lawyer, old friend," said he, 
 
 "I will give a job indeed that will pay 
 
 A job that will pay, the very day 
 
 You place in my hand the thread to the rein 
 
 That will bridle this fellow, Sir Francis Jain." 
 
 Quick, plucking the butterman s son aside, 
 Then throwing his cane over shoulder and back, 
 As the man disappeared up the populous track: 
 "He rides like the devil ! " the lawyer replied, 
 " But listen to me. Hist ! step this way, 
 I am your man, sir, to make it pay. 
 I have a secret, and I hold the rein 
 To bridle your rival, Sir Francis Jain ! " 
 
 And he plucked the man by the broadcloth sleeve 
 As he led him aside in the dusky eve. 
 Then standing aside from the populous place, 
 The friend looked friend right square in the face. 
 And the lawyer spoke cautious and wagged his head, 
 And winked at every slow word he said. 
 
 " He rides like the devil. But this is plain, 
 And men have marked it again and again 
 
ii2 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 He walks as if he dragged a chain ! 
 
 And that is your cue ! Sir Francis Jain 
 
 Is a convict of Sidney, and has worn a chain ! " 
 
 The two knaves parted ; each went on his way, 
 In their vulgar parlance, fc to make it pay." 
 While careless and dauntless the rider dashed on, 
 Till he plunged in the depths of the Park and was 
 gone. 
 
 III. 
 
 I like the tortuous paths of Central Park, 
 Like great, big autographs writ in grass. 
 Here Pat, indeed, has set his honest mark 
 "Whate er his boss, the great, big William has. 
 I like that spacious Park, so dark at night, 
 The lover s pride, the tranquil tramp s delight. 
 
 Unwatched it lies, and open as the sun 
 When God swings wide the dark doors of the East. 
 O, keep one spot of your pent isle, still one, 
 Where tramp or banker, layman or high priest, 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 113 
 
 + 
 
 Meet equals, all before the face of God. 
 Yea, equals stand upon that common sod 
 One day, where they shall equals be 
 Beneath, for aye, and all eternity. 
 
 It lies a little island quite above the tide 
 Of commerce, high above high-water mark ; 
 Go ye, my tramps and shoddies, and abide 
 Your little hour, equals in the park. 
 
 O banker, count some coins for charity ! 
 Put down, O tramp, that bit of conscious pride, 
 That you have more of out-door air than he! 
 You both are good to fertilize the ground ; 
 You count about the same when the cholera comes 
 around. 
 
 0, crooked, crooked paths where cautious lovers meet 
 With eyes held down. O, whither tend 
 Ye paths that neither do begin or end ? 
 Forbidden paths that seem so doubly sweet, 
 Say, who would seek at all, to make ye straight ? 
 Say, who would seek to find the narrow gate 
 To enter in, when all the park lies wide 
 And open as the moon-believing tide ? 
 
 
H4 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 Yea, let us linger in this park. To me 
 
 It hath a light and roominess. The air 
 
 Stirs woman-like and roving as the sea. 
 
 A sense of freedom thrills my soul, made free 
 
 And full of shoutings, to escape the glare 
 
 Of gas, and all the sound of brass 
 
 And many tongues the gasping city has 
 
 The hollow, shoddy, sickly shows, and all 
 
 The lies that hide behind a brown-stone wall. 
 
 Tis said this park is proud Manhattan s pride ; 
 It is, indeed, a most capacious park. 
 It looks as long as all the plains, as wide ; 
 That is, if you behold it in the dark. 
 
 But there are things that somehow seem to me 
 Almost as big as this, as worthy boast, 
 Along that far and unpretending coast ; 
 Things in that far West quite as well to see. 
 And, come to think of it, perhaps twere best, 
 My proud Manhattan, that you do now go West. 
 
 Go West, and see the world you levied on 
 Through all your pompous years and mocked, mean 
 while. 
 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 115 
 
 Go West ! aye, go for many a thousand mile. 
 Yea, you have time to go. Your ships are gone. 
 Your great sea merchants come from sea no more, 
 Broad-souled and brave of heart. The little store 
 Of gold and goods your daring fathers brought 
 To deck and crown their new Venetian shore, 
 You fell to gambling for like knaves. You fought 
 Among yourselves and let your proud ships rot. 
 
 Go West. Here once, with high, exalted head 
 You sat in state beside your white sea door. 
 You tenfold tribute laid on every shred 
 That passed you, to or from the new-born, poor, 
 Dependent West. She comes to you no more 
 In suppliance now. Behold how we have reared 
 An hundred high-built capitols. Endeared 
 Are they by agonies of birth. Aye, true, 
 Are they, with that vehement truth that you 
 In cold and cautious commerce never knew. 
 
 Go West ! Forget thyself and look upon 
 The middle world a day. This far sea rim, 
 Half -wrought, at best, lies broken, cold and dim, 
 As ruins with the fading light withdrawn. 
 Go West for aye. For there, the favored few 
 
n6 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 Of you, who hope to win the world of bliss 
 Who will admit there is a better world than this, 
 Your brown stone town and teeming Avenue 
 "Will be that much the nearer it, than you 
 Are now. Therefore, indeed, I think it best 
 That you go West, or learn to know the West. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The road of love is a tortuous road, 
 
 Sudden and many the turns for all ; 
 
 An uphill way, with a weary load, 
 
 And fatal, indeed, with many a fall : 
 
 And giving, at best, but a questionable kiss. 
 
 How long he had loved, had followed her 
 
 A far off faithfulest worshiper, 
 
 Silent and earnest, as true love is, 
 
 We may not know; but we find the two 
 
 The envied, and adored, of the Avenue. 
 
 Little men knew of him ; still less 
 
 They knew of the dark-browed Baroness, 
 
 The beautiful stranger. She that drew 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 117 
 
 The veil of mystery close, and dwelt 
 Alone in splendor at night, and knelt 
 Each morn at the cross ; and forever kept 
 Her fair face humbled, as oner that wept, 
 As she walked at eve on the Avenue. 
 Yet busy was all the town to guess 
 The secrets of this same Baroness. 
 
 Yea, busy was fame with her gold, her name, 
 Her great, proud house on the Avenue ; 
 Her horses in harness of gold that drew 
 Her lonesome carriage in glory through 
 The wondering crowd ; her maids that came 
 And spoke no tongue that any man knew ; 
 Her marvelo,us form, her midnight of hair, 
 That maddened the vulgar millionaire, 
 Who guessed that his ladder of gold might reach 
 To the tallest bough or the fairest peach. 
 
 Sir Francis Jain was a hero true 
 
 As the old-time heroes. But never yet 
 
 Had he breathed his love. Oft had they met 
 
 In the eddying whirls of the Avenue ; 
 
 And oft at morn on her way to prayer 
 
 He met her, passed her, hat in air. 
 
n8 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 He now made note, as they met, her step 
 Was scarce so stately ; and yet she kept 
 Her eyes to the ground as she passed to prayer, 
 And silent and signless she passed him there. 
 
 Twas Popper s reception. Good Mrs. P. 
 
 Puffed and inflated herself till she 
 
 Was red in the face as a turkey cock. 
 
 She strutted and fumed, flew hither and yon, 
 
 Rattled her silks and ruffled her lace, 
 
 Bawled at her Mary and bullied her John ; 
 
 Then flew to her drawers and powdered her face, 
 
 Then smoothed down her laces, consulted the clock, 
 
 And calmly awaited, with half-drooping eyes, 
 
 The guest she should welcome with studied surprise. 
 
 The skies were serene ; not a cloud in the blue. 
 Yet good Mrs. Popper had thoughtfully set 
 An awning, that yawned like a fisherman s net, 
 Far over the pavement. Now this had been done 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 119 
 
 With no other sentiment under the sun 
 Than the fear that some dear gushing guest should get 
 wet. 
 
 I resent the suggestion of plebeian curs, 
 
 That twas done for display. Such a proud soul as 
 
 hers 
 
 Stoops not to such follies as that. And then, who 
 Could think such a thing of the Ayenue ? 
 
 The thoroughfare flowed like a strong, surging stream, 
 A figure, mostlike, we have called in before 
 Flowed full as a river foam full to the shore, 
 And the soft, autumn sun fell gorgeously o er 
 The long, gleaming lines where glitter and gleam 
 The black crush of carriages, far flashing back 
 Their wonder of wealth from the broad, endless track ; 
 And good Mrs. P., with her pump-handle shake, 
 Her elegant airs, and her large, florid arms, 
 Smiled down her delight, in a rainbow of charms. 
 
 Twas a gorgeous affair, as all such things are, 
 
 On the Murray Hill end of the Avenue. 
 
 The men were most tall, the women most fair, 
 
 In powder and paint. They had slate-penciled hair, 
 
iso ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 As frizzled and frowsy, almost, to the view, 
 As a pure nigger babies. Yet, for all, they were fair ; 
 For all their weak falsehoods in dress and in air, 
 They were fair as young Junos. Bright gold shone in 
 
 bar, 
 
 And diamonds flashed thick as the meadow sown dew 
 That mirrors the gold of the morn-minted star. 
 
 But what gave a special attraction to 
 
 This flashing affair of the Avenue 
 
 Was the fact that Sir Francis, the lion, was there. 
 
 Sir Francis, the yellow-maned lion, and, too, 
 
 The Baroness, belle of the Avenue, 
 
 And the love and delight of Sir Francis Jain. 
 
 "And who is Sir Francis?" a rival cried. 
 
 " Why, Sir Francis Jain," a lady replied. 
 
 " Sir Francis Jain ! The Sir Francis Jain 
 
 That drags his foot as if dragging a chain? " 
 
 Now whether dame Popper, as some others do, 
 When they go catching lions on the Avenue, 
 Had written Sir Francis the belle would be there, 
 And dying to see him. Then, with the same pen, 
 Ere the ink was well dry on the letter just done, 
 Had written this belle that this bravest of men 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 121 
 
 \Vas coining to meet her, I cannot declare. 
 I give you the facts, you can read as you run. 
 The lover was there, the lady was there ; 
 And Popper was proud, as the lady was fair. 
 
 VI. 
 
 The belle ? Let me see, I described her before 
 
 Not so ? You forget. You would have once more 
 
 The chronicle ; have me tell o er and o er 
 
 Her manifold charms ; to read all through 
 
 The book of her excellence ; to tell anew 
 
 The beauty, the love, and the charities done 
 
 By this wildest yet gentlest soul under the sun. 
 
 You would have it all o er again, because 
 
 She wa s so lovely to see, and was 
 
 So girt in majesty, grace ; and, oh ! 
 
 Because sweet heaven did pity her so. 
 
 She was dark as Israel ; proud and still 
 As the Lebanon trees on Palatine hill. 
 She stood as a lone blown palm that grew 
 In middle desert for the shelter of men 
 
122 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 From moving sand and descending flame. 
 Her name, Adora. Her plain, simple name, 
 Meant nothing at alMmtil after you 
 Had seen her face, her presence, and then 
 From that day forth it had form, and meant 
 The fairest thing under the firmament. 
 
 Her name was as language, and when men knew 
 
 No word in all tongues to give utterance to 
 
 Their grandest conception of beauty, she 
 
 Stood up in their souls, calm, silently, 
 
 And filled the blank with her simple name. 
 
 And ever at mention or thought of her 
 
 Men grew in soul as a growing flame 
 
 When dying embers on the altar stir 
 
 In the priestess hands, and all life through 
 
 They lived the nobler for the love they knew. 
 
 Her history ! Kay, there was nought of it, 
 So far as men knew, save that which was writ 
 On her marvelous face. She had dwelt with woe, 
 She had walked in shadows so long, so far, 
 They lay on her breast like an iron bar. 
 The dark of trouble hung over her hair 
 Like a widow s veil. The touch of care 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 123 
 
 Had chilled her soul like an early snow 
 
 On the Autumn heights when the brooks creep slow, 
 
 And the quails pipe solemn and far and low. 
 
 A touch of tenderness lay over all 
 Her deed or utterance. And yet the strength 
 Of desert lion that strides full length 
 From jungle at night, with velvet foot-fall, 
 Was bounded within her bosom. The touch 
 Of Time was not on her. She was as one 
 That once uprose before the early sun, 
 And ere the fervid sun had wrested much 
 From day, and ere her heart had given proof, 
 Had woven through life s tangled warp and woof. 
 
 And yet she was not taught at all, or skilled 
 
 In complex life. Her true strength lay 
 
 In splendid scorn of little things. All day 
 
 Her spirit seemed some oily essence spilled 
 
 On stormy waters of the Avenue. 
 
 And this the wild, strong woman, so self willed 
 
 That dwelt the outer world ! Ah, well she knew 
 
 That candor and the upward life of truth, 
 
 That made, yet marred, her splendid, stormy youth, 
 
 Matched not with craft ! With calm adroitness she 
 
i2 4 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 "Wove round herselt a matchless mystery ; 
 And so sat, sphinx-like, silent and alone, 
 Resolving conquest, in ways her own. 
 
 Sir Francis did adore her. This she knew, 
 
 For certainly comes such knowledge to 
 
 A great-souled woman. He stood wide aloof, 
 
 But yet his calm eyes lifted, followed through 
 
 The tangle of crowds, in eternal proof 
 
 Of patient devotion, where e er she passed. 
 
 He turned, as bethinking himself at last, 
 
 Sighed, as from habit, and passed on through 
 
 The crowd, and stood full front face to 
 
 That advocate seen on the Avenue. 
 
 VII. 
 
 And the lawyer bowed : " Sir Francis, I think." 
 And he turned a quid in his mouth with a wink, 
 Then dropped his eyes to the floor again, 
 To a foot that dragged as if dragging a chain : 
 
 " Now you are a nobleman. Pardon me, 
 If business and pleasure must blend in one, 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 125 
 
 But I am in search of a nobleman s son ; 
 And the thought has occurred that you might be he. 
 No ? but business is business. Pardon me, pray 
 Stay, stay but a moment. Perhaps it will pay." 
 
 And he looked right straight at the turning guest, 
 
 And he reached a broad hard hand to his breast. 
 
 "Now here s an estate that is waiting an heir; 
 
 A noble estate that lies over the sea, 
 
 Of a great Irish lord that is just deceased, 
 
 And I am an advocate. Now answer fair, 
 
 And square, if your lordship should be so pleased, 
 
 The questions I ask. Twixt you and me, 
 
 Your answers shall rest till your dying day, 
 
 And I think your lordship can make it pay." 
 
 Then the butterman s son of the Avenue, 
 In swallow-tailed clothes and two-buttoned kids, 
 Came forward and languidly lifted his lids 
 And stared as if staring Sir Francis through. 
 And the lawyer went on. " I think that you 
 Might have met this heir in Australia ; he, too "- 
 The shot struck centre. As pale as a ghost 
 Sir Francis started, stood close to the wall, 
 
126 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 Then lifting his two hands let them fall 
 Both helpless down, and stood still as a post. 
 
