THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 THE STORY OF SAVILLE: Told in 
 Numbers by Julia Ditto Young "A 
 
 DONE INTO A BOOK AT THE ROYCROFT 
 
 PRINTING SHOP, EAST AURORA, 
 
 NEW YORK, U. S. A. 
 
 MDCCCXCVII
 
 Copyright 
 
 Julia Ditto Young 
 
 1897
 
 Of this edition but four hundred copies were printed 
 and types then distributed. Each copy is signed and 
 numbered and this book is number 
 
 759813
 

 
 To be blind and to be loved what happier fate ! 
 
 VICTOR HUGO.
 
 TO THOMAS HARDY. 
 
 So dear hath grown thy rubied page to me, 
 
 When brooky wood or laughing mead I see, 
 
 Not of itself I think, but first of thee, 
 
 And sweet is it, thus in men's eyes to hold 
 
 Ah, moment proud ! thy strong right hand in mine, 
 
 The hand so lavish of poetic gold, 
 
 So prodigal of honey and of wine.
 
 SAVILLE 
 
 CROUCHED like a moribund lion, wounded, 
 alone in his lair, 
 
 Bowed 'neath unbreakable fetters, choked 
 with an iron despair, 
 
 Wearily, heavily 'ware of the clock's dull pon 
 derous rune 
 
 Telling how hideous morn gives birth to mis 
 shapen foul noon, 
 
 Who yet wears a loveliness regal, a beauty tran 
 scendent and bright, 
 
 Compared to her utterless offspring, the Ethiop 
 horror of night, 
 
 Kyrle sat, scarce caring to keep account of the 
 hours and the days, 
 
 As a rock-spitted ship need reck never more of 
 the wind and its ways 
 
 Sat in his isolate chamber, lost in the clamant 
 strange town 
 
 Where he had crept in the dark when his sun 
 forever went down, 
 
 9
 
 JJforp Broken winged crept to be free of the well-meant 
 of gatriffe pi ty O f friends 
 
 Rough as a blundering touch on a burn that 
 
 solace intends, 
 Free of condolences oily, felicitous, falser than 
 
 hell, 
 From men who at last might eclipse him, who 
 
 still rode safe on the swell, 
 Free of the bitter black sense the shock that 
 
 no one of them all 
 Vitally cared if he starved in his garret, a rat 
 
 in the wall. 
 
 Oh ! if a merciful God, my friend, hath guer 
 doned and blest you so, 
 
 Hath out of a million languid hearts, faint puls 
 ing, feeble and slow, 
 
 Singled one scarlet treasure, that beats as strong 
 ly and true 
 
 As the passionate powerful ocean-throb, for you 
 and only you, 
 
 That hushes its lilt to a lullaby, soothing you 
 while you sleep, 
 
 And bursts to blossom under your smile, and 
 bleeds if ever you weep, 
 
 Trample it not, nor esteem it a pebble paltry 
 
 and cheap, 
 10
 
 Think not twice in a life to find such a rose- 
 
 ruby to keep ! of 
 
 Ah ! they were saying carelessly, back in his 
 
 wonted place, 
 " Wonder where he has slipped to ? Poor devil, 
 
 he's out of the race 
 Nothing remains, as the French say, but drawing 
 
 the sheet o'er the face," 
 And ever he mused of his village home and the 
 
 graves on the churchyard hill, 
 Where the only hearts that had beat for him 
 
 were crumbling, cruelly still, 
 And his useless eyes brimmed over with tears, 
 
 and slowly his blood grew chill. 
 
 Then sudden he rose and flung off his mood, and 
 called with a bitter laugh 
 
 For raiment against the javelin cold, for a guide 
 and his brand new staff, 
 
 And donning the garments doubtfully, with 
 timid questioning touch, 
 
 Now sharply chiding his helper, now thanking 
 him over much, 
 
 And groping his way before him in spite of the 
 lad's firm clutch, 
 
 He reached the street and onward dragged, com 
 manding to be led where 
 
 II
 
 was teard no more, and all the 
 of Satriffe world was fair, 
 
 For he thought that mayhap in a purer air a 
 
 Gilead-grace might be, 
 
 And God might somehow permit him to breathe 
 the beauty he could not see. 
 
 When he had forced his hesitant feet to traverse 
 
 a mile or so 
 Of street that merged in a country road, its ruts 
 
 all softened with snow, 
 They came to a widely sloping space and lofty 
 
 ancestral trees 
 That bowed in a stately welcome under a gentle 
 
 breeze, 
 And the lad pushed open a high arched gate and 
 
 boldly leading him through 
 Guided the man to a rustic bench screened by a 
 
 sturd}' yew. 
 
 u Leave me here for an hour," said Kyrle, and 
 
 when he was quite alone 
 Sat in a hopeless silence with a face like a carven 
 
 stone, 
 Though once he smiled at a thought, and the 
 
 smile more pitiful was than a groan, 
 For scarce was it matter for mirth, how his mind 
 
 would circling rehearse 
 
 12
 
 The iterant rankling venom of an inquisitorial 0e 
 curse, of 
 
 A special and general ban; and lie deemed it 
 better had been for him 
 
 To have undergone impossible pangs and tor 
 tures fiendish grim, 
 
 That one by one they had ravished forth each 
 keen particular hair, 
 
 That redhot pincers had nipped his flesh and 
 torn his nerve-cells bare, 
 
 That a thousand needles had stung his flesh with 
 delicate devilish care. 
 