 Then the advocate laughed, laughed low and deep, 
 
 A deep and a devilish laugh laughed he, 
 
 And he seemed to take no note at all 
 
 Of the stranger s start and deep agony, 
 
 But he turned to the crowd with his back to the wall; 
 
 And he spoke of the weather, of the crowd together 
 
 That jostled. each other like silly sheep, 
 
 In the sociable jam; of scandal and tea, 
 
 Of tea as weak as water could be, 
 
 Of scandal as strong as alcohol. 
 
 Sir Francis now gathered his strength at last, 
 
 And pale and silent he would have passed; 
 
 But the man reached out and laid hold his breast 
 
 In vulgar pretence of a friendly request 
 
 That he would linger, and so held him fast 
 
 With hand and eye, and Sir Francis Jain 
 
 Stood bound as bound with a twice-linked chain. 
 
 "Nay, wait, Sir Francis, a stranger are you 
 On this fast and fashionable Avenue. 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 127 
 
 And I have a fancy that you some day 
 Might choose to marry, and make it pay. 
 
 "For you, Sir Francis, I have no doubt, 
 Like all foreign noblemen, are seeking out 
 Some oil man s daughter, some dealer in cheese, 
 In rags, in offal, or in what you please, 
 Only that she has plenty of tin- 
 Nay, nay, Sir Francis. Stop, sir ! Stay ! 
 These marrying men they make it pay. 
 And that you may not be taken in, 
 Why, I will tell you, Sir, while you wait, 
 Of their moral characters that is, their estate. 
 
 " That milk-white maiden parading there 
 
 With painted brows and slate-pencilled hair, 
 
 Is heiress to millions.* Just wait for the day 
 
 She can lift her face in her prayers and say 
 
 1 Our Father in heaven, in a double sense, 
 
 And she, she can handle her weight in gold. 
 
 Then it s something to know that her parents are old, 
 
 And can die and be buried at the slightest expense. 
 
 Particularly now, as they make it pay, 
 
 Cremating, at a dollar and sixty cents. 
 
128 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 "Stocks? Not in stocks, but commerce. You see, 
 They made it in commerce of milk. That is, 
 They bought in the country and sold in the town 
 For the same price here that they there paid down. 
 Nay, stop, Sir Francis ; stay, listen to me, 
 And learn the way that men make it pay. 
 They minted the money ! The secret is this, 
 And it doesn t affect the good name of the daughter ; 
 But New York is an island, an island, you see ? 
 An island ! Sir Francis, surrounded by water. 
 
 " That dark, gipsy beauty in screw-heel shoes, 
 
 And shoulders thrown forward, Sir Francis, means 
 
 screws ! 
 
 That is, her father, a tinker by trade, 
 One cold, sloppy day when he couldn t get out, 
 On account of bad shoes, and go howling about, 
 Sat down in a corner, while this same heiress played 
 In the ashes beside him, and carelessly made 
 A sharp-pointed screw. Then what did he do ? 
 Why, he went to work, and with that same screw 
 He screwed himself on to the Avenue. 
 
 " Yon cast-iron woman means hinges. 
 
 Her hardware husband swings open this door ; 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 129 
 
 In fact, I may mention, there really is more 
 That hinges and turns on what he arranges 
 Than turns on returns of elections, twice o er. 
 
 There are women put together with hinges ; 
 God bless them: I pity their lords ; 
 One shrinks at the thought, and one cringes 
 At the thought of being caught in these hinges 
 As caught between tackle and cords. 
 
 "Yon blonde, so surrounded with half the gay beaux 
 
 Of Gotham, good sir, is the Princess of Pills. 
 
 She is weighed down with diamonds as dews weight a 
 rose, 
 
 She is smothered in satins, in laces, and frills ; 
 
 She walks through the world with a heavenward nose, 
 
 And yet it means pills, sir, nothing pills. 
 
 Silks and satins and laces and frills, 
 Fine French masters and milliner s bills. 
 Pills, sir ! moving and marvellous pills. 
 
 " She is wooed by a dozen brave counts who propose 
 To swallow her pills, her diamonds, her nose, 
 And all at a gulp without sugar. For, oh ! 
 They adore this fair girl, and her diamonds, so. 
 
130 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 Yet only to think of it ! Every bright stone 
 Must have cost her a million of pills alone. 
 
 Pills, pills ! How she laughs at life s ills ! 
 
 A coachman s cockade, a poodle that kills ! 
 
 Pills, sir ! active, industrious pills. 
 
 " Horses and houses in blocks and in rows, 
 
 She lives in a palace, she lifts her nose 
 
 At every man less than a millionaire, 
 
 If he be not a prince with a pompous air. 
 
 And how do you say they make it pay ? 
 
 Pills, sir ! active, industrious pills ! 
 Pills that are doing both night and day, 
 Pills that work while their masters play. 
 
 " And yet my lady with the lifted head, 
 The palaces high and the broad, rich lands, 
 The upward nose with its rose of red, 
 The broad flat foot and the bony hands 
 
 She is not happy. For all her pills, 
 For all her finery, for all her frills, 
 I pity, indeed, my Princess of Pills. 
 
 "For all her wooings and chances to wed, 
 For all her wealth and her heavenward head, 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 131 
 
 She is not happy. Prince de Hotelle, 
 The proud Italian who learned his airs 
 In lighting his master s guests up stairs, 
 Is gone ! and the gossips they laugh and tell 
 Ho*v her father refused him for fear his bills 
 Might swallow up all his industrious pills. 
 
 " That woman that waddles so crabwise there, 
 And toddles and puffs and pushes the crowd, 
 Means oil. Tis oozing from out her hair. 
 And why does she dress so large and so loud ? 
 And why does she crowd and elbow through? 
 Why, she is a light of the Avenue ; 
 A leader of women, the delight of men, 
 And, learned men say, is sharp with the pen. 
 
 " A widow is she of forty and five, 
 
 The relict of Septimus Boggs ; 
 
 A widow is she of proud degree, 
 
 And the wealthiest widow alive. 
 
 A widow is she, and as you can see, 
 
 Her waist is as large as a log s ; 
 
 Yet she, she is wooed by the wisest men, 
 
 For she made her fortune alone by the pen. 
 
I 3 2 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 " How oily she is ! how smiling when 
 She waddles along in her airy walk ! 
 You hear her grunt when she turns to talk 
 To one of the wise and the wooing men. 
 She toddles, she puffs like an engine shunt, 
 And all Cincinnati is in that grunt. 
 Now, I say oil made her rich ; but then, 
 She says she made it alone by the pen. 
 
 " Oh, she is the wealthiest widow alive, 
 
 She is wooed by a thousand men ; 
 
 A widow is she of forty and five, 
 
 And the relict of Septimus Boggs. 
 
 A widow is she, and she came to thrive 
 
 By making a corner in hogs ! 
 
 By cornering all the pigs, and then, 
 
 She made her fortune, you see, by the pen. 
 
 " Nay, stay ! But, sir, if you will begone, 
 Why I will follow you idly on ; 
 And as we leisurely elbow through 
 This creme de la creme of the Avenue, 
 Will tell you of Popper. Why, sir, you 
 Have saved her to-day. She was hanging to 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 133 
 
 The skirts of society, sir, till you 
 
 Came by to-day and so pulled her through. 
 
 " No, this is not the best. And yet 
 
 It is, some say, the very best 
 
 Society in all Manhattan. 
 
 We have some families we call " old," 
 
 Some sluggish Dutch whose founders sat and 
 
 Let the town grow east and west, 
 
 The while they sat as old hens set, 
 
 And idly hatched their eggs of gold. 
 
 So that Manhattan s proudest ones 
 
 Are simply, sir, some Dutchman s sons. 
 
 " And these same families are so old, 
 So walled about by bags of gold, 
 Their wealthy children quite forget 
 Whether their parents who left them lands 
 Were gentlemen, or men whose hands 
 Did open oysters or draw the net, 
 Or measure peanuts from side stands. 
 
 " Indeed, it hardly is settled yet 
 Whether these gents whose tents were set 
 
134 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 Along the new shore s unclaimed sands, 
 Were gentle pirates or mere brigands 
 The Knickerbockers ? The same, but, oh ! 
 They are so respectable, you know, 
 So very respectable and slow ! 
 
 "You hear those bottles just popping, sir, 
 
 Back yonder, where Popper now sweats and swears, 
 
 And opens his bottles and then declares 
 
 To his gathered guests that he brought the wine 
 
 Himself, from the cellars of his German friend, 
 
 The Baron of Heiderofisterchir ? 
 
 Well, that is the battle of Murray Hill. 
 
 These Poppers they hold the fort. They will 
 
 Drink their wine, they will shout and shine 
 
 Their day ; they will fire at all below 
 
 With champagne bottles, who would gladly blow 
 
 My lady grand to the moon, and hold 
 
 Her place with their new and their greasy gold." 
 
 Sir Francis met, ere he had quite withdrawn, 
 The Baroness again ; again he courtly bowed, 
 And, lest the knave who followed through the crowd 
 Might make familiar if he paused, passed on. 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 135 
 
 " You know her then ! this wealthy Baroness ? 
 This sort of female Count of Monte Christo ? 
 Why, sir ! you writhe, is if you felt distress ; 
 And, sir ! what makes you double up your fist so ? 
 She is the grandest in the land, but well, 
 We lawyers know some things we never tell." 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The gay Mephistophiles still at his side, 
 Now crooking his thumb over shoulder, he cried ; 
 "And this, Sir Francis, is the kettle drum ! 
 Where brave Sitting Bull would be shamed at the din. 
 Where tall, childless women in multitudes come, 
 Who would charm with the cheek, but alarm with the 
 chin." 
 
 And then with his hand to his face, and aside, 
 He whispered shrill yet we know he lied. 
 " These ladies are blessed as angels be, 
 They spend their days in driving about 
 Seeking some suitable object out 
 To receive their meddlesome charity. 
 
136 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 11 They find some poor, broken horse at a dray. 
 They gather around in their carriages. They 
 Are thick and as noisy as crows. Ah, me ! 
 How noble, and noisy, sweet charity ! 
 They weep o er the horse ; the man they arrest. . . 
 A poor wife starves with a babe at her breast. 
 
 " And how they do work ! that is, with the tongue ; 
 And alone with the tongue. All work, somehow 
 Why, even the bearing and rearing of young 
 They leave to the Dutch and the Irish now. 
 This city is paved with dead infants ! " he cried. 
 Goodness gracious ! don t you think he lied ? 
 
 " O, give me good mothers. Yea, great, glad mothers. 
 Proud mothers of dozens, indeed, twice ten ; 
 Fond mothers of daughters and mothers of men, 
 With old-time clusters of sisters and brothers, 
 When grand Greeks lived like to gods, and when 
 Brave mothers of men, strong-breasted and broad, 
 Did exult in fulfilling the purpose of God. 
 
 " Yea, give me mothers, grand, old-world mothers, 
 
 Who peopled strong, lusty, loved Germany, 
 
 Till she pushed the Frank from the Rhine to the sea. 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 137 
 
 Yea, give me mothers to love, and none others ; 
 Blessed, beautified mothers of men for me, 
 For they, they have loved in the brave old way. 
 And for this, all honor for aye and a day. 
 
 " O ye of the West, the strong-limbed mothers, 
 Made firmest of foot and most mighty of hand ; 
 Dominion is yours, through the whole, wide land, 
 To the end of the world. For who but your brothers, 
 And men of your breasts with the brave warrior s 
 
 brand 
 
 Led down to the sea ? Who hewed a red way ? 
 Yea, who are the captains that lead us to-day ? 
 
 "Ye Cyprians of fashion, ye whited, cursed mothers ! 
 Yea, cursed as the Christ cursed the barren fig tree, 
 With your one sickly branch where a dozen should be ; 
 It were better ye bide as the Capuchin brothers, 
 Or, millstone at neck, ye be thrown in the sea. 
 Ye are dried up peppers in a dried up pod. 
 Ye are hated of men, and abhorred of God!" 
 
138 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 IX. 
 
 This Mephistopheles now turned, 
 As if the whole gay world was spurned 
 As something quite beneath his care, 
 And said, with philosophic air : , 
 " The fight goes on from year to year. 
 Yet bye and bye the Poppers will 
 Surrender and pass quite away; 
 As water finds its level. Still 
 In humbler spheres will they recount the day, 
 To wond ring friends, and, sighing, say 
 How, once, great men on Murray Hill 
 Did pay them court, and how they drew 
 "in wake, the world-famed Avenue. 
 
 "In storied countries grand and old, 
 The Christian had the gates of gold 
 That wall God s paradise, in view ; 
 But here he has Fifth Avenue. 
 
 " Here shine no gates beyond for him; 
 All else is doubtful, vague, and dim. 
 The Paynim s roads led e er to Rome. 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 139 
 
 The goal, the hope, eternal home, 
 That proud Manhattan has in view, 
 Is here ; this fair Fifth Avenue. 
 
 "Lo ! here upon this stony height, 
 The victors of the long, hard fight 
 With Mammon, where the thousands fell 
 To fill the trenches, that the few 
 Might pass to victory and tell 
 Their triumphs, are entrenched. Behold 
 Their mighty barricades of gold." 
 
 Sir Francis shrugged and would have passed ; 
 
 The lawyer clutched and held him fast. 
 
 This fellow like a carpet tack 
 
 Or cockle burr stuck sharp. Indeed 
 
 He was too thin of blood to bleed, 
 
 But sucked his fellow s blood. In fact 
 
 He was a vampyre : brown and wan 
 
 He was about the throat; a bat, 
 
 A hungry, sharp-nosed, smelling rat : 
 
 A man of fashion, yet the slave 
 
 Of getting, getting, getting on : 
 
 A dangerous and clever knave ; 
 
i 4 o ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 A crooked, ugly, carpet tack, 
 That was not safe to sit upon. 
 
 He was just such a man as you 
 Might choose in hard extremity to do 
 Some doubtful enterprise, that lay 
 Beyond your bound of conscience. 
 
 He 
 
 Had always character for you. 
 Since he was now no longer poor, 
 He kept a character at the door, 
 As some men keep a carriage. See ! 
 My character ! Steel springs ! Bran new ! 
 
 The vilest man, was this same bore ; 
 And I should like to swing him to 
 The great lamp-post that glares before 
 His mighty, massive, carven door, 
 That lords the splendid Avenue, 
 For telling things so vilely true. 
 
 A lawyer ? liar ? much the same 
 In practice, quite as well as name. 
 I did not make him. Hear me through. 
 I hate him heartily as you, 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 141 
 
 And yet between us, you and I, 
 No lands or lines in common lie. 
 
 I am not of your flock. Drive all 
 Your sheep in herd from field to stall ; 
 Mark them ! brand them ! And if one 
 Dare stand alone, look back, or run, 
 Give him the dogs ! 
 
 Nay, let me keep 
 The bleak, bare hills alone, aloof. 
 Rather a goat than such a sheep ! 
 A right to laugh ; and the room to leap ! 
 Rather the wild, cold crags where I 
 May dare its height ; may strike my hoof- 
 Wag my head at the world and die. 
 