 If so they had spared his eyes, his eyes, that 
 were worth more then 
 
 To the wretched groveling world than the eyes 
 of his fellow-men, 
 
 For Oh ! in this visionless later day was any so 
 quick as he 
 
 To snare and pinion the beauty that floats on 
 turret and crag and tree, 
 
 That is as the sand on the beaches, the blossoms 
 of foam on the sea, 
 
 Yet he had perceived not alone this fairness out 
 ward and free, 
 
 The heritage common to all mankind, that chil 
 dren or clowns may prize, 
 
 But the deeper intent, the message occult, the 
 truth esoteric that lies 
 
 13
 
 Hidden from all but a poet's soul and heaven 
 of ^atriffe anointed eyes. 
 
 And now lie had come to regret the fierce fanged 
 physical pain 
 
 That for long, long weeks had maddened, had 
 seethed and swirled in his brain, 
 
 Whose pressure was past enduring, whose pass 
 ing was blest relief, 
 
 Yet whose worst throes seemed now more kind 
 than this unbearable grief, 
 
 This travail and sweat of spirit, where the uni 
 verse seemed to swim 
 
 In hatefullest frantic chaos, a lunatic's furious 
 whim. 
 
 Strange ! that because of a trifling loss, scarce 
 more in creation's scheme 
 
 Than a gnat in a summer woodland, a leaf afloat 
 on a stream, 
 
 Because two vials were shattered, God's purposes 
 high should seem 
 
 Only an idiot babble heard in a horrible dream. 
 
 But as he impotent girded and railed, and longed 
 to stifle his care 
 
 In the dull narcotic round of his room, and count 
 ed the winter air 
 14
 
 And so she passed, but again did turn, he knew 
 though he could not see, 
 
 And drifted by as antelope-swift as downiest 
 snow-flakes be, 
 
 And laid with an instant timorous touch some 
 roses upon his knee, 
 
 And butterfly light and daintily still she flut 
 tered upon her way, 
 
 " A rifle smoke blown through the woods for a 
 moment, a moment, but never to stay ! " 
 
 And he snatched the clustered loveliness up, and 
 
 sudden it seemed a part 
 Of his wretched life, like a dream of love in an 
 
 old man's withered heart, 
 A rosary dearer than beads of olive were ever to 
 
 kneeling nun, 
 
 Harsh, unbreathable, nettle-rough, suddenly was ^^ Sfon> 
 he aware 
 
 Of a footstep light yet resolute, a beautiful wom 
 an's tread, 
 
 He knew by the keen unwonted thrill that over 
 his senses sped, 
 
 The silken swish, the odor sweet, and stricken 
 he bowed his head 
 
 Lest he be known for a sightless clod and all of 
 his sorrow be read.
 
 And swee t it was to remember that faithfully soil 
 of jfctriffe and sun 
 
 Had labored together in his behalf and these 
 fragrant globes had spun, 
 
 And over his hand the petals curled, like a 
 baby's fingers weak, 
 
 And dewily kissed like a maiden's lips his sal 
 low and sunken cheek, 
 
 And all that night by his wakeful bed they 
 flooded the comfortless spot 
 
 With spice, and he mixed again in his mind the 
 crimson he had forgot, 
 
 And turning and tossing as needs he must, it all 
 but soothed him to know 
 
 That the utterly perfect queenly things, beauti 
 ful, all aglow, 
 
 Were close beside him, shaking out with each 
 waft of their rich perfume 
 
 A message of pity and tenderness across the 
 midnight gloom.
 
 II. 
 
 WELL, to a man in a dungeon an infin- f Jfrtriffe 
 itesimal thing 
 
 Looms large as the fate of an empire doth 
 
 to a fetterless king, 
 
 And for the first time in aeons Kyrle felt a sur 
 cease of pain, 
 Casting the slough of his anguish a blessed brief 
 
 hour or twain, 
 'Twas something to hope and to live for, that 
 
 hour in the afternoon, 
 To question if fate would vouchsafe him a second 
 
 such velvety boon, 
 He would not fail to keep tryst, not he ! And 
 
 yet O heaven ! and yet 
 What? had he sunk to this estate? to care if 
 
 some selfish coquette, 
 A pampered doll, an idol of clay, born only to 
 
 drive men mad, 
 Yielded or not to such sweet ruth as yesterday 
 
 she had ? 
 
 She came, with her printless hurrying feet step 
 ping so shamed and fast 
 
 Scarce had he guessed her near him at all ere 
 she had onward passed, 
 
 And when she had turned and again approached 
 it seemed that she would have gone 
 
 17
 
 JJforg Straight on unseeing across the stretch of wide 
 of Jjjatnffe snow- sprinkled lawn, 
 
 But she was perforce constrained to pause ; he 
 wist not that he held up 
 
 A visage stamped with an awful need, like a beg 
 gar's holding a cup 
 
 He never knew that he reached his hand, while 
 slowly advanced the maid 
 
 And into his fingers eager and worn a bunch of 
 violets laid 
 
 And he tried to mutter a word of thanks, and he 
 heard a quick low sob, 
 
 And he sank half stunned to his seat again, 
 afraid of his heart's wild throb, 
 
 And it was over, all over and past I and now for 
 twenty-four hours 
 
 He must live like a starving sailor, on a breath 
 and a knot of flowers, 
 
 And ever there rang in his weary brain, the roar 
 of the city above, 
 
 These words of a laurelled master, till he sick 
 ened with terror thereof, 
 
 " Hath man not evil enough, O Earth, that thou 
 must lay on him love ? " 
 
 18
 
 of 
 
 NOT amid volleying thunder, 'mid smoke- 
 wreaths murkily dim, 
 
 Not in the fury of battle one writeth a bat 
 tle hymn, 
 Nor chanteth of garlanded Autumn's purple and 
 
 golden store, 
 Foison of fruit and grain and nut, till harvesting 
 
 days be o'er, 
 And not of the glorious tempest's rage while yet 
 
 the shuddering ship 
 Is laboring through the surges with headlong 
 
 hurricane dip, 
 And black the skyline swings and swirls to a 
 
 tremble of silver foam, 
 Not of the creamy blossomy death one singeth 
 
 till safe at home 
 Yet oft a mariner, rugged and bronzed, who joys 
 
 in the tales he tells 
 Of plumy palm trees, brown bright maids, pink 
 
 corals, and filagreed shells, 
 And perils of rocks, and wondrous 'scapes from 
 
 famine and fever hells, 
 Will mark his listeners' starting eyes, happy to 
 
 hold them thrall, 
 Yet murmurs, " Well, thank God I am here, safe 
 
 sheltered among yon all 
 
 19
 
 JJforg But Oh ! to be back at sea, half starved, and 
 of JJfttnffe drenched in a sudden squall ! " 
 
 Alas ! for any who come to be post-graduates in 
 
 the art 
 Of subtle and sympathetic search in the deeps 
 
 of the human heart, 
 For Oh ! they not so ravishing high, so thrilling- 
 
 ly, tenderly low 
 Could sing had they not outlived the theme 
 
 some dozen of years ago 
 Alas ! for them who clasp no hand, but an empty 
 
 shrivelling glove, 
 And remember how sweet it was last year, how 
 
 piercingly sweet to love 
 And alas for the desolate souls who feel that the 
 
 rosy boy lies hid, 
 Quiver and dimples and wandering wings, under 
 
 a coffin lid ! 
 
 But to my story. Kyrle, poor Kyrle, crept out 
 of his smothering mood, 
 
 The vile cocoon the worms had spun of anguish 
 and solitude. 
 
 And weak as an insect crawled about and strug 
 gled to find a light 
 
 Of hope or of faith or of anything sweet let into 
 
 the fathomless night. 
 20
 
 All me ! it had been but a struggle all through, 
 
 a moiling and rigorous life of 
 
 From the early days on the niggard farm, the 
 petty ignoble strife 
 
 'Gainst narrow prejudice, ignorance, greed, to 
 wrest for himself a chance 
 
 For study and travel, for buffeting fate and con 
 quering circumstance ; 
 
 Then years in the studios foreign and quaint, 
 when salient and eager his mind 
 
 Grasped and garnered all manner of truths ex 
 cept that he had not dined ; 
 
 But that's a detail, a mere trifle the worship 
 ping student will find 
 
 Diviner delight, a more rapturous joy in an in 
 tellectual stride, 
 
 A tint, or a chord, or a line in an ode, than in 
 aught under heaven beside ; 
 
 And then the homecoming, the hopeful return to 
 the generous land of his birth, 
 
 The vehement passion for art, the desire to show 
 what he was worth, 
 
 Kaleidoscope pageants of fancies circling and 
 swift in his thought, 
 
 Tissues of gossamer golden freaked, with pearls 
 and emeralds wrought, 
 
 A bright panoramic succession, like raindrops 
 of April clear, 
 
 21
 
 Thicker than jewels of August dew, so that his 
 of ^atriffe only fear 
 
 Was that the phantom embryos, tiny as stars of 
 
 snow, 
 Might melt and slip away into naught, and he 
 
 never see them go 
 And often he rose in the dead of night and 
 
 dashed off a virile sketch 
 To lull into quiet some clamoring shape that 
 
 had kept his mind at a stretch ; 
 Then followed his masterpiece, " Rupert's 
 
 Trust," God! how he sweated and slaved, 
 Denying his body forgotten the nurture and 
 
 slumber it craved ; 
 Ah I that was well worthy the doing, worthy a 
 
 continent's praise 
 Men for a slighter achievement than this had 
 
 been crowned with eternal bays 
 He had dropped his palette and brushes, had 
 
 sent his soul in the gaze 
 He bent on his picture completed, his beautiful 
 
 darling, had smiled 
 To think that his wedlock devoted had bloomed 
 
 in an exquisite child, 
 
 What ! could it be that men cherished their chil 
 dren born but of the flesh 
 As he cherished this holier offspring snared in 
 
 a mystical mesh, 
 
 22
 
 The child of himself and of Love, deep love 
 
 for his race and his art, of 
 
 And for whatsoever of good and pure in this our 
 being hath part, 
 
 And then, while he gazed exalted and rapt, per 
 ceiving the glory-rays 
 
 Stream meteor-like from the picture and merge 
 in an opaline haze, 
 
 Sudden the haze was a thunder-cloud, all gashed 
 and fretted with fire, 
 
 And the wind shrieked loud through his cham 
 ber, bellowing higher and higher, 
 
 And a knell as of death everlasting was knolled 
 from a neighboring spire. 
 