 I am not of you. I love not you. 
 I hate and abhor your middle-class. 
 Your mule, that s neither a horse nor ass, 
 But holds the worst parts of the two. 
 
 I hate your middle-men ; men who 
 Are ever striving, straining to 
 A place they don t fit in. They rise, 
 They hang between the earth and skies, 
 
142 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 As hung the prophet s coffin. Lies 
 Are on their lips, in all their deeds. 
 Their lives are lies, their hollow creeds 
 Make infidel, sweet souls that bloom 
 On humble ground, in lonely gloom. 
 
 Write me not of that class. My name, 
 
 Thank God, is not of these. I claim 
 
 No middle-class or place. I lie 
 
 Secure, and shall not fall, for I 
 
 Am of the lowliest lot as low 
 
 As God s own sweetest flowers grow. 
 
 The Baroness, with heedless air, 
 Passed on, came back, passed anywhere. 
 She was as one who moved or stood 
 At morn in twilight widowhood. 
 With South-land love in her great eyes, 
 With beauty that the gods adore, 
 With wealth that made a vulgar prize, 
 What wonder that she stood before 
 The world more fair than all things there ? 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 143 
 
 That crowd ! It was a stormy crowd ! 
 
 They elbowed sharp, they shouted loud, 
 
 They shamed the loudest auction sale. 
 
 The men talked " pay " and " stocks," and in 
 
 The fierce and universal din, 
 
 The women rattled spoons and forks, 
 
 And reached their necks like lonesome storks, 
 
 And tiptoed high as if to hail 
 
 In hard distress, some distant sail. 
 
 Six horrid fiddlers piped and scraped ; 
 
 Short, stuffy pipers, puffed and red, 
 
 With half the hair blown off the head, 
 
 So shiny, white and turnip-shaped 
 
 They puffed their cheeks, they swelled and blew 
 
 The louder, as the louder crew 
 
 Displayed their rival brass and cheek. 
 
 Beware ! Beware, when Greek meets Greek. 
 
 But O, take care when ass meets ass 
 
 In braying rivalry of brass. 
 
 They blew as if for life or death, 
 
 And when they stopped to catch their breath, 
 
 An artificial singing-bird, 
 
 Just such as are forever heard 
 
144 ON FIFTH . A VENUE. 
 
 Along the upper, German Rhine, 
 
 In third-class drinking-sheds of wine, 
 
 Sprang up from artificial vine, 
 
 And trilled so shrill, so sharp, that you 
 
 Had thought your poor head split in two. 
 
 Sir Francis, with distempered air, 
 
 And something touching on despair, 
 
 Shook off the bore and elbowed through, 
 
 And sought dame P. to say adieu. 
 
 The man was at his side again 
 
 " I pray your pardon, Sir Francis Jain, 
 
 But see those dozens of young men there ? 
 
 These gay young bloods, who live to chew, 
 
 And squirt ambier on the Avenue, 
 
 And strut striped clothes like convicts through 
 
 The walks of the city ? Well, every one 
 
 Is somebody s son, sir, somebody s son. 
 
 When that is said, all s said and done ; 
 
 Each one is known as somebody s son." 
 
 " The daughters are splendid, fair, honest, and true, 
 , Yet as full of old Nick, I promise you, 
 In an innocent way, as you can think. 
 You see yon blonde, in a group of men ? 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 145 
 
 She is pure as jolly ; and just as bright ! 
 Well, she has confessed that many a night 
 She scarce has been able to sleep a wink, 
 But nearly all night has laid awake 
 Regretting that there were only ten 
 Of the holy commandments for men to break." 
 
 Sir Francis, disgusted and firmer now, 
 Pushed him aside, with gathered brow, 
 And down the hall sought hat and cane. 
 There was to him a sense of shame 
 In mixing in this bedlam. 
 
 Vain 
 
 He tried, to escape the man who came 
 Still at his elbow, with that same 
 Infernal smile. 
 
 "I say, you can 
 
 Bo worse than wed that tall brunette 
 I saw you ogle. Eh ! Sir Jain ? 
 To wed that lady, sir, would pay 
 As well, or better, than finding the man 
 For the Irish estate. And then, they say, 
 The girl s in the market right smart. And yet 
 She s hardly a girl, if the gossips speak true. 
 
 And now, Sir Jain, if I speak plain, 
 10 
 
i 4 6 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 I beg your pardon. But a girl to me 
 Is hardly a girl, be she never so young, 
 Never so gracious of air and tongue, 
 Who has, on the very same Avenue 
 Where she is residing, a husband or two." 
 
 His rage was like the thunder s fall ; 
 His glare was like a leaping fire. 
 Swift up the hall, swift down the hall, 
 Sir Francis glanced, and left and right, 
 And not a woman was then in sight. 
 With not a single word to say, 
 Like fair Apollo, he struck the liar, 
 Clutched hat and cane and strode away. 
 
 He reached the door, passed proudly through, 
 Then down the ample steps, and on 
 And up the teeming Avenue. 
 Yet ere the man was fairly gone, 
 He heard behind a hoarse, loud cry, 
 As one made wild with rage and pain, 
 That called out, clanged out cruelly ; 
 "Sir Francis Jain ! Sir Francis Jain ! 
 You walk as if you dragged a chain ! " 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 147 
 
 XI. 
 
 And here we leave the lovers. He, 
 Sad-browed and sorrowful. And she ? 
 No one might guess. Why, you might gaze 
 And gaze upon her great, proud face, 
 So sphynx-like fixed for all the days, 
 And read not any sign or trace 
 Of love or faith, or hope or hate, 
 Or aught save fixedness, as fate. 
 
 Sometimes the best of any town 
 
 Is quite outside the town ; the trees, 
 
 The park, the wide, wild rim of seas, 
 
 The glade, the sloping hill, the down ; 
 
 Indeed, the dens of brick and clay, 
 
 And dirty cobble-stones, dismay 
 
 A soul untrained through life to these. 
 
 - 
 
 And so, ofttime, the brightest side 
 
 Of some great house, my gay young friend, 
 
 Is its outside. The wounded pride, 
 
 The strife, the struggle to the end, 
 
I4 8 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 That high-set mention, may be won, 
 The doubtful triumph, sure defeat, 
 The slow advance, the swift retreat, 
 The broken hearts, the souls undone 
 Outside! outside, in God s glad sun ! 
 
 When Sabbath blesses us with rest, 
 When beauteous woman is most blest, 
 When church-blessed people crowd and teem, 
 And tide and flow like some strong stream, 
 All still as spirits in a dream- 
 When spring-time sunbeams strike us, bold 
 And strong as toppled beams of gold ; 
 When spires uplift and point us to 
 The starry steeps of God, and through 
 All peril ; when we rise and pour 
 On tranquil Sundays from church door 
 
 When white- winged ships drift dreamily, 
 Or shoot like shuttles fro and to, 
 Across great streets that stretch far down 
 To seas 011 either side the town ; 
 When skies are bound in spotless blue ; 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 149 
 
 When ships tend seaward ceaselessly, 
 Sail forth to pure white polar seas, 
 Bring fruit from farthest Sicilies, 
 Bring pinky coral from south deeps, 
 Where everlasting silence sleeps, 
 To this new Venice of the sea ; 
 O then go forth, proud-souled, and view 
 This glorious, full, Fifth Avenue ! 
 
 And go exulting, proud, and true, 
 To this great land that nurtured you ; 
 Yea, go full-hearted, loving, fond, 
 And loyal to your land ! for you 
 May range all peopled regions through, 
 May seek all cities, far or near, 
 Beyond the seas and still beyond, 
 Yet you shall never find one peer 
 To this proud scene so near your home. 
 The crowded carnival of Rome, 
 That Saturn crowns each vernal year, 
 Knows nothing in its proudest day 
 Like this magnificent display 
 Of men and maidens moving through 
 This populous, proud Avenue. 
 
150 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 Yea, I have tracked the hemispheres, 
 Have touched on fairest land that lies 
 This side the gates of Paradise ; 
 Have ranged the universe for years, 
 Have read the book of beauty through 
 From title-leaf to colophon, 
 While pleasure turned the leaves. 
 
 Yet on 
 
 This island bank your bark should strand, 
 Your feet should cleave this solid land ; 
 That you may live, alone to view 
 The glory of this Avenue. 
 
 Go ye, and wander if you will, 
 
 For grace in far-off countries. Still, 
 
 When every foreign land is trod, 
 
 I know ye will return, and you 
 
 Will lift your hands, protesting there 
 
 Was never yet a scene so fair 
 
 This side the golden gates of God. 
 
 Such women ! And such waists ! Such arms ! 
 
 Such full development of charms ! 
 
 Such matchless, moving loveliness ! 
 
 Such sweeping grace ! Such gorgeous dress ! 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 151 
 
 Such eyes ! Such little feet ! and such 
 Such everything ! It is too much ! 
 It drives one wild to sit and write 
 Of so much beauty, when one might 
 But never mind. Go thou and view 
 The glory of the Avenue ! 
 
 How peaceful and how perfect all ! 
 
 A rustle as of rustling trees 
 
 When crisp-curled autumn leaflets fall ; 
 
 A murmur like the lull of bees 
 
 In Californian flower field 
 
 On purple afternoons. 
 
 You hear 
 
 No lifted voice affront the ear, 
 Or sword-like tongue clang battle-shield. 
 Columbia s low-voiced women call, 
 Or answer back to ardent loves, 
 Like cooing, changeful-throated doves, 
 On far, faint, wooded waterfall ; 
 And this you hear, and that is all. 
 
 What long, long, endless, lovely lines 
 Of moving beauty reaching down 
 Like benedictions through the town ! 
 
152 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 What pride ! What glory mantles all ! 
 What gorgeous garmenting of tall, 
 Majestic Junos ! Beauty shines 
 From every speaking paving-stone 
 As beauty never spake or shone. 
 
 What rainbow-colors ! Lines of clothes ! 
 Not clothes-lines ! No ! But now suppose, 
 Sartor Resartus, quaint Carlisle, 
 Stands looking up this many a mile 
 Of moving beauty ; and suppose 
 He puts his finger to his nose, 
 And, smiling, with that cynic smile, 
 Divests them there of all their clothes ? 
 
 XII. 
 
 And yet how lonely is all this ! 
 More lone than middle forest is, 
 If strange, and worn, and weary you 
 Move down this mighty Avenue. 
 
 I do remember long ago, 
 
 A boy, by Leman s languid flow, 
 
 Alone, alone! God, how alone! 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 153 
 
 To land and language all unknown. 
 I strolled so wearily and slow, 
 And sad as after death. The crowd 
 Was gay, and populous, and loud. 
 
 Alone and sad I sat me down 
 To rest on Rousseau s narrow Isle, 
 Below Geneva. Mile on mile 
 And set with many a shining town, 
 Tow rd Dent du Midi danced the wave 
 Beneath the moon. 
 
 Winds went and came, 
 And fanned the stars into a flame. 
 I heard the loved lake, dark and deep, 
 Rise up and talk as in its sleep. 
 I heard the laughing waters lave 
 And lap against the farther shore, 
 An idle oar, and nothing more, 
 Save that the Isle had voice, and save 
 That round about its base of stone 
 There plashed and flashed the foamy Rhone. 
 
 A stately man, as black as tan, 
 Kept up a stern and broken round 
 Among the strangers on the ground. 
 
154 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 I named that awful African 
 A second Hannibal. 
 
 I gat 
 
 My elbows on the table, sat 
 With chin in upturned palm to scan 
 His face, and contemplate the scene. 
 The moon rode by a star-crowned queen. 
 I was alone. Lo ! not a man 
 To speak my mother tongue. Ah me ! 
 How more than all alone can be 
 A man in crowds. Across the Isle 
 My Hannibal strode on. 
 
 The while 
 
 Diminished Rousseau sat his throne 
 Of books, unnoticed and unknown. 
 
 This strange, strong man, with face austere 
 At last drew near. He bowed ; he spake 
 In unknown tongue. I could but shake 
 My head. Then, half a-chill with fear 
 I rose, and sought another place. 
 Again I mused. The kings of thought 
 Came by, and on that storied spot 
 I lifted up a tearful face. 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 155 
 
 The star-set Alps they sang a tune 
 Unheard by any soul save mine. 
 Mont Blanc, as lone and as divine 
 And white, seemed mated to the moon. 
 
 The past was mine, strong- voiced and vast : 
 Stern Calvin, strange Voltaire, and Tell, 
 And two whose names are known too well 
 To name, in grand procession passed. 
 
 And yet again came Hannibal, 
 King-like he came, and drawing near, 
 I saw his brow was now severe 
 And resolute. In tongues unknown 
 Again he spake. I was alone, 
 Was all unarmed, was worn and sad ; 
 But now, at last, my spirit had 
 Its old assertion. 
 
 I arose, 
 
 As startled from a dull repose. 
 With gathered strength I raised a hand, 
 And cried, " I do not understand." 
 
 His black face brightened as I spake ; 
 He bowed ; he wagged his woolly head ; 
 
156 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 He showed his shining teeth and said, 
 " Sah, if you please, dose tables here 
 Am consecrate to lager-beer ; 
 And, sah, what will you have to take ? " 
 
 Not that I loved that colored cuss 
 Nay ! he had awed me all too much 
 But I sprang forth, and with a clutch 
 I grasped his hand, and holding thus, 
 Cried, 
 
 " Bring my country s drink for two ! " 
 For oh ! that speech of Saxon sound 
 To me was as a fountain found 
 In wastes, and thrilled me through and through. 
 
 On Rousseau s Isle, in Rousseau s shade, 
 Two pink and spicy drinks were made ; 
 In classic shade, on classic ground, 
 We stirred two cocktails round and round. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 The Baroness in her parlors lay 
 Red flushed with conquest of the day. 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 157 
 
 " And he is mine ! " She half arose 
 From couch of gold and silken snow 
 At thought of it. 
 
 The proud repose 
 That comes to voyagers who know 
 The land is theirs, illumed her face. 
 " Good Christ, it were a lusty race, 
 That I did run for name and place ! 
 To name myself the Baroness ! 
 To seek the proudest city out ! 
 To come a stranger in disdain, 
 Proud scorning all life s littleness; 
 To dare it all ! to never doubt ! 
 To reach mine own strong, right hand out, 
 And clutch this lion s yellow mane ! 
 
 " I am the Baroness du Bois ! 
 Aye, that is good ! from wood and vine 
 I drew nay line. My crest should be 
 An arrow cleaving through a tree, 
 For even all earth s wooden walls 
 Shall not defeat. My burning brow 
 Shall bear his coronet. My halls, 
 My marble halls, shall shout with joy! 
 My firm feet shall not falter now! 
 
158 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 Why turn me back ? My slopes of pine 
 Henceforth shall be a land forgot. 
 I know them not, I know them not. 
 My face shall front the rising sun, 
 My feet shall measure conquests run. 
 If I must make a long, strong race, 
 What good that I turn back my face 
 Each day, to see the distance done ? 
 