 And the cloud rolled sulphurous into his brain, 
 and the fire gnawed into his eyes, 
 
 And the tigerish wind whirled round and round, 
 spiralling dervish-wise^ 
 
 And tore into tatters the visual nerve, in its ter 
 rible fiery grind, 
 
 And the steeple carillon lost its chime and tolled 
 but the one word, " Blind ! " 
 
 Well, it had happened ages ago, in the days that 
 
 preceeded the flood, 
 So it seemed to Kyrle, with his strong hand lax 
 
 and sluggish his galloping blood, 
 
 23
 
 And over and over he cursed his fate and bitterly 
 of |&triffe marvelled to find 
 
 What a wretched contemptible thing is a man, 
 whether death-dumb and resigned, 
 
 Ox-like patient, stolidly mute, he draggeth his 
 weariful load, 
 
 Or furious snarls at the bloody lash and passion 
 ate writhes at the goad, 
 
 Bah ! the unstable frail spirit, more weak than 
 the wing of a dove 
 
 To soar and attain the empyreal heights, strong 
 only to suffer and love 1 
 
 Love, to my story of love again, the wonderful 
 
 story we told 
 Or heard in the dim sweet cycles afar in the Age 
 
 of Gold, 
 When the pendulum pulse in the soft young 
 
 cheek swings tremulous to and fro 
 From the pearly pallor of cherry blooms to the 
 
 rose's crimson glow, 
 When a few faint syllables, English-plain, are 
 
 richer than wisdom's years, 
 And one dear voice holds deeper tones than the 
 
 music of all the spheres. 
 
 Scarce could one call it an interview between 
 
 these shadowy folk, 
 24
 
 Whereof the one saw the other not and neither 
 
 the silence broke, of |Jamffe 
 
 But at the third strange meeting-time, Kyrle 
 gathered courage and spoke, 
 
 For e'en as she laid her tribute down and would 
 have fled hurrying by, 
 
 He caught her hand in a deathful grip, unheed 
 ing her startled cry, 
 
 Too wrapped in his infinite harrowing need, too 
 wholly absorbed to feel 
 
 The crusted wealth of her priceless rings, the 
 elegant sleeve of seal, 
 
 And he poured out his thanks in a sudden rush 
 as a brook doth in March overswell, 
 
 Entreating that she who had been but a fragrance 
 should now be a voice as well. 
 
 Long she stood hesitant, statue-still, her lilies 
 
 and fingers withdrawn, 
 And at last he sighed in a shuddering breath, 
 
 deeming she must have gone, 
 But then she answered and all the peace and 
 
 healing and balm that dwell 
 In a country lane on a Sabbath morn, blest by a 
 
 distant bell, 
 Hallowed her voice, and the words thereof were 
 
 sweeter than asphodel, 
 
 25
 
 JJforg For pity> ^ P^ty sne ^ e ^> was veiled under a 
 of ^atriffe sprightly essay 
 
 To twist a shimmering strand of gold into the 
 hodden gray. 
 
 "Alas, poor knight ! thou art lorn and lost, and 
 cast forever away 
 
 In this enchanted and fearsome land, where 
 witches and ogres hold sway, 
 
 Thou hast suffered the ban of my sister Fate ; 
 but I am a tenderer fay, 
 
 And so that thou servest me early and late, own 
 ing no queen beside, 
 
 Never presuming to question my will, loyal what 
 ever betide, 
 
 I dare avouch thou again shalt feel that warmly 
 the sun doth shine, 
 
 Thou shalt once more breathe Heliconian air, 
 and drink of Falernian wine, 
 
 And haply at last the scales shall fall fiom those 
 dark sad eyes of thine 1 " 
 
 Then pressing the lilies close into his hand, 
 while Kyrle stood blockish and still, 
 
 She murmured " Farewell, farewell, poor knight! 
 Remember the Fairy Saville ! " 
 
 26
 
 IV. 
 
 TO WOMEN alone doth love, bright love, f 
 come as a perfect joy, 
 
 A lily uncankered, pure virgin gold, flaw 
 less and free from alloy, 
 
 Faithfully, gladly they serve, who win, for tend 
 ing the boy god's flame, 
 Guerdon of agonized travail and death and often 
 
 a pilloried shame, 
 They, sweet souls, do rapturous leap at the sound 
 
 of Love's entering, 
 
 Ask not where he has hidden his lash, but wor 
 ship and crown him king. 
 