 " Yet, Christ ! I almost wish again 
 That seat in heart-sick loneliness, 
 Quite at the bottom round, that I 
 Might scorn again to climb so high, 
 Or seek with burning eagerness 
 A worthless coronet. My breast 
 Disdains deceit ! I cannot rest. 
 
 " But he is mine ! Sir Francis Jain, 
 
 My lion with the yellow mane, 
 
 Ere yet another month betide 
 
 Shall take me close, his bosomed bride. . . 
 
 And Doughal ? 
 
 God ! the thought of it ! " 
 She sprang full statured in the air. 
 She shook her mighty storm of hair, 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 159 
 
 And trembled as in ague fit 
 
 " I cannot, cannot, cannot tear 
 
 His memory, the love, the hate, 
 
 The everlasting hate I bear 
 
 This man, from out my heart, go where 
 
 I may." 
 
 Her two clasped hands fell down. 
 Her face forgot its dark, fierce frown, 
 And sad and slow she shook her head. 
 "O, if, indeed, it were but hate! 
 But love and hate do intertwine, 
 A serpent, and a laden vine. 
 But where is Doughal ? 
 
 He is dead ! 
 
 Thank God, the man is dead ! and I 
 Am free as any maid to wed. 
 And if he be not dead, what then ? 
 Do I not hate him with a hate 
 That will not let me hesitate 
 Now at the last ? 
 
 Above all men 
 
 I hate this cursed, cold man who fled, 
 And left me in the flame to die. . . . 
 And he is dead, thank God, is dead ! 
 
160 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 " And if he be not dead, but rise 
 Some day to front me ? I can say, 
 Can look right squarely in his eyes, 
 Before Sir Francis, any day, 
 And say, my lord, this fellow lies ! 
 
 " But then my letters ! and the face 
 I painted on that quaint gold-plate ! 
 Ah, curse that childish face ! I hate 
 That priest who taught my hand to trace 
 Its silly lineaments. But fate 
 Has been my friend. I still will dare 
 And trust to fate, and leave the care 
 To circumstance. 
 
 " Now shall I wed 
 This baronet, and so shall be 
 Indeed a rightful Baroness. 
 Yea, be the thing I do profess, 
 Where no man s tongue may question me ; 
 And in some new, far home forget 
 That love which comes to haunt me yet. 
 Yea, Doughal, Doughal, he that fled, 
 And left me in the flame, is dead, 
 Is dead ! is dead ! thank God, is dead ! " 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 161 
 
 She sank upon her couch. She drew 
 Her round arms up right full, and threw 
 Them forth, and sighed and caught her breath 
 As one that waked from sleep-like death. 
 She straightened long limbs in repose, 
 Her long, strong fearless limbs that grew 
 To God s perfection, where they knew 
 No bridling. Her dark lids did close 
 In lovely languor, and she lay 
 As one that would forget alway. 
 
 But vain she wooed her soul s repose. 
 She turned, and on her round arm rose, 
 And touched a bell. " How thick this air ! 
 Pray place a pastille on the marble there. 
 Within the alcove. Why, my wood 
 Kay, heed me not. Why do you stare ? 
 My mind resumes its savage mood, 
 My soul takes on the elements 
 Of storm and battle and events 
 Twas chiefest of. ... Nay, nay, my mind 
 Went back to my ancestral laud, 
 And I fell dreaming of the grand 
 
 Old forest, and of hound and hind 
 11 
 
162 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 Afar. Ah ! thank you. 
 
 Turn that chair 
 
 A shade more mellow from the light, 
 A footstool, now. Now loose my hair 
 And fan me leisurely. To-night 
 I would you had some great romance, 
 Of Sappho, Dido, or, perchance, 
 Some later lover ; one who knew 
 The purple glory of proud blood, 
 And lived and died for sweet love s sake . 
 Pray make that bird be silent ! 
 
 Take 
 
 This mantle, girl, of silk and gold, 
 And throw it over him, and hold 
 His pretty song a prisoner . . . 
 Where was I ? Oh, the lovers. You, 
 I think, have read Zenobia through 
 These three nights past. Yet as for her 
 She hardly made my strong blood stir 
 You see her picture there ? And there 
 Is Sappho, Egypt. Everywhere 
 Grand, storied, pictures of the great 
 Of my own sex, who knew to hate, 
 Or love, which is indeed the same, 
 Yet not one shade that bears man s name, 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 163 
 
 Read me some reckless love and true; 
 Some star-touched woman s soul, that drew 
 Earth s magnets to its stormy height. 
 Yea, give me tiger s meat to-night ; 
 Some Cleopatra who disdained 
 All little ways of life, and grew 
 To top the pyramids, and reigned, 
 Still reigns a wider realm than all 
 Rome ever knew in rise or fall. 
 
 " Come, wheel my cushion softly, far 
 To yon dim alcove, where the light 
 Falls freely, and the lofty frown 
 Of pictured Hercules in war 
 Shall look my restless spirit down, 
 And hush my longings for the night. 
 
 " There ! let me rest. Unloose my gown. 
 
 My heart, my very soul seems bound 
 
 And bridled in these silken ropes 
 
 And corded things. O, my free woods ! 
 
 My raging seas ! my flowing floods ! 
 
 My wood-built vales. . . . my dreams, my hopes 
 
 There, there ! go, go ! I bade you go 
 
 Long since. Why stare you so ? 
 
164 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 " O, heaven ! If I had but one 
 
 To talk to of my battles done. 
 
 But one poor mind to sympathize, 
 
 Or understand my hopes or fears, 
 
 Or know why tears, hot, drowning tears, 
 
 Come sometime tiding to my eyes 
 
 Not one to love. 
 
 I cannot buy 
 
 With all this wealth one soul to trust, 
 And to the bitter end I must 
 Live out this gilded, splendid lie. 
 
 " That mocking, flaunting moonlight falls 
 With brazen harshness through the gold 
 And damask of yon curtain s fold, 
 And flaunts me in my very halls. 
 
 " And all this richly-figured floor 
 That sinks like velvet to rny feet 
 
 Lies stiff, as if my winding-sheet 
 
 That moonlight lies like bright steel bar 
 And heavy on my heart. Afar 
 I hear the rolling town once more 
 Strike steel to stone. 
 
 "O, God! to sleep! 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 165 
 
 that my weary feet could stray 
 But once again in that vast deep 
 And distant wild land of delight, 
 Where men take hardly note of night 
 And night deals generous with day. 
 
 1 will return again nay, nay ! 
 
 What queen shall rule this realm but I ? 
 
 Who looks back perishes ! My way 
 
 Lies open and inviting now. 
 
 My feet are strong ; upon my brow, 
 
 My dark and ample brow is set 
 
 The brightest star in social sky, 
 
 And it shall wear the coronet. 
 
 "My soul, stay with me, nor forget: 
 
 Stay with me, nor return again 
 
 To land of seas and wild, white rain, 
 
 Until I gain the coronet ; 
 
 Let Doughal sleep his well-earned sleep 
 
 With wild beasts neath the sundown deep. 
 
 My face is front, my brow is set 
 
 For conquest and a coronet." 
 
1 66 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Two strange ships on an unknown sea, 
 That counter sail, to God knows where, 
 May meet, but pass not instantly. 
 The very fact of being there 
 Proves them of common lot, a life 
 In battled elements and strife ; 
 And they will break their loneliness, 
 And bow white sails across the sea, 
 Though they should prove, at last, to be 
 But common in their dark distress. 
 Two ships oft met on this lone main ; 
 The Baroness, Sir Francis Jain. 
 
 How these digressions do disgust 
 And weary you ! You much mistrust 
 The man has little fruit to show 
 Who plucks wild flowers as you go, 
 And loiters at his garden gate, 
 And seems to halt and hesitate 
 To lead right up the path to where 
 His fruits hang ripest and most fair. 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 167 
 
 We will return, and not again 
 Depart the path. Perhaps with pain 
 I see the dull conclusion. I 
 Would dally by the way, would lie 
 Forever on the common grass, 
 And let the vulgar, panting pass. 
 
 Nay, haste not like the hired slave ; 
 Take life s good as you go, my friend. 
 Haste not, haste not. Behold ! the end 
 Of each man s road is in a grave. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Sir Francis and his lady fair 
 Rode far from out the Park and town. 
 A star was in her midnight hair, 
 Her hand shone with a starry stone 
 That lit their bridle path at night. 
 Like some tall shepherd, shepherding 
 His flock upon the soundless flood, 
 A far ship anchored, tall and white. 
 The snapping bat was on the wing, 
 
 
r68 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 A dog howled from the distant wood ; 
 And right and left, and white and lone, 
 Some mighty marbles ghostly stood. 
 
 Twas night, and yet it was not dark. 
 
 They long had passed broad Central Park ; 
 
 And yet they rode on silently, 
 
 Until the great, white-girdled moon, 
 
 As soft as summer afternoon, 
 
 Came wheeling up the sea, and lay 
 
 Her broad, white shoulders bare as day ; 
 
 As if at some fair, festal ball 
 
 Of gathered stars at carnival. 
 
 He reined, he turned him home at last, 
 
 Yet scarce a word his lips had passed. 
 
 And at his side his lady, she 
 
 Rode silent and as wrapt as he ; 
 
 Rode still and constant, as if she 
 
 Had been his guardian angel, bound 
 
 To lead him through some dark profound. 
 
 His soul was as some ship that drew 
 All silent through the burst of seas, 
 Pursuing some far distant star 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 169 
 
 That spun unfixed forever through 
 The boundless upper seas of blue. 
 She seemed so near, and yet so far. 
 Just now she seemed as near as woe ; 
 Just now she seemed as far as though 
 They dwelt in the antipodes. 
 
 They silent rode. She looked away, 
 As one that had no word to say. 
 She had her secret, this he knew ; 
 Yet ofttime in the night alone, 
 He waked and wondered if the true 
 And heart-pent history was known 
 If painted in its blackest hue, 
 Twould make a shadow to his own. 
 
 Two strange, uncommon souls were these 
 That silent sailed uncompassed seas. 
 Far out from any ship or shore, 
 Far out from reef or breakers roar. 
 Where ships of commerce never drew 
 A keel, these two ships crossed, and knew 
 Each other as they sailed alone, 
 And on, to under worlds unknown. 
 
i;o ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 O golden, sacred silentness ! 
 Take thou the silver coin of speech, 
 And bribe your way to hearts, so less 
 Than hearts the silences shall reach. 
 
 Two strangers rode in silence down 
 Against the sounding, teeming town ; 
 Two strangers. Yet two souls that knew 
 Heart histories far better than 
 The wisest and profoundest may 
 That ever read earth s archives through. 
 
 Didst ever think how souls have size 
 And weight and measure in God s eyes, 
 So other than the weight and span 
 And measure given them by man ? 
 
 Why, there be hunchback souls that stand 
 Beside tall souls, broad-browed and grand ; 
 And these bend ever, and look down 
 Upon the great soul s rumpled gown, 
 And see upon its trail a stain, 
 Obtained, perchance, in some great fight, 
 In silent battle for the right ; 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 171 
 
 And then they mock and make complain, 
 And wagging point the world the stain. 
 
 Then there be shallow souls that seem 
 To foam along like shallow stream, 
 As if they feared the while you would 
 Forget that they had ever been, 
 Did they not keep their clang and din: 
 And, come to think, perhaps, you should. 
 
 In middle heaven moved the moon. 
 
 Still slow they rode and silently, 
 
 Till sudden distant thunder fell 
 
 From out fair heaven. Like a knell 
 
 Of some departed afternoon, 
 
 That dying, leaves a heritage 
 
 Of undivided memory 
 
 Of most delicious love, it fell 
 
 Upon the wrapt Sir Francis Jain 
 
 And startled him. He threw the gage 
 
 To fate, rose full, clutched at his rein, 
 
 Struck heel to flank, threw back his hair, 
 
 Spoke loud, and laughed with careless air 
 
 Of tempest driving up the skies, 
 
 And lifting unto her, his eyes, 
 
I 7 2 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 At touch of large, slant drops of rain, 
 
 He gathered up his strength again, 
 
 And strange, far thought, that still would roam, 
 
 And plunged and led right hard for home. 
 
 The desolation of the plain, 
 The perfect solitude, the reign 
 Of ghosts and spirits of the dark 
 Came down. The tempest s wild complain 
 Was monsterlike. The driving rain 
 And loud-voiced furies rode the air. 
 No lamp, no light, stood out that night, 
 No star in heaven set a mark 
 Twas darkness, darkness, everywhere. 
 They pierced the middle of the Park. 
 Their road led underneath the ground ; 
 The arches echoed far, profound. 
 The winding paths led in and out, 
 The tempest rode in merry rout ; 
 They rode against the slanting rain, 
 They rode a circle round and round, 
 
 And rode in circle yet again. 
 
 \ 
 
 And still they rode, still round and round, 
 By darkling arch, beneath the ground, 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 173 
 
 The while the hoofs kept clanging sound. 
 At last quite wild and quite worn out, 
 Sir Francis turned and gave a shout 
 From underneath an arch. From out 
 A deeper arch, a cave, hard by, 
 There came a sharp, responding cry. 
 
 "Ho ! ho ! A call for help. We come t 
 Come ! Up ! my comrades ; follow me ! " 
 Sir Francis turned his head, and he 
 Stood still, as one struck stark and dumb ; 
 For lightnings fell in sheets just then, 
 And showed a line of surly men. 
 
 But these Sir Francis heeded not ; 
 His flashing eyes the instant fell 
 Upon their leader ; one who stood 
 The tallest tree of some dark wood. 
 He stood as one that time forgot, 
 Or feared to tackle, or to lay 
 A hand upon he stood so well, 
 That time went by the other way. 
 
 And still Sir Francis sat and sat 
 
 His steed, and stared and stared thereat. 
 
174 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 He looked right in the robber s face, 
 Who stood and boldly stood his place ; 
 The while the men drew circle round, 
 And made secure their vantage-ground. 
 
 Their leader bowed and stepped before 
 Sir Francis, and laid hold the rein. 
 He bade the lady pass ; she passed, 
 Then turned, and peering glances cast. 
 His lifted brow was white and broad, 
 His presence like a demigod. 
 He was all coolness leisure now, 
 He shook his brown locks from his brow, 
 Half smiled, and blandly bowed again ; 
 And then he turned, stern raised a hand, 
 Toward his men, gave some command, 
 Held high his lamp before Sir Jain, 
 Half laughed, then smiling, bowed again. 
 
 Again he jerked his lantern high, 
 Half turned, and heard the lady s cry, 
 The while she sat her steed hard by. 
 Quite lowly then he bowed once more, 
 And stepping back, with bended head 
 And courteous bearing, gaily said 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 175 
 
 He did most certainly deplore 
 
 The state of weather ; twas severe ; 
 
 A sort of equinox, he thought ; 
 
 He said to-morrow surely ought 
 
 In conscience, to be bright and clear, 
 
 For sunshine surely follows rain ; 
 
 Then turned him to Sir Francis Jain. 
 