 Men, it may be, have a loftier look, a glimpse of 
 
 the anguish and tears, 
 And see in the baby's bassinette the corpse of 
 
 seventy years, 
 The rift that must come in the lute at last, the 
 
 worm that works in the bud, 
 However it be, I only know their love is a vice 
 
 in the blood, 
 A season of poignant tormenting, of pleasure 
 
 elusive and vague, 
 A maelstrom engulfing, to be forever dreaded 
 
 and shunned like the plague, 
 To men, pink palpitant Eros seems a skeleton 
 
 earthily gaunt, 
 
 27
 
 JJforp And their kindest word for the fluttering shape 
 of JJatriffe is " Horrible monster, avaunt ! " 
 
 But when into Kyrle's existence blank, arid as 
 
 African sands, 
 Into the barrenness marred and vexed by alien 
 
 tongues and hands, 
 An angel's voice rang heavenly high, and a star 
 
 in his pathway fell, 
 Welcomer 'twas to the lonely man than water in 
 
 nethermost hell. 
 He troubled no more for his future weal than 
 
 violets do in May, 
 For steadily, softly gleamed the star ; sufficient 
 
 from day to day 
 It was to hearken and ponder the words the 
 
 Fairy Saville would say, 
 Though ever he questioned his dubious heart, 
 
 " Can this great miracle be, 
 Does this magnificent passion-flower blossom 
 
 alone for me ? 
 Or hath she served an apprenticeship and gilded 
 
 her fancy's pen 
 Coldly dipping it, artisan-wise, in the blood of a 
 
 score of men ? " 
 But soon these petty misgivings fled, what 
 
 mattered it if she had won 
 28
 
 Her bountiful largess of healing under a foster- 
 
 ing sun, of 
 
 Or rooted on some bleak headland, torn by the 
 mistral harsh, 
 
 Or midst of the drooping cypresses and beaded 
 moss of a marsh, 
 
 For she spoke not alone with the cold precision 
 and icy glitter of thought, 
 
 That of itself no poetry forms, but all of her 
 speech was wrought 
 
 With fluctuant gleams of the light divine that 
 never on sea or land 
 
 Doth shine, but only in vestal hearts that trem 
 ble and understand, 
 
 And whether she struck with a touch assured 
 the silver strings of her lyre, 
 
 Till the whole wood rang to a rhapsody as of a 
 seraph choir, 
 
 Or whether she wailed in a minor key, sad as 
 the coo of a dove, 
 
 Briny with tears as the ocean foam, a bitter 
 sweet story of love, 
 
 Or whether elegiac, organ-deep, she chanted a 
 dirge-refrain, 
 
 Or of rivulets warbled and resinous buds and 
 burgeon of meadow and plain, 
 
 Eloquent utterance, gracile as palms, poppies of 
 fire and of dew, 
 
 29
 
 of ^atriffe 
 
 Bloomed at his need like the manna of old, and 
 
 grateful he listened and knew 
 That God, who forbade him to read a poem, was 
 
 letting him live one through, 
 And his wing-clipt faith grew whole once more, 
 
 spurning its shackles and bars, 
 And he soared on pinions steady and strong to 
 
 the gracious accessible stars, 
 And man was honest and woman was true and 
 
 the Infinite God was kind, 
 And the world was a fair pure world again, and 
 
 only his eyes were blind, 
 And he bowed his head to the All-wise Will, 
 
 embracing the doom assigned.
 
 V> . 
 
 WEEK after week slipped billowy by into O f Jjatriffe 
 tlie gulfy past, 
 And the silvery beryl of each day's wave 
 
 broke at Kyrle's feet and upcast 
 Flotsam of Indian broideries, spices, and pearls 
 
 of Ceylon, 
 Sandalwood Araby sweet, and myrrh, and fagots 
 
 of cinnamon, 
 
 And strewing the sterile waste beach of his life 
 became as a godsend thereon. 
 
 The timid grace of the lady birch, the gnarls of 
 
 the oak, she told, 
 How the warrior pines stood stark against the 
 
 sunset's daffodil gold, 
 And the sinuous slopes of the distant hills were 
 
 but as a banner unscrolled, 
 Tawny and russet and purple twined, dotted with 
 
 orbs of jet 
 Where a sturdy thorn or a lichened rock was 
 
 into the fabric set, 
 And often she pictured a mother and babes, a 
 
 tranquil domestic scene 
 Behind the rubious cordial glow of a casement's 
 
 coppery sheen, 
 
 And once when the sky occidental was paly 
 translucentest green,
 
 Like apple-tree buds ere the mid-May's kiss 
 of |airifft quickens them, tender and keen, 
 
 She told how a trio of cloudy shapes, dripping 
 with blood and wine, 
 
 Drifted o'er the horizon's rim, lurid as almandine, 
 
 Huddled and hunched and wizened, like the sis 
 ters three in Macbeth, 
 
 And one was Failure and one was Fear, and one 
 was a Prayer for death, 
 
 But an airy knight pricked over the plain and 
 he vanquished them all at a breath, 
 
 And the conqueror's colors were caught and 
 tossed, and up to the zenith rolled, 
 
 And a legion sang of his victory like the morn 
 ing stars of old. 
 
 And once she came through a shuddering storm, 
 
 braving the eddying whirl 
 Of the snow-grains sown by a prodigal hand, 
 
 and walked for a space with Kyrle, 
 And clung to his arm, half womanly guide, and 
 
 half but a frivolous girl, 
 And said 'twas as if they were walking alone, 
 
 they two, in a vast white pearl, 
 Where radiant nacre-gleams of pink traversed 
 
 the edelweiss hue, 
 But never a satyr's hoof was heard nor an 
 
 Oread's laugh rang through, 
 32
 
 And there lurked no hint of the forestal green 
 nor yet of the limitless blue. 
 
 And then as they battled against the wind, 
 
 sauntering to and fro, 
 She preached him a little sermon she had studied 
 
 that day in Thoreau, 
 Her text, the chariot wheels of the storm, the 
 
 six-spoked crystals of snow, 
 Those faceted glorious spangles, the sweepings 
 
 of heaven's floor, 
 Feathery petaled hexagonal flowers, diamond 
 
 dusted o'er, 
 Why, we are sprent with gems ! they fall in a 
 
 wavering thistledown blur, 
 In the gallery of the meadow mouse, on the 
 
 restless squirrel's fur, 
 The schoolboy crushes them into a ball, the 
 
 woodman follows his sled 
 Through the wreck of a myriad fragile stars, 
 
 strange as the stars o'erhead, 
 And Oh I 'twere a blasphemy to declare by some 
 
 cold narrowing word 
 Mechanical action got them : Divinity must have 
 
 stirred 
 In the germ pellucid and gelid, and so have they 
 
 come to be 
 
 33
 
 Fair fruit of enthusiasm, the children of ec- 
 of JJatritfe stasy, 
 
 And mother nature not yet had lost her pristine 
 
 vigor and force, 
 Still was the law supreme at work, the sun still 
 
 true in his course, 
 And God still paused to watch over His earth, 
 
 still fashioned with cunningest art 
 The baby flakes of the silver snow and why 
 
 should a man lose heart ? 
 
 34
 
 VI. 
 
 BUT at last came a day when she failed to <* 
 come, when the reed bent rottenly down, 
 And he sat in a cruel impatience, his face 
 
 deformed by a frown, 
 And he listened in vain for the crystalline tinkle 
 
 of feet through the crepitant grass, 
 The delicate laugh of dismay at a drift or haply 
 
 a tiny crevasse, 
 He waited half sick of a hope deferred, till his 
 
 marrow was turned to ice, 
 And the orange and garnet chilled out of the 
 
 sky, and the lad had come for him thrice, 
 And then he arose and doggedly trudged to his 
 
 poor pain-tenanted room, 
 
 That crawled as with slimiest horrors through 
 out the reticulate gloom, 
 And he shrank from shutting himself alone into 
 
 that living tomb. 
 
 And he had no lilies at all that night, no lan 
 guorous lullings of spice, 
 
 No hope of remote reparation, no visions to lure 
 and entice, 
 
 Naught but the old, old Tantalus-mood, that had 
 gathered new malice and gall 
 
 From disuse, as a robe gathers mildew and moth, 
 hanging forgot on the wall, 
 
 35
 
 And a pain rapacious surged over his soul like 
 
 a flood or a pestilent wind, 
 
 Or octopus-like sucked into his heart, shark- 
 toothed and poisonous-finned, 
 And he summoned the strength of his nature in 
 
 its outraged trust to arise 
 And help him to hate himself and this woman, 
 
 to utterly loathe and despise 
 Her who had made him a pastime, bridging the 
 
 winter across 
 
 With a masque, a foolery petty and vain, amus 
 ing herself with his loss, 
 God ! it had been but an insult throughout, her 
 
 'havior so sisterly free, 
 She scarce had esteemed him a man at all, why, 
 
 then, forsooth 1 should she be 
 Distantly coy with a clod, reserved as a maid is 
 
 alway 
 With a man ? She had seen at a glance that no 
 
 least possibility lay 
 Of love 'twixt herself and a creature ignoble, all 
 
 of whose manlihood 
 The chief enchanter had Merlin-wise sunk in a 
 
 pathless wood, 
 And so she had pitied him for a season, but now 
 
 she had wearied and sped 
 To a southern clime where the grapes were gold 
 
 and the pomegranates lusciously red.
 
 But the Avon Swan sang silvery clear " All of 
 fice infirmity still 
 
 Neglects," and his heart waxed weak and wailed 
 " Perhaps she is fevered and ill, 
 
 Perhaps she is dying O God, protect Thy 
 purest, Thy peerless Saville 1 " 
 
 Yet the foul faint doubt he had trampled at first 
 sprang weedlike over again, 
 
 She was but a woman and therefore false, she 
 smiled on a hundred men, 
 
 And he thought how she clung to his arm in the 
 snow and he wished he had killed her then! 
 
 37
 
 VII. 
 next day camgj and with it g aville 
 
 too breathless and happy to speak, 
 And lie felt the vibrant blood in her hand, 
 
 and he guessed it was red in her cheek, 
 And he said that he dared not reproach her it 
 
 was not his right and then poured 
 Upon her head meek and devoted such vials of 
 
 wrath as are stored 
 In a thunderbolt, wild over leaping the bounds 
 
 that convention hath set, 
 And Saville stood exultant and smiling to see 
 
 how a man could forget 
 All hindrances puny, external, and show forth 
 
 the soul of him yet. 
 