 He haughty bowed his broad, high head, 
 And in the Queen s best English, said : 
 " But* now this weather question, sir 
 The winds, the rains, the sudden rise 
 Of choler in the angered skies ; 
 The fall of the barometer, 
 The storms by land, the calms by seas, 
 Are fixed by Probabilities ! 
 
 " You meet your neighbor now at morn, 
 Shake hands, how-how, then hesitate. 
 You first look fluttered, then forlorn. 
 You cannot speak. You know the great 
 Eternal question now is done. 
 Six thousand years men met together 
 And calmly talked about the weather, 
 But now, the papers run the sun. 
 
176 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 A man asks, ( Will it rain to-day ? 
 Give him two cents and go your way. 
 
 " And you, my friend, if you had thought 
 This evening as you galloped out 
 And hailed a poor newsboy and bought 
 A first-class paper, why, no doubt 
 The small investment, sir, had been 
 A big investment for your tin. 
 
 " And this reminds me, by-the-way, 
 That tin is what we want. I know, 
 A very common want to-day. 
 But so extravagant, and so 
 Exacting are the ladies, and 
 So many are the needs of men 
 To hold respect and have a place 
 In woman s heart 
 
 Ah ! madam, I, 
 
 I do assure you, I had rather die 
 Than make offense, or so disgrace 
 Myself and fellows, as to stand 
 In your sweet presence here and say 
 One word against the sex for which 
 We hazard all. Yes, madam ! you 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 177 
 
 Can hardly think what men pull through 
 To be illustrious, grand, or rich ; 
 To please you, charm you, win the prize 
 Of love, in love s enchanting eyes ! 
 
 " And, sir ! I end as I begin, 
 By hinting, I am out of tin. 
 But not for self, believe me, sir, 
 I make demand, but all for her. 
 
 "The ships that plow the foamy track, 
 The mines that open mouths of gold, 
 The smoke of battle rolling back, 
 Enshrouding thousands stark and cold, 
 The tracking of the trackless climes, 
 The thousand crowns, the thousand crimes 
 Of man, the woman-worshiper 
 All won or done alone for her. 
 
 " But, lady, please pass on a pace ; 
 Pray climb that ridge above the moat, 
 The truth is, being gentle-born, you see, 
 The presence of a lady s face 
 It always did embarrass me 
 Whene er I meant to cut a throat. 
 12 
 
178 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 "Nay, nay, pass on. I do but jest. 
 
 Tis one of my rough, playful pranks ; 
 
 I only have a slight request 
 
 To make of this, your gallant knight ; 
 
 And I, in truth, am too polite 
 
 To talk of business in the sight 
 
 Of ladies. Ah ! thanks, madam, thanks ! 
 
 I will not keep you long. The night 
 
 Is damp. Then tis so very late, 
 
 Twere impolite to make you wait. 
 
 "And now, sir, one word with you, I pray, 
 
 Be you banker, merchant, what you may ; 
 
 I read you truly this prophesy. 
 
 And profit who may ; it is naught to me ; 
 
 But go on as you go, and your tramps shall be, 
 
 In a few years more, your majority. 
 
 Your bold, bad merchants of the vote, 
 
 The politician with his hand 
 
 Clutched tight around the country s throat, 
 
 While helpless millions weeping stand 
 
 And shiver in their rags before 
 
 The silent, closed, and mouldy door, 
 
 Of factory and busy mill, 
 
 With loom and spindle rusting still 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 179 
 
 That make sweet melody no more 
 These men they nothing risk at all 
 Save reputation. And take note 
 That that is most exceeding small. 
 Now, sir, we pay you our respects 
 Like men. We rob, but do not lie. 
 "We take your purses openly, 
 We rob, but also risk our necks. 
 
 " Ah ! so you would proceed. No doubt ! 
 Nay, stop ! Stand sir ! Stand ! Take out 
 That quick right hand that you have just 
 This moment in your bosom thrust ! 
 Take out your hand ! No ? Shall it be 
 Purse ? or pistol ? Look at me ! 
 You see I do not flinch. My face 
 Is lifted unto yours. 
 
 My place 
 
 Is peril s front. I know not fear. 
 You have the drop. Then slay me here, 
 And gallop into town and they 
 Will name you hero of the day. 
 
 " Now draw ! Shoot centre ! deadly, true ! 
 What, sir ? Your purse ! By heaven, you 
 
i8o ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 Were born a king ! Whom can you be, 
 To bravely spare a man like me ? 
 Where drew you breath ? 
 
 I know but one 
 But one lone man beneath the sun 
 Who thus could turn and scornfully 
 Give back the life that clutched at his, 
 And with it, purse well filled as this. 
 
 " And that one man, he wore a chain 
 For many a long year at my side 
 In wild Australia. 
 
 And that name ? 
 
 My true chain-fellow chained in shame 
 I speak it with a lofty pride 
 Twas Jain, Sir Jain ! Sir Francis Jain ! 
 
 " Nay, nay, my lady ! Start not so ! 
 No harm shall happen him, I swear. 
 Stand back, my men ! Now may he go ; 
 There is a wildness in his air 
 That even I would hardly dare 
 To trifle with. 
 
 Stand wide, my men, 
 And lift your hats with gallant grace : 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 181 
 
 We shall not see his like again. 
 Come ! let my lantern strike his face ! 
 Now as he gallops from the place ; 
 And note him well, that after this 
 No harm shall hap to him or his ; 
 And mark 
 
 By heaven, it is Jain ! 
 Tis Jain, tis Jain ! Sir Francis Jain ! 
 Come back ! Come, take your gold ; why, I 
 I would not touch it though I die. 
 
 "You will not turn ! Then take the right 
 
 Upon the rise. You see the light 
 
 Above the city s centre rise 
 
 Like London, dashing all the skies ? 
 
 Then ride for that. Ride straight, and you 
 
 Will strike the lighted Avenue ; 
 
 And mind, sir Jain Sir Francis Jain, 
 
 Some morrow eve we meet again. 
 
 This ready gold will guide me through ; 
 
 I, I, the learned young Greek, and you, 
 
 The lion of the Avenue ; 
 
 I, I, the patriot Greek, denied 
 
 Gods ! they are gone ! hear how they ride ! " 
 
1 82 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Sir Francis* face was on his hand. 
 His eyes looked blankly, helpless down ; 
 His brow was dark with sullen frown. 
 His hair was tumbled wildly, and 
 His face was flushed as one that wept, 
 And yet wept not, nor waked, nor slept. 
 
 A pistol nestled close beside 
 A nervous and outreaching hand ; 
 A thing familiar and long tried, 
 That waited as for some command. 
 
 He rose and slowly walked the floor, 
 Then sat him down and swiftly wrote, 
 With fevered hand, a hurried note. 
 Then quick he rose, and clutched and tore 
 What he had writ, and, still in frown, 
 Strode long and thoughtful up and down. 
 
 At last he stopped, as one outworn, 
 Sat down, took up the fragments torn, 
 
( A ^ lc 
 
 ON FIFTH AVEN&Er- 183 
 
 And sadly smiled. And now he caught 
 Convulsively, as racked with pain, 
 The pen, spread out the page again, 
 And wrote as one made mad with thought. 
 
 " Farewell, farewell, yet not farewell. 
 I know the sullen, clanging knell 
 Of clod on coffin-lid means all 
 Is over. Yet the bleeding heart 
 Is oft too wounded to depart, 
 And so creeps in the buried pall. 
 
 " Oh, let my broken heart still true, 
 Come back with olive branch to rest 
 From thy proud presence. This were best ; 
 Oh, this were best, indeed, for you. 
 
 " Mine ark is as some broken bark, 
 That ever buffets storm. The dark 
 Has mantled me. My fluttered dove 
 Went forth a fond, devoted love. 
 Now give it peace of death and rest, 
 Oh, fair and faultless, this were best. 
 
 " I loved you, lady love you now, 
 With love intensified to pain ; 
 
1 84 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 But we must never meet again. 
 I write to give you back your vow. 
 
 " Oh, fair, white dove, the olive bough, 
 Lies deep submerged. My ship drives on 
 In deluge and in darkness. Night 
 Has compassed me at last, and now 
 Must you escape and live. But dawn 
 Is yours, and days of calm delight. 
 
 "Lo ! here I sit, forlorn, to-night, 
 And calmly write and sign for you 
 Mine own death-warrant. 
 
 The disdain 
 
 Of universal earth was naught 
 Had you but hovered in my sight. 
 I could have lived in you, forgot 
 The deep indignity, the stain, 
 The perils my young life passed through, 
 The hard reproaches and heart pain. 
 But all is over. 
 
 It is due 
 
 To your position, and to you, 
 To tell you I am that same Jain, 
 The convict Jain, Sir Francis Jain. 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 185 
 
 I bore that name because it was 
 My noble, gentle, father s name ; 
 A name renounced the day he wed 
 My mother, and brought on his head 
 A father s curse. 
 
 In pride or shame, 
 I wore, and I shall wear that name. 
 I love, I bear that name, because 
 It was my sire s all that he 
 In dying could bequeath to me. 
 
 "I would not palliate, nor claim 
 One touch of tenderness, no tear 
 From you, fair girl ; from any one 
 Beneath the broad, all-seeing sun. 
 But I would have you know that name 
 Is my real name ; that it is dear ; 
 That I have worn it e er, my friend, 
 Unshamed, and so shall to the end. 
 
 " I might have worn a nobler still, 
 Indeed might now, the lord of Rude. 
 But mine own proud, impatient will, 
 It rose and led me on, and hewed 
 Another path. 
 
i86 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 In solitude 
 
 My sire s sire childless weeps, 
 And waits, and mournful vigil keeps 
 For my return. I cannot bear 
 Nor brook the thought to turn me there, 
 To front again that iron face, 
 That let my father helpless die 
 Because he wed a peasant wife, 
 And chose a lowly walk in life 
 That let my dying mother lie 
 In hovel and alone, while I 
 For battling for my mother s race 
 Prayed death from prison and disgrace. . 
 
 " O sea-green glory of the sea ; 
 Sweet isle of song and history, 
 And fair-haired woman, with a grace 
 Of heaven in thy lighted face 
 Thou, Erin, I was true to thee. . . . 
 
 "We sometimes laugh so loud that we 
 From very joy must turn and weep. 
 The world is round. Extremes must meet. 
 We sometimes mourn so very deep 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 187 
 
 That we do laugh hysterically, 
 As if the bitter had been sweet. 
 
 " It comes to be my strange belief, 
 From what my life has heard and seen, 
 That you may bend your ear, and you 
 May whisper soft as far-off bird, 
 Against the wall that lifts between 
 Intensest joy, intensest grief, 
 And so be quite distinctly heard. 
 The world is round. Extremes must meet. 
 The sweet is bitter ; bitter sweet. 
 
 " Why, I sit smiling now. The tears 
 That had been prisoned long, long years, 
 Hard frozen that refused to flow 
 For mine or for my father s woe, 
 Have flowed to-night in streams above 
 The grave of this new-buried love. . . . 
 
 " Tis pitiful, tis painful. Yet 
 With all this agonized regret, 
 That all is o er, there has come 
 A strange, uncommon sense of rest. 
 My feet shall rest. My lips be dumb, 
 
i88 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 For earth has nothing I request. 
 
 And now to life s conclusion must 
 
 My lips be stopped as stopped with dust. 
 
 " As one, far traversing the West, 
 Finds some vast sea and troubled wave, 
 Some trackless sea of boundless shore 
 That shuts the world he would explore, 
 And so sits down and digs his grave, 
 And calmly waits his final rest, 
 So I sit waiting, sad, yet fond, 
 Half glad that earth has naught beyond. 
 
 " Not one fair foot-print marks my shore. 
 The Sea stretched forth his cold, white hands, 
 And leveled smooth the shining sands 
 Where your feet passed the day before. 
 Now all lies blank. I, now, no more 
 Shall look before. Let me look back 
 Along my lone life s dubious track. 
 
 " I had a friend, one friend, who stood 
 Like some high-lifted, lighted tower, 
 Above the stormy, sea-foam flood 
 On peril s front, in peril s hour. 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 189 
 
 Oh, lady, know you what it is 
 To know unskaken soul like this ? 
 
 " The stakes were freedom and renown. 
 
 God s freedom to the grandest race 
 
 That ever groaned in the disgrace 
 
 Of foreign court and foreign crown. 
 
 Twas freedom or a felon s chain. 
 
 We staked and lost. . . . We would again. 
 
 " My fellow-captive was my friend ; 
 A braver, nobler man than I ; 
 A man who ever sought to die, 
 And so lives on unto the end. 
 You ask me where may now abide 
 This friend so chivalrous, so tried ? 
 This man so braver, nobler born, 
 Who held all rank in splendid scorn ? 
 
 " Hold back your face. You may not care 
 To hear his name and place till you 
 Have seen how faithful and how true 
 He was, and what his soul could dare 
 In deadly circumstance, or how 
 He grew the knave I find him now. 
 
190 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 " Why, we were chained chained hand to hand 
 
 And in this prison men t we grew 
 
 In firmer friendship than they knew ; 
 
 And, spite of hard oppression, stood 
 
 Like two tall poplars of the wood, 
 
 Half wedded, for he was more grand 
 
 Than proudest noble of the land. 
 
 "At last one night we broke this chain, 
 In wild Australian fortress. We 
 Could only hear the tumbling sea 
 Break hard against the beetling wall, 
 And lift and fall, and that was all ; 
 We knew not where we were, no more 
 Than midnight storm of driving rain 
 That beat the sea and shook the shore. 
 
 " We reckless climbed the beetling wall, 
 Down which it seemed a ghost would fall. 
 And when we breathed free air again, 
 And when we touched the fields and fled, 
 While I crept by as one nigh dead, 
 Why, every loose link of my chain, 
 The iron ball I dragged in pain, 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 191 
 
 He bore upon his shoulders broad 
 All day, as if some demigod. 
 
 " We broke the chains anew, and then 
 Once more were free, unfettered men. 
 But cursed chains leave a trail and trace 
 Sometime, that years shall not efface. 
 
 " At last, outworn and faint we stood 
 Far off against the upland wood, 
 Where stretched two dim, dividing trails. 
 One led o er mountains, one through vales, 
 And all were as unknown to me 
 As unnamed isles of middle sea. 
 
 " We knew no road, no sign, or chart ; 
 
 Knew naught at all. We only knew 
 
 That there would be a deadly chase 
 
 O er mountain height, by mountain base. 
 
 We bore full heritage of hate, 
 
 For we were leaders ; were the two 
 
 That stood as pillars to the gate 
 
 Of freedom, while the brave passed through. 
 
 " We knew that we must instant part, 
 Take divers ways, in hopes that one 
 
192 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 Might grope the tangled jungle through, 
 And with a bold, unbroken heart 
 Escape, to undertake anew 
 The work we nobly had begun. 
 
 " He bade me take my choice of trails. 
 