 But she stifled her smiling and gently spoke, 
 and there was a subtle change 
 
 In her tone and manner, a humbleness, sub 
 servient, flattering, strange, 
 
 As when a poor peasant, gambolling rude, freely 
 will shout and sing 
 
 For a chance companion, but soon is hushed, 
 learning he rides with The King I 
 
 " I am sorry yet glad but sorry the most I I 
 
 never, I think, should have dared 
 38
 
 To believe that my coming was aught to you, 
 
 I deemed that you would not have cared, of JJeuriffe 
 I might have ribboned a note to the bench, 
 
 but alas ! you could not read, 
 And did you really linger till dark ? and did you 
 
 miss me indeed ? 
 But I I was threading the tangled maze of the 
 
 city's ravenous whirl, 
 And I gazed for an hour upon ' Rupert's Trust,' 
 
 and you, O friend I you are Kyrle ! " 
 
 He mused, how small is the woman soul, how 
 timid and trustless and frail, 
 
 Curious ever of pedigree and trivial confirming 
 detail, 
 
 While he had not even requested her name, con 
 tented as yet but to dream 
 
 Of her as a dim mist-maiden, a goddess, gem- 
 girdled, supreme, 
 
 But it passed, this scornfulness fleeting, and the 
 air seemed to dimple and dirl 
 
 Eolian-tender, mandolin-sweet, at the magical 
 words, " You are Kyrle," 
 
 Simple, sufficient, as if she had said in a homag- 
 ing, honeyfraught tone, 
 
 '* You are Caesar, unmastered, unrivalled, our 
 planet doth own 
 
 39
 
 No man for your fellow, Enough ! You are 
 even so Kyrle and alone ! " 
 
 Ah, well ! he had hoped that the world one day 
 would thus acknowledge his power, 
 
 Would wreath his temples with immortelles, 
 would cast at his feet the dower 
 
 That genius merits and sometimes wins ; but 
 alas ! not e'en for an hour 
 
 Had he been the idol ; the waxen bud had black 
 ened and failed of a flower. 
 
 And now he inquired as a father might of a dis 
 tant and darling child 
 
 Of the veriest trifles ; he knew how hard they 
 were to be reconciled, 
 
 The needs of a picture like " Rupert's Trust," 
 and the mirk of a dusty shop, 
 
 Was it decently hung ? did the light fall true 
 from a shaded jet at the top ? 
 
 And Oh I was it verily great ? did it hold the 
 vital, the God-given spark 
 
 That had been his latest glimpse upon earth, that 
 still struck white through the dark ? 
 
 Was the flame still lambently blazing and clear, 
 the gold from the dross to refine, 
 
 Of force to pierce and to purify men, and change 
 
 then from panthers and swine ? 
 40
 
 Could a man step out of his daily round and that 0e 
 
 passionate picture scan, of J 
 
 And not go forth to the greed and the grind a 
 
 cleaner and better man ? 
 Had she heard as she gazed the Spirits of Good 
 
 singing their deathless song, 
 Had she felt it were better to starve and rot than 
 
 swerve to the smallest wrong ? 
 
 But Saville was mute ; it seemed for a space as 
 
 if she scarce could have heard, 
 She who was ever so prompt to utter a sparkling 
 
 felicitous word, 
 And he guessed she was weeping, and soon she 
 
 breathed in a tear-veiled tremulous tone, 
 " I only prayed : O God I Give back his vision 
 
 and take my own I " 
 
 And Kyrle laughed out, 'twas so sweet to win 
 
 compassion divine as this, 
 Laughed like a boy, and reached his arms over 
 
 the viewless abyss, 
 And the black was cleft by a lightning stroke 
 
 and their souls were fused in a kiss.
 
 VIII. 
 
 of JJatnffe A ND as ever, the kiss to the maiden's lips 
 ^/-\ came as a fleckless delight, 
 
 As a hummingbird glad in the amber noon 
 
 recks never of tempest-torn night, 
 But the man thrilled solemnly to the thought 
 
 that whether for good or for ill 
 He had mixed his life with another life and was 
 
 bound as with steel to Saville, 
 And he raged at himself for an image of clay 
 
 that senseless and selfish had snared 
 The love of a creature angelic, to whom he 
 
 should never have dared 
 Lift even a worshiping thought, since his foiled 
 
 adoration was but 
 
 As a rayless rare jewel, unmined, unprized, un 
 der a mountain shut. 
 
 Men take for granted the ferventest love ; it 
 
 seemeth them utterly meet 
 That woman should bow to them as to a god and 
 
 lay at their deity's feet 
 Frankincense, honeycomb, turquois and pearl, 
 
 and all things precious and sweet, 
 But Kyrle, poor Kyrle, was humble enough, and 
 
 he honestly questioned the maid 
 How she had formed so wretched a choice, how 
 
 had her fancy strayed 
 42
 
 Past willowy wands and stalwart rods to the 
 
 crookedest staff in the glade ? of 
 
 Her heart had bled for him, blind and banned, 
 as any true woman's had done, 
 
 He flung back her pity, a goodly gift, mayhap; 
 but he would have none. 
 
 Pity ? no, she was orphaned and sad ; she dwelt 
 
 in the hall of L/Estrange, 
 A mere companion and hanger on, forbidden to 
 
 roam and to range 
 Past the walls of the park, lest her mistress should 
 
 call, for she was capricious and strange, 
 And bitter as aloes her bread to Saville, who 
 
 joyed as a bird to exchange 
 Her gilded dull cage for a wider bourne, her 
 
 chrysalis wings to unfurl 
 In the ether of freedom and float for an hour in 
 
 blessed communion with Kyrle. 
 