 I did refuse. Pie smiling drew 
 
 A halfpence forth, and gaily threw 
 
 Our only fortune in the air. 
 
 * Come ! choose, my comrade ! Heads or tails ? 
 
 How he did counterfeit the care 
 
 That burrowed deep his mighty heart ! 
 
 I knew his heart was breaking knew 
 
 The while that all this dash and dare 
 
 Was done for me, to make me bear 
 
 With fortitude, my further part. 
 
 I chose. And so we parted there 
 
 That instant, with one last embrace, 
 
 All silent, with averted face. 
 
 " Through lonely vales he took his flight ; 
 My way led up the mountain height ; 
 And mark what followed : Weak and worn, 
 My body bent, my bare feet torn, 
 I sought safe shelter for the night 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 193 
 
 In densest copse along the height, 
 Where great rocks rose above a cave, 
 As if to guard some giant s grave. 
 
 " I gathered sticks, struck flint and steel, 
 And when the flames leapt up, behold ! 
 The cave was one vast mass of gold 
 More gold than England s vaults conceal ! 
 To only think that all this dross 
 Depended on a copper s toss. 
 
 " I gathered gold. In pain and fear, 
 I sought the sea with burdened hands 
 I bribed my way to better lands ; 
 But secret I returned each year, 
 To seek my comrade far and wide, 
 And up and down ; and all in vain. 
 Each year I gathered heaps of gold 
 From my great coffers hidden deep, 
 "Where spotted tigers house and sleep. 
 I gave gave generous and bold 
 As Caesar, so to bribe, reward 
 The sheep-men, officers or guard, 
 
 To bring me my lost friend again. 
 13 
 
i 9 4 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 They told me he had surely died 
 
 From beasts or flood. They lied ! they lied, 
 
 " Forgive me, love. Yea, pity me. 
 Man s face is fronted to a wall. 
 He prophesies to-morrows. All 
 His days, he plans of days to be ; 
 And yet, poor fool, he cannot see 
 One inch before, around, or o er 
 The wall that circles him. And I 
 Am even as the blindest. Could 
 I foreknow that he should rise, 
 Red-handed, in my road at night, 
 Arrayed in that dark robber s guise? 
 
 This man who erst stood up to die 
 
 For honor s sake ? 
 
 We two once stood 
 
 On peril s bristled height alone ; 
 
 We two, in God s high-lifted light, 
 
 Exulting but in purity. 
 
 Shall I desert him overthrown ? 
 
 Forsake my friend because his soul 
 
 Is slimed and perishing ? 
 
 Ah, me ! 
 
 Twere base to fly and leave a friend 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 195 
 
 .All bleeding on the battle-field, 
 Without one shelt ring hand or shield 
 To help when battle s thunders roll. 
 
 " But that were little. Dying there 
 
 On glory s front, with trumpet s blare, 
 
 And battle s shout blent wild about 
 
 The sense of sacrifice, the roar 
 
 Of war, the soul might well leap out 
 
 The snow-white soul leap boldly out 
 
 The door of wounds, and up the stair 
 
 Of heaven to God s open door, 
 
 While yet the hands were bent in prayer. 
 
 But ah ! to leave a soul o erthrown, 
 
 And doomed to slowly die alone ! 
 
 " The body is not much. Twere best 
 Take up the soul and leave the rest. 
 It seems to me the man who leaves 
 The soul to perish, is as one 
 Who gathers up the empty sheaves 
 When all the golden grain is done. 
 
 " Farewell ! I reach this man the hand 
 That had been yours, that he may stand. 
 
196 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 Farewell ! Forget me, lest you hear 
 The world your love insult with sneer. 
 Farewell ; this robber was my friend, 
 Is now, and shall be to the end. 
 
 " Farewell ! God help me now. For such 
 Hard conflicts tide about my heart 
 That I do hesitate. 
 
 The part 
 
 Of man is in the ranks to die 
 Hard battling for the shining right ; 
 But when all things partake a touch 
 Of darkness and a touch of light, 
 The skein comes tangled. Then the woof 
 And warp of life proves reason-proof. 
 O heaven ! for a sword so true 
 Of edge that I might cleave this through ! 
 
 " The years lift like a stair. Arise 
 And climb the stairway to the skies, 
 And look possession of the world 
 That lies quite conquered at your feet. 
 Yet range not far, I do entreat ; 
 Black clouds will cross the fairest skies, 
 The fullest tides must ebb and flow ; 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 197 
 
 The proudest king that e er unfurled 
 His banners, met his overthrow. 
 
 " Farewell, farewell ! for aye, farewell. 
 
 Yet must I end as I began. 
 
 I love you, love you, love but you 
 
 I love you now as never man 
 
 Has loved since man and woman fell, 
 
 Or God gave man inheritance, 
 
 Or sense of love, or any sense. 
 
 And that is why, O love, I can, 
 
 Lift up to you my burning brow 
 
 To-night, and so renounce you now." 
 
 XVII. 
 
 It took two large, brown envelopes, 
 Of Congress-shape ; in fact, such ones 
 As Congressmen frank home by tons, 
 To hold this tale of blighted hopes. 
 
 He sealed them tight, addressed each one, 
 Then licked the unlicked Washington, 
 
198 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 And stamped them fully. 
 
 Then he rose 
 
 And, feeling really he had done 
 All things a gentleman could do, 
 He rolled a cigarette. 
 
 Then unto 
 
 This fuse he plied a match, and blew 
 A booming, double volley through 
 His lifted and beclouded nose ; 
 As if some double-barreled gun 
 Shot at the ugly world below, 
 The cold, cold, cruel world, you know. 
 
 The letters sent, he paced the floor 
 Impatiently, and until morn, 
 As one most hopeless, in proud scorn. 
 What would she do ? 
 
 What could he more ? 
 These things he questioned o er and o er, 
 Till morn made answer at the door. 
 
 He was as one condemned to death, 
 Who respite prays, with bated breath, 
 And clutches quick and breaks the seal 
 To see what fate may now reveal. 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 199 
 
 He snatched this from the messenger, 
 And read these hasty lines from her. 
 
 " My dear Sir Francis, 
 
 Come ! O come ! 
 
 I stand with arms outstretched. The door 
 Is wider even than before. 
 My eyes droop down, my lips are dumb, 
 I walk all time the empty floor. 
 I will not sit until you come. 
 
 " Is love, indeed, a little thing 
 To be put by at time like this, 
 While we stand mute and wondering ? 
 
 come, Sir Francis ! come now, come ! 
 Shall my life round to this small sum ? 
 Shall I make love a trade, and change, 
 Childlike, for aught that falls amiss, 
 And range as common women range ? 
 
 " O, do not think me over-bold ! 
 You say you suffer unto death. 
 Then this is my excuse. The cold 
 And cautious world, with poison breath, 
 
 1 know right well will sentence me 
 
200 FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 To infamy for this. I see 
 
 No other road of duty. So I dare 
 
 Do that which I deem fit and fair. 
 
 "As for the chains and prison s shame, 
 Take no reproach. Tis nobler far 
 To bear defeat than shine a star 
 In circled seat of rounded fame. 
 I reach my hand in trust to you, 
 I give unshaken faith, the same 
 As when you rode with shining name, 
 The lion of the Avenue. 
 
 " I give all this, Sir Francis Jain. 
 Pray hold it not in proud disdain. 
 And do you know what little task 
 My love in full return shall ask? 
 
 " Why, it is this. When you shall stand 
 Beside me, and shall hold my hand, 
 And I shall lift my happy face 
 Full into yours, O love, then you 
 Shall promise that if e er disgrace 
 Touch me, that you will prove as true. 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 201 
 
 " Think thrice, Sir Francis, ere you speak, 
 For time is strong and man is weak. 
 Think thrice, then come, and that shall be 
 As God j* own covenant to me. 
 
 "Now bear with truth, and hear me through. 
 
 I am a liar, traitor. You 
 
 Are truth itself compared to one 
 
 Who calls, heart-broken and undone. 
 
 Your truth has conquered me, for now 
 
 I know that man may keep a vow. 
 
 " I am no Baroness. Nay, I 
 Am an impostor, and the lie 
 Is crushing me. 
 
 There, take it all ! 
 You hold the ladder. Let me fall 
 Or hold me to my place, and you 
 Shall be my star the cycles through. 
 
 "Ah ! you despise me. That you may 
 Despise me thoroughly, I pray 
 Hear this. I once was wed 
 To one I loved as never man 
 Was loved since history began. 
 
202 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 He left me to my death. He fled. 
 But he is dead, thank God, is dead. 
 
 " I speak it earnestly. And yet 
 
 I cannot, cannot all forget 
 
 Of that great love. It comes to me 
 
 As climbs some storm-sea o er the beach ; 
 
 Yea, comes like some great, tidal sea 
 
 And teems and drowns my topmost reach. 
 
 You see, O love, I offer you 
 
 No virgin love, yet love as true. 
 
 " I do confess the world is dear, 
 
 For stormed and cruel was my youth ; 
 
 And now I stand low-humbled here, 
 
 Divested of my crown, as one 
 
 Who hath some grand reign just begun. 
 
 The world is dear ; but dearer truth, 
 
 If I can find a man as true, 
 
 O love, to challenge truth, as you. 
 
 " My broken heart, pierced through and through, 
 Throbs audibly. I would reveal 
 Its utmost chamber now to you 
 And not one sacred niche conceal. , 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 203 
 
 And you have all.* My weakness is 
 A longing for a love like this 
 God promised me, and for a name, 
 A proud, fair name. Shall I confess 
 That this same name, the Baroness, 
 "Was more to me, is dearer yet, 
 Than gold or lands ? A crown of shame, 
 Alas ! shall be my coronet. 
 
 " Go save your friend. Give him the hand 
 
 That had been mine. Then come to me, 
 
 If you, through all eternity, 
 
 Would save a soul. I cannot stand 
 
 Alone. This well-established lie 
 
 Is like a mill-stone to my neck, and I 
 
 Must reach some solid shore or die. 
 
 " Yet if there lives on all this earth 
 One man as true, yea, half as true, 
 Yea, of one-hundredth part the worth 
 As this same friend that waits for you, 
 Why come, if you despise me not, 
 And let us haste, haste, seek the spot 
 Where he conceals, and reach this man . 
 Two hands ; two hands ! for surely two, 
 
204 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 Made strong with love, and reaching so, 
 Were stronger for his poor soul than 
 One hand made weak with pain and woe." 
 
 As some brief -banished king that turns 
 Rejoicing to resume his throne 
 As some bright light that leaps and burns 
 Above the darkness when the blown 
 Swift winds delight the leaping flame, 
 Sir Francis, fond and eager came. 
 
 For he had groped with sorrow through 
 The vale of desolation. He 
 Had learned how rare the fountains are 
 On life s long, level desert. Few 
 Had been his friends, and these were far 
 Away in banishment. He knew, 
 And strange, indeed, how few there be 
 Who know how rare is love ! Ah me ! 
 Who know the half way worth of it ; 
 Or even love s delightful counterfeit 1 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 205 
 
 XYIII. 
 
 We may presume Sir Francis swore 
 To do all she bad asked. To stand, 
 As she had stood, with reaching hand ; 
 To help and to protect, if e er 
 Scorn s finger dared to wag at her. 
 Indeed, no doubt, a great deal more 
 Was promised her, as he leaned o er 
 The weeping Niobe, with all 
 The sunrise of his golden hair 
 Spilt down upon the deep nightfall 
 Of her dark hair, ungathered there. 
 
 Twas very strange. He came that night 
 ,A.s swift as love ; so glad, so fleet, 
 To find her falling at his feet, 
 Her face all tears, her full neck bare, 
 And all her black, abundant hair 
 Torn down and tossed in sorry plight. 
 
 s Twas very strange, this nervous fit 
 Of hers. Perhaps a bit of tact 
 
206 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 A woman s little game. In fact, 
 Had it not seemed so very strange, 
 And quite outside the common range, 
 I should not stop to mention it. 
 
 As for her reasons, you must know, 
 I scarce know aught about the sex. 
 An humble chronicler am I 
 Of facts. I cannot stop to vex 
 My brain, by giving reasons why 
 A woman will do thus and so. 
 
 Gods ! Come to think of it, you know, 
 I think that s more than she could do. 
 But I would just suggest that you 
 Should bundle up these facts, and go 
 To some old man in double specs 
 Some old, old man, who knows the sex. 
 Find some experienced old man, 
 The very oldest that you can. 
 
 The morning must succeed the night. 
 All storms subside. The clouds drive by. 
 And when again the glorious light 
 From heaven s gate comes bursting through, 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 207 
 
 Behold ! the rains have washed the sky 
 As bright as heaven s bluest blue. 
 
 She would have, weeping, told him all, 
 Each name, each date, each circumstance, 
 Her father s crimes, the bloody chance 
 That brought her fortune, wrought her fall . 
 But he, he would not hear one word, 
 Nor scarce believed what he had heard. 
 
 "My ships are burned, I break no more 
 The hush of seas. My friend is found, 
 And all my life shall now be bound 
 With thee, and bounded by thy shore. 
 If your pure heart was pierced with pain 
 Of love that you can scarce forget, 
 Remember there is deeper stain 
 On my fair fame and coronet." 
 
 He thought a time, then raised his head, 
 And in a deep, firm voice, he said, 
 " Now let the dead past bury its dead. 
 I reach my hand, and over all 
 I veil the dead past as a pall. 
 
2 o8 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 "Be tranquil, thou. Persuade thy soul 
 To peace. My life seems perfect now. 
 Thy broken life shall be made whole ; 
 My friend shall lift his ample brow, 
 In time, and climb to better things, 
 Supported by thine angel wings." 
 
 O, they, indeed, were lovers now, 
 
 Fast bound by many a breathless vow 
 
 And promise, seal-set, o er and o er, 
 
 On ruddy lips and lifted brow, 
 
 That naught should ever part them more. 
 
 The days went by one calm delight, 
 
 And night scarce wore the shade of night. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 There stands a sort of Chinese box, 
 A pied-house, topt with ginger-bread, 
 And speckled, as if from a pox. 
 An imitation, it is said, 
 Of the Venetian. That may be, 
 For it looks awfully at sea. 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 209 
 
 O, pity for the decent blocks, 
 
 Of square, and, doubtless, honest rocks, 
 
 That make this mixed and mottled pox. 
 
 O, shade of Michael Angelo, 
 Whom only death set in the shade ! 
 Forgive my countrymen, and O, 
 Forget their large contempt of thee ; 
 Forgive their crime s enormity, 
 In all these piles of bricks displayed. 
 
 What shame, what shame, to treat earth so ! 
 
 My honest builders, do you know 
 
 That every bit of brother clay 
 
 That builds a wall or paves a way, 
 
 Is ever struggling to express 
 
 Some gentler form of loveliness ? 
 