 " Ah sweet ! for a rainbow hour 'twere well ; but 
 now you have tangled your life 
 
 With a pariah's, unto whom God denies the 
 having of home or of wife." 
 
 "But dearest! that is the blazing star in this 
 galaxy-bond of ours, 
 
 43
 
 JJforp The regnant rose in a garland twined of sweet 
 of JJatriffe yet commoner flowers ! 
 
 Thank God that the thought of marriage is as 
 far as the thought of death, 
 
 Marriage I where poor little weary Love, drab 
 bled and out of breath, 
 
 Bravely struggles 'gainst pitiful odds, till his 
 cruel coarse-spirited foes 
 
 Break and batter the irised wings and sneer at 
 his dying throes, 
 
 And the dance and jest go rioting on, and none 
 of his murdering knows ! " 
 
 " Ah, well, I would risk it ! but whether Saville, 
 
 for us it could happen so, 
 Perish the thought ! 'tis a sacrilege, but never, 
 
 dear love, shall we know. 
 I am as a bee untimely crushed ere he unloadeth 
 
 his sweets, 
 Dead to accomplishment, effort and joy, whose 
 
 heart still cruelly beats, 
 Ardent, ambitious, and pulsing strong with fiery 
 
 tropical heats, 
 God I how I worship my art divine, my heavenly 
 
 art, Saville,-*- 
 That I were rotting a grain a day, yet able to 
 
 serve her still ! " 
 44
 
 Then Saville perceived what is common to all 
 
 who are linked with disciples of art, of Jjjatriffe 
 
 That she stood without the holy of holies, an 
 alien, a stranger, apart, 
 
 But she passed the portal and coined a word to 
 comfort the desolate heart. 
 
 " Hearken, my dearest 1 You murmur because 
 
 you fancy you have not done 
 Your stent to the utmost, have painted but one 
 
 great picture, but one ! 
 You should rather thank God from a grateful 
 
 heart you were gifted to do so much, 
 For manifold millions of men go by, nor help 
 
 the world by a touch ; 
 They loiter like lizards half frozen and maimed 
 
 , over the face of the rock, 
 And they front their kind with no message more 
 
 true than a moan or a gibbering mock, 
 But you I you are like to God in this, that out 
 
 of your innermost thought 
 You have created and called to life a thing with 
 
 deep potencies fraught, 
 And the work shall endure, inspiring and grand, 
 
 when the worker hath fallen to dust, 
 And my soul hath a loftier stature today for 
 
 looking on * Rupert's Trust 1 ' " 
 
 45
 
 JJforg 
 of JJatnffe 
 
 And he laughed once more. "Ah sweet, my sweet! 
 
 hath a nightingale lodged in thy breast, 
 That thou singest a strain more rapture-panged 
 
 than ever a siren possessed ? 
 Yes, I have achieved but ah 1 what I meant 
 
 yet what are the claims of my art, 
 What joy had I won had I labored on like the 
 
 emperor's prize of thine heart, 
 That nest whence the doves fly gauzily forth 
 
 and the air with sweet flutterings fill, 
 My darling, my darling ! Yes, God is above, 
 
 and He loves me and sends me Saville ! "
 
 O FRIEND ! if a brother, struggling and of 
 faint, cries out for thy helping hand, 
 And begs for a draught of water or wine in 
 
 a barren and fountainless land, 
 If a human soul in a need extreme where the 
 
 weltering surges roll 
 Entreats for a token of sympathy, the touch of 
 
 a stancher soul, 
 Hasten, O hasten to give of thy strength ! let 
 
 not the poor sufferer wait, 
 
 For the sand burns white and the waves leap 
 fierce, and to-morrow it may be too late, 
 Thou shalt haply see in the morning sun an 
 outworn shell at thy gate ! 
 
 Saville had responded to Kyrle's wild prayer, 
 and so was permitted to save 
 
 His wounded faith and his breaking heart from 
 the dusty dark of the grave, 
 
 And the days like white- winged birds wheeled 
 by, and nearer and nearer they grew, 
 
 And each was a light in the other's life, tinging 
 its grayness through 
 
 With a cordial warmth, as in winter wolds ver 
 milion barberries do, 
 
 Ah me I 'tis a world of shadows we walk in, and 
 happy is he who can cling 
 
 47
 
 In the midst of the vacillant spectres secure to 
 of JJatriffe one real true thing. 
 
 And April arrived and the sward to the foot was 
 spongily tender and wet, 
 
 And the ice-bound brooks broke loose and ran 
 singing a canzonet, 
 
 And coral the maple-buds shone overhead, and 
 mayweed and thistles and dill 
 
 Were springing as if but to honor and please 
 sweet arbutus-laden Saville, 
 
 And Kyrle stood erect and majestic, awaiting 
 her, seeming again 
 
 Sovereign and lord of his turbulent fate, self- 
 poised and a man among men. 
 
 He had something to tell her yet where was the 
 
 need ? Her knowledge preceded his own 
 She must have incited her lady L'Bstrange, a 
 
 power behind the throne, 
 The picture was sold