 Behold the beauty of a tree, 
 A leaf, a bud ; and hearken, ye 
 The vilest bit of stuff that falls, 
 Takes form and blossoms, if it can, 
 Along the lonesome path of man, 
 And makes earth beautiful to see. 
 But O, those melancholy walls ! 
 14 
 
210 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 } Tis hardly treating with respect 
 Your brother earth, it seems to me, 
 To give it such deformity. 
 
 I beg your pardon. We return 
 To our mutton, sheep, or lambs 
 The gentle lambs, whom both, I learn, 
 Are going to the crowded jams 
 In that pied-house, where men have sent 
 A thousand pictures to a Fair. 
 I speak with license, understand ; 
 Perhaps a hundred had been lent, 
 But then a thousand sounds, in verse, 
 Or doggerel, or something worse, 
 More rounded, and a deal more grand. 
 
 XX. 
 
 A ripple rustled through the crowd, 
 Then all eyes left the leaning wall, 
 And all did reach their necks, and all 
 Did whisper eagerly and loud. 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 211 
 
 She leaned reliant on hifc arm, 
 
 As if she felt that never harm 
 
 Or accident or any shame 
 
 Could touch her now, whatever came. 
 
 She moved beside him like a dream, 
 
 And calm as some deep, sea-bound stream. 
 
 A dense and crowded night it was. 
 Now bear in mind, my duty is, 
 And was, and will be, touching this, 
 To give the facts, and not the cause. 
 
 Well, they were packed and jammed that night, 
 
 The noblest of the Avenue, 
 
 Till all seemed so uncommon tight, 
 
 They scarce could twist them through and through. 
 
 I know not why, yet one might guess, 
 They came that night because they knew 
 The lion and the lioness 
 That sultry eve would come to view 
 These grand gifts of the Avenue. 
 
 And this might argue there were spies 
 To tell not only what they did, 
 
2 i2 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 But what they meant to do. 
 
 The lid 
 
 On Dame Pandora s box, or Miss 
 Pandora, I much fear me, lies 
 Quite loose and careless ; blown about 
 By any counter w^inds that rise ; 
 And my conclusion of it is, 
 The greatest evils she lets out 
 Are lover s secrets. What say you, 
 Fair ladies of the Avenue ? 
 
 The lovers passed from hall to hall, 
 And sudden, in a bright room, faced 
 A man, with many a friend around. 
 Twas Doughal ; he whom we have traced 
 Through flood and flame ; whom we have found 
 A brigand, cursed, damned and disgraced. 
 He stood up comely, proud and tall ; 
 A stalwart, sort of second Saul, 
 A man that overtopt them all. 
 
 He seemed to see, yet saw her not ; 
 His eyes ranged distant as his thought. 
 She started, shrunk back in her place, 
 As if a flame had struck her face. 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 213 
 
 " Tis Doughal ! and the man does live ! 
 The one man lives that now can give 
 The lie to my pretentious life, 
 Before I be Sir Francis wife ! 
 
 " Now must one perish : tis not I, 
 
 But cold, cursed, Doughal, that shall die ! " 
 
 Sir Jain was drunk with love. He bent 
 His head, his eyes with fond intent 
 But did not hear her, did not see 
 Her grief, nor guess her agony. 
 
 The two passed on. Her face was white. 
 
 Sir Francis nothing saw but light 
 
 And love, bright shining like a star 
 
 In his broad firmament of bliss. 
 
 Men are not shrewd as women are ; 
 
 A woman feels an atmosphere, 
 
 Sees all, where men see naught at all. 
 
 Her instincts lead where reasons fall. 
 
 Now it may be the reason is, 
 
 Her little feet are set more near 
 
 The light of golden gates ajar. 
 
2i 4 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 Sir Francis did not choose just then 
 To front his friend in crowds of men ; 
 But bided better time and place 
 To bring the two first face to face. 
 And so the lovers silent passed. 
 Her eyes upon the floor steadfast, 
 Were burning flame. No tear, no sigh, 
 No livid lip, no pallid brow, 
 No starting back, no trembling now. 
 She only murmured, " he must die ! " 
 
 XXI. 
 
 With Doughal stood the advocate, 
 Quite proud and honored to be seen 
 In this learned grand Greek s company. 
 He clutched his button-hole, and he 
 Clung hard and held him fast as fate, 
 And glancing round, back, and between, 
 Began all breathless to relate 
 How this Sir Francis, one midnight, 
 Was set upon by tramps ; how one 
 Of these same fellows had betrayed 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 215 
 
 The band ; that now the trap was laid ; 
 But strangest thing beneath the sun 
 And here he clutched him close and tight, 
 Let fall his voice, looked left and right, 
 Held close his head, and, whispering, said : 
 " The leader of this midnight band 
 And this Sir Jain are hand in hand ! " 
 
 " A new Dick Turpin," smiled the man, 
 And stroked his beard, and stood up tall, 
 And calmly smiled his scorn on all. 
 " A poor, weak imitation he. 
 I hate all copyists. 
 
 My plan 
 
 Would be to paint a picture ; do 
 A thing original. Now you 
 Have room to paint eternity, 
 In this vast land where scarcely yet 
 God s rounding compass has been set ; 
 And, for a land so very new, 
 Your skies are glorious to see. 
 
 " And yet your silry painters paint 
 The old Italian figure, saint 
 And dark Madonna ; all outdone 
 
216 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 The century they first struck oil. 
 Paint nature, sir ; cast off the coil 
 Of custom. Why paint mortal more, 
 Where God leads ever on before, 
 As visible as your broad sun? 
 Ah no ! Your feeble painters paint 
 Their imitations, till the taint 
 Of felony attaches. 
 
 Be 
 
 Patient, sir, and pardon me ; 
 But will you tell me what you call 
 That red wall-paper that hangs the wall?" 
 
 Once more the man glanced left and right, 
 
 Then knit his brows from nose to crown. 
 
 And then he held a pamphlet out, 
 
 And half-way turned to catch the light. 
 
 Then with a stiff, important pout, 
 
 As if to say, beyond a doubt, 
 
 You put it rather strong, read out, 
 
 " The Bay of Naples Loaned by Brown." 
 
 " Not loaned by Brown ! Done, you mean ? " 
 "Yes, loaned by Brown, sir. Loaned ! You see, 
 It does not matter here so much 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 217 
 
 Who painted this, or such and such, 
 Not half so much, sir, as to know 
 Who owns the picture now. Twas seen 
 Last year, in this same annual show, 
 Made up, you know, by gen rous loans, 
 * The- Bay of Naples Loaned by Jones. 
 Twas loaned by Smith the year before ; 
 And, this same thing you think a bore, 
 If you took note, would teach to you 
 The changes on the Avenue." 
 
 The robber chieftain smiled and cast 
 1 The fellow raughly off, and passed 
 Along the crowd with lifted head. 
 " A vulgar beast," he laughing said. 
 A knave ! to patient stand and hear 
 A stranger taunt his countrymen, 
 And all their honest aims in art, 
 And never dare to take their part. 
 
 " This land is fair, but many rocks 
 
 Jut out and welcome you with shocks. 
 
 The very men a man should meet, 
 
 Hide modest in some sweet retreat, 
 
 And brass meets brass with knuckled knocks. 
 
2J 8 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 Yea, tis the best land that hath been, 
 An honest town, with all its din ; 
 A Hercules in lion skin ; 
 A brave young world of manly men 
 All should be proud to champion. 
 
 " This rose tree has its thorns, and he 
 Is but a prickle on the tree. 
 As for this crowd, these pictures here, 
 >Tis but the froth that hides the beer." 
 Half laughing thus, in merry mood, 
 He came to where Sir Francis stood. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 His lovely lady, from the hour 
 She came, had felt the tempest lower, 
 Like black storm banners in the skies, 
 And had not lifted up her eyes. 
 
 Her eyes, her splendid eyes, bent down ; 
 Her large and ever-lifting eyes, 
 They only felt that sudden frown 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 219 
 
 She felt his eyes fixed on her there, 
 Like dead men s eyes in awful stare. 
 Her rich, red lips fell white with fear, 
 As breathing deadly atmosphere. 
 
 " O come, Sir Francis, take me hence ! 
 This air is poison. Here be men 
 Who frown like gathered thunder, when 
 The lightnings sleep. My woman s sense 
 Perceives it. See ! the women stare, 
 And gather in their garments, where, 
 A very little time before, 
 They crowded round me by the score. 
 
 " Nay, nay, not that ! nor do I fear ; 
 
 I cling the closer unto you, 
 
 For all that men may say or do, 
 
 To bring you shame. But I feel here 
 
 Some dark, and ghost-filled atmosphere." 
 
 And now they stood the centre floor, 
 And suddenly all men stood still, 
 And women stared with common will, 
 And she crept closer than before. 
 She lifted up her great, black eyes 
 
220 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 To his bent eyes, then let them fall 
 She only lifted her black eyes 
 To his bent eyes, and that was all. 
 
 Twas as some covenant of old, 
 
 Renewed with every vow re-said. 
 
 He bended down his lofty head, 
 
 Till her dark hair was dashed with gold. 
 
 Above the two the great lights burned, 
 It seemed with fierce, uncommon glare. 
 She leaned the closer as they turned ; 
 She gathered close her robes to go, 
 When quick the stranger from his place 
 Stepped forth, and glancing in her face, 
 He cried, half hissed, hystericly, 
 "My God ! Sir Francis, it is she ! 
 My fair wife of the wilderness ! 
 Is this your boasted Baroness ?" 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Her great, proud, bended eyes no more 
 Kept sad and frightened to the floor. 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 221 
 
 Beware of those who silent bear 
 All things ; for they all things will dare, 
 When at the last they feel one touch 
 Of wrong or tyranny too much. 
 
 She stood up taller than before. 
 She looked him firmly in the face. 
 She did not speak, and not a trace 
 Of terror, rage, or aught swept o er 
 Her calm, proud soul. 
 
 She only drew 
 
 Her splendid arm more firmly through 
 Her lover s, as she raised her head, 
 And hissing through her teeth, she said, 
 " He lies ! he lies ! This stranger lies ! 
 I know him not ! . . For this he dies ! " 
 
 Sir Francis did not hesitate. 
 
 He made his choice. He knew that fate 
 
 Had drawn her sword-line in the sand ; 
 
 That each man now must play his part, 
 
 With earnestness so more than art, 
 
 And stepped across with tight-clutched hand. 
 
222 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 Twas now much more than life or death. 
 Twas love, and no man drew a breath. 
 They did not stir, nor speak, nor yet 
 The lady s presence quite forget. 
 The two men stood, and each did stare, 
 And glare as rival tigers glare. 
 
 Sir Francis looked, to look him through, 
 Then said, slow whisp ring, "Who are you?" 
 " I am that lady s husband, sir, 
 And will not brook your touch of her ! " 
 
 Her lover staggered back as though 
 The man had struck an iron blow. 
 But instant he recovered. 
 
 "I 
 
 Must beg that you will see my friend. 
 I call you liar ! to the end 
 That we may meet, for you must die ! 
 Pray let me pass ! Come, Baroness 
 Nay, no more words. 
 
 To-morrow morn, 
 
 Why, we will answer scorn for scorn. 
 But here are ladies, sir, and you 
 Ah ! nobly done ! and now, adieu." 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 223 
 
 Then Doughal bowed his face. As one 
 Who feels that never more the sun 
 Shall shine for him, he sought the night, 
 And, homeless, roamed in sorry plight 
 The narrow streets, and waited morn 
 And death, less dreadful than this scorn. 
 
 " O dear Adora. I would give 
 
 The round years of my life to live 
 
 But one pure day with thee again. 
 
 To sit again in sweet retreat, 
 
 To only see thy sacred face, 
 
 Uplifting in its childish grace, 
 
 While I sat silent at thy feet ! 
 
 O, I must speak in vain, in vain ! 
 
 My hands are cursed with crime, my name 
 
 Unstained till now is black with shame. 
 
 It is her curse. I feel it now, 
 
 It lies like Cain s brand on my brow. 
 
 I cannot lift my face, and I 
 
 At morn shall take my place to die." 
 
224 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 The lady scarce a word had heard. 
 She seemed as some poor, fluttered bird ; 
 A bird that hurries anywhere 
 When storm is trembling in the air. 
 
 And did he question her that night, 
 Poor girl in all her sorry plight 
 That night, anticipating morn, 
 Ere he took hurried leave of her ? 
 Of her strange life where passions stir ? 
 Her awful secret, love, or scorn ? 
 
 I know not that. But I should say 
 He spoke her gently as before, 
 And, waiting her own time to speak, 
 He gently pressed her pallid cheek, 
 And passed her through her opened door, 
 And so, descending, sped away 
 Without one question, aye, without 
 One touch of disbelieving doubt 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 225 
 
 Or dread, that on the morrow fate 
 
 Might smile and make the crooked straight. 
 
 The while strong Doughal could not guess 
 
 What meant this noble Baroness. 
 
 He could not trust his ears, his eyes, 
 
 He only saw his splendid queen 
 
 Had grown more fair than man had seen 
 
 This side the walls of Paradise. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 I hate reporters, ranging wide 
 The universe, and mounting all, 
 And looking down on either side, 
 Like curving tom-cats on a wall. 
 Like poor Poe s Raven, first the beak 
 Is in your heart, and then the cheek ! 
 
 What chance for romance ? Mystery ? 
 I hate astronomers, the fools 
 That spin the stars by iron rules, 
 And make this level earth a ball, 
 
226 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 That tumbles like a bumble-bee, 
 
 And bumps among the blossomed stars, 
 
 Till some fall, loosened by the jars. 
 
 O, that the world were what she seems, 
 A broad, vast, level land of dreams ; 
 A boundless land, a shoreless sea, 
 A God-encompassed mystery 
 With far edge stretching, climbing to 
 The sapphire walls of fading blue, 
 That touch on far eternity ! 
 
 The old mythology knew one 
 Who never had been known to sleep, 
 But saw, as the all seeing sun. 
 Well, he was a reporter. 
 
 He 
 
 It was that could not keep 
 His nose from any mystery. 
 He must have married, for, I see, 
 He has a splendid progeny. 
 
 O thou that ever tearest down ! 
 Let me bear water in a seive, 
 Thou curst iconoclast. Let me 
 
 - 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 227 
 
 Walk down my vale of mystery 
 Untracked, and build my wooded town, 
 With never sound of hammer. I 
 Implore you spare me while I live 
 Yet spare me chiefly when I die. 
 
 Yea, I will bribe you all. But see, 
 I have not aught to give. Ah, well ! 
 Will speak you warmest rooms in hell, 
 With south exposurenext to me. 
 
 O, God ! again to be sincere ! 
 To have a motive, to give o er 
 All reckless roaming, to draw near 
 To Nature s temple, and once more, 
 With bowed brow, and with naked feet, 
 Front Nature, awful and austere, 
 In truth and silentness. 
 
 How sweet 
 
 Is truth ! How cool the leafy path, 
 The far-off, west-wood hermit hath ! 
 There all is earnest, pure like snow. 
 But here dwells mockery. Lo ! 
 The dyer s hand takes tinge and hue 
 Of that he deals in. 
 
 r^To: 
 
228 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 I was true 
 
 To Nature, did not dare to jest 
 In sacred temples of my West. 
 But reverence forgets me now, 
 And here I jest all day ; I dare 
 To laugh, because I do not care 
 For Aaron s calf, old Egypt s cow, 
 Or young Manhattan s bull or bear. 
 
 Laugh down the gods. Be brave, and dare 
 
 All deities that are not fair. 
 
 The men of France are brave. The Main 
 
 She hath no braver men to give 
 
 But then their women are so plain, 
 
 Their men they scarcely care to live. 
 
 Yet still there are some mysteries, 
 And bloody scenes that no man sees. 
 For you must know, life s river flows 
 Slow seaward, bearing floating chips 
 And paper boats with sunny sail, 
 That tack about, and shout, and hail, 
 As changeful as the wind that blows. 
 Then there be waifs that hug the land, 
 Frail maids that reach familiar hand, 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 229 
 
 Frail men that lodge by bank and ford ; 
 But this same stream bears silent ships 
 In middle sea, strong built and grand, 
 Broad sombre ships that no men board, 
 Still muffled ships that no man knows. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 The lady at her window kept 
 
 Her watch all night, nor waked or slept. 
 
 She felt Sir Francis yet would come 
 
 To her for mercy. And she knew 
 
 The tiger nature then would rise 
 
 And light the fury of her eyes, 
 
 And that her lips would not be dumb. 
 
 One time she rose with hands clasped tight, 
 And leaning looked far out the night, 
 And longed that he would come, that she 
 Might throw her at his feet, and be 
 Forgiven. Then she turned away 
 In tears and terror, and did say, 
 
230 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 " No, no ! man s hand hath ever been 
 
 Against me. To the bitter end 
 
 Must I bear all, without one friend, 
 
 Or one to lean upon. Yet, when 
 
 All s won; well done . . . My heart, what then? 
 
 "I love poor Doughal, love him true 
 
 As lioness with lolling tongue 
 
 That crouching licks her fondling young, 
 
 Sprawled on his lithe back fanning her, 
 
 The while she glares the forest through. 
 
 My curse it crushes him .... and yet 
 
 It was deserved. Shall I forget ? 
 
 No ! No ! Now let my mad blood stir ! 
 
 My strong hand clutch the coronet ! " 
 
 Sir Francis sat alone. His friend, 
 
 A strong, brave and accomplished man, 
 
 Had come with compliment, and plan 
 
 Of meeting in the Park at dawn ; 
 
 Had done his work in haste and gone 
 
 To speak his fellow ; to the end, 
 
 That no man sighted through the night, 
 
 Two dark-winged ships, like birds in flight. 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 231 
 
 Twas nearing dawn. Yet still alone 
 Sir Francis sat. His brow was calm, 
 His face was in his lifted palm, 
 And all things seemed as still as stone. 
 His thoughts were all of her. 
 
 The Day, 
 
 The unboxed freightage there that lay, 
 Just landed from the ship To Be 
 The ship that now had crossed the sea, 
 That lonesome sea that ever flows 
 Twixt day and day, that no man knows 
 This unpacked freightage there that lay 
 Held unto him strange merchandise, 
 And yet he would not lift his eyes. 
 
 His thoughts were all of her. No care 
 Or thought of self intruded there. 
 His world was all in her. Her name 
 Was on his lips ; like the blown flame 
 Her form was ever floating there, 
 More mobile, more majestic, fair, 
 Than she had ever been before. 
 She filled all space, possessed the air, 
 She stood before as to implore, 
 
2 3 2 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 Yet still as silent she did seem, 
 As star-born beings of a dream. 
 
 " Sir Francis Jain ! the night is gray 
 With age. Behold the grizzly dawn 
 Comes driving up to herald day ; 
 And we must instantly begone. 
 
 " All s well ! due preparation made 
 And wise precaution. It is laid 
 Within the Park, on new ploughed land 
 Aye, mind the step ! give me your hand 
 There ! sit you close, draw tight your cloak. 
 Now as we drive no ! will not smoke ? 
 Ah, yes ! this field as I have said 
 A splendid place to hide the dead ; 
 
 " And has been used, as it appears, 
 For this same thing for years and years. 
 A splendid thing. But, then, no doubt 
 The gentlemen take ample care 
 To not entomb too many there, 
 Lest some reporter smell them out. 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 233 
 
 " The weapons, pistols. This you know, 
 I swore to have, or else to fight 
 The man and bully him all night ; 
 And this, Sir Francis, saves for you 
 The least of care. For, were you not 
 Through all, the champion pistol shot, 
 With half-ounce derringers ? 
 
 Well, I 
 
 Do now confess I had to lie; 
 Protesting all the while that you 
 Were as a stranger ; that I knew 
 Not anything about your parts, 
 Or least attainment in the arts 
 Of war. But that I did prefer 
 The stubbed, bull-dog, derringer 
 The good saints keep my soul from harm 
 Because it was a gentlemanly arm. 
 
 " The time is dawn, when we shall see 
 The first gray sparrow in his tree. 
 The distance twenty steps ; advance, 
 And shoot, as suits your choice or chance. 
 But drive, Jehu ! The time flies fast. 
 J Tis evil sign to be the last, 
 Besides, tis scantest courtesy." 
 
234 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 The coachman dashed at double pace. 
 A light struck full Sir Francis face 
 And startled him. He had not heard, 
 He had not heeded one small word, 
 That his impetuous friend had said. 
 The beam of light struck like a sword. 
 He started up, thrust forth his head, 
 Then clutched his friend in eagerness, 
 " Stop ! stop ! I say! that light, that light ! 
 3 Tis from my lady s window height, 
 Tis from my love the Baroness. 
 
 " Nay, stay, I say, one instant stay, 
 Just where you see that lone light play. 
 I will uplift my face once more, 
 This last, and for his life implore. 
 You do not understand. Yet stay, 
 There still is time enough to slay. 
 One instant neath that window sill, 
 Then drive ; drive where and as you will." 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 235 
 
 The iron feet like thunder drew 
 The fire from the rocks and flew, 
 Then reined them plunging. 
 
 Instantly 
 
 That window on the Avenue, 
 That burned all night, now upward flew, 
 And* quick a dark dear face leaned through. 
 
 Her face was pitiful with tears, 
 
 Her hands clenched tight. She seemed to be 
 
 All shaken with her trouble. There 
 
 Were streaks of frost strewn through her hair, 
 
 That had not touched her brow before. 
 
 He reached his face and did implore 
 
 Her mercy for the man. 
 
 She threw 
 
 Her hands in hatred and despair. 
 " Go ! kill him ! kill him dead ! " she cried. 
 " He lives forever in my light, 
 His shadow makes my life as night. 
 He stands before me has for years, 
 Stood like a bar across the door 
 Of my existence. Go ! God speed 
 Your hand in this most holy deed ! " 
 
236 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 " You kill my love ! " he, pleading, cried. 
 
 " This boundless, lawless love, for you 
 
 It shall not live this dark deed through. 
 
 I tell you, if this man must die, 
 
 My love shall die as well, and I 
 
 Shall range earth like a frightened ghost, 
 
 Despising her I love the most. 
 
 This love this night has nearly died " 
 
 " Then let it die quite dead this morn ! " 
 
 The lady cried, in screaming scorn. 
 
 " Yea, I will give it sepulture 
 
 In my gold thimble. Nay, a seed, 
 
 A hollowed bird-seed, gallant sir, 
 
 I surely think me will be all 
 
 The tomb a love so frail and small 
 
 As this of yours will ever need." 
 
 The window clanged, the light was gone. 
 The strong steeds plunged and forward flew 
 The instant, and as if they knew 
 The bloody mission men were on. 
 They wheeled, and down the Avenue 
 They dashed before the near gray dawn. 
 
FIFTH AVENUE. 237 
 
 They bent their necks they fairly flew 
 Far out the sounding Avenue. 
 
 And she, the supple lioness, 
 With fury tossed, and love and hate, 
 Scarce knowing what she dared of fate, 
 Dashed after them. The Baroness 
 Was her old self. Right well she knew, 
 To track, to follow, crouch close by 
 And hear, see all. Her child-life through 
 Had been but this. 
 
 " Now let him die ! " 
 She hissed as from a clump of wood, 
 Close at their side she leaning stood. 
 
 They stood in place, face fronting face ; 
 Both careless quite of what went on 
 And calmly waiting the full dawn. 
 Like some tall antique chiseled stone 
 Tall Doughal stood stood quite alone. 
 Some surgeons, as if accident 
 Had drawn them careless to the place, 
 With ready lint and implement 
 Along a hill kept distant pace. 
 
238 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 No friend had Dougal there. Alone 
 He stood, as one cast oat, unknown ; 
 At last he spake, and slowly said, 
 In soft, low voice, with bended head : 
 
 " I have this one request to make. 
 A little one. And it is made, 
 Not, I assure you, for my sake, 
 But for another s. Let the dead 
 Walk noiseless down this lane of nights, 
 With muffled lip and earth-bound breast, 
 Nor speak to startle love s delights. 
 My secret and my last request, 
 Is of your love, the Baroness 
 She is a Baroness ; no less." 
 
 Two dark eyes glared from out the wood. 
 
 Her heart beat tempests where she stood. 
 
 And Doughal laid his hand upon 
 
 His heart, and tender-voiced went on : 
 
 " But briefly, this is my request. 
 
 I know that I come here to die, 
 
 I know that deadly hand, and I 
 
 No matter. Let my corse be laid, 
 
 With this vest buttoned to my breast, 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 239 
 
 Just as it is. Let no man dare 
 Invade the secret hidden there ; 
 But let me neath this same sod rest, 
 With her dear image on my breast." 
 
 Sir Francis and his second bent 
 Their heads in quiet, cold consent, 
 Then lifted hands in firm conclave, 
 That what he asked they freely gave. 
 And then he bowed, and only spake 
 " Ah, thank you, thank you, for her sake." 
 
 A signal gun far up the Sound, 
 Like cannon wheels on frozen ground 
 Came rumbling in. 
 
 A little bird 
 
 From bunch of grass flew sudden out, 
 And swinging circled sharp about, 
 Then tangled in a sprangled tree, 
 And there, as if the whole world heard, 
 Began its morning minstrelsy. 
 
 Sir Francis aching brow was wet 
 With agony. 
 
 Could he retire, 
 
240 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 Now at the last one little pace ? 
 He saw his friend before him stand 
 His one true friend of all the land, 
 The noblest man that ever yet 
 Had fronted him, stand up to die ! 
 Stand up to die at his own hand, 
 All mantled in dark mystery. 
 
 Could he forgive him ? But the world ? 
 Sir Francis smiled. His proud lip curled 
 To think that he could stop to care 
 Whether it recked him false or fair ; 
 Valiant-hearted or otherwise, 
 In its uncertain and jaundiced eyes. 
 
 But she ! He started at the thought ; 
 He bit his lip and tasted blood. 
 He shook like sere leaf where he stood. 
 He caught his breath, for had she not 
 Cried, kill him, kill him ! kill him dead ! 
 He clutched his hand, threw up his head, 
 Looked at the man, drew hurried breath, 
 And doomed him in his heart to death. 
 He pitied him. He prayed ; did ask 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 241 
 
 His God s forgiveness with bent head. . . . 
 And then his love for her lay dead, 
 And duty took his hand and led 
 The sad man s soul to do his task. 
 
 "Time! One!" 
 
 Two hands rose high in air ; 
 "And Two ! " Two hands fell sloping down, 
 "And three ! " They level fell, and there 
 Was graveyard silence everywhere 
 That touched the far-off waking town. 
 
 A little bird sat swinging slow 
 
 At intervals and singing low, 
 
 With head held cutely down sidewise, 
 
 And then it stopped and ceased to trill, 
 
 And sharply peered with bright pink eyes 
 
 As wondering why all was so still. 
 
 "Advance ! and fire as you will ! " 
 The surgeons stop upon the hill ! 
 Step ! step ! a puff of smoke ! a clear 
 And sharp shot ringing in the ear, 
 A left breast lifts as from a ball, 
 
 And Doughal totters as to fall : 
 16 
 
242 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 Falls half-way down, comes up again, 
 Still fronting stern Sir Francis Jain, 
 And now he towers strong and tall 
 As if he never more could fall. 
 And does Sir Jain not flinch or fear? 
 His f oeman draws uncommon near ! 
 
 Grand Doughal now is stern and grim 
 With fury that devours him. 
 " Sir Francis, tis your turn to die. 
 I have reserved my shot, and I 
 Shall take my time to curse or slay 
 You cannot turn, you cannot go, 
 But you must stand and facing so 
 Hear all that I may choose to say 
 Nay, do not fear reproaches. 
 
 I 
 
 Have none to give ; I wonder why 
 This shot you -sent straight at my heart 
 Still lets me live to bear this part. 
 But we will die together now. 
 Bow down your head ; I pray you bow, 
 And I will give you time to pray ; 
 I beg you, pray. Bow down your head, 
 And as you pray shall you fall dead. 
 
ON FIFTH AVENUE. 243 
 
 " Why I grow stronger now, and I 
 
 Recover from the shock and shot. 
 
 Have you request on earth, or aught 
 
 Of grace or charity forgot ? 
 
 I pray you trust them all to me, 
 
 For now I feel I shall not die, 
 
 My blood comes tiding like a sea, 
 
 My heart beats brave, and strong, and free. 
 
 " Yea, trust me. It was my request, 
 That my wife s letters on my breast, 
 The picture of her saintly face, 
 This package nestled in its place, 
 Should with my dust forever rest, 
 And keep her secrets sacred. 
 
 You, 
 
 You know what honor is ! how true 
 A true vow is, unto the end, 
 To her who has been more than friend. 
 
 " This package from my breast why, what ? 
 My God, Sir Francis, what is this ? 
 By all the saints, it is your ball, 
 That you sent searching for my heart. 
 I beg your pardon, sir. Tis all my fault. 
 
244 ON FIFTH AVENUE. 
 
 This package still will play its part. 
 I pray your pardon, sir. I had forgot ; 
 You aim at hearts, and never miss. 
 Sir Jain, you have another shot." 
 
 " My letters ? O, my life ! My love ! " 
 There came a cloud of long, loose hair, 
 Two round arms reaching through the air. 
 " And have you loved me ? Is it true, 
 That still, through flood and fire, you 
 Have borne these constantly above 
 Your brave heart, roaming anywhere ? 
 
 " Sir Francis, friend, O, pity me ! 
 
 I love this man, have loved him through 
 
 All time, and for eternity 
 
 Shall love him faithfully and true." 
 
 Two pistols drop upon the ground. 
 
 Brave hand to hand each swift extends : 
 
 "I- lose a bride, I win two friends ; 
 
 But O, such friends ! The wide world round 
 
 Knows not their peers," Sir Francis cries. 
 
 " And lady, Baroness, and heir 
 
 To titles you will not despise, 
 
 Embrace your husband, Lord Adair." 
 
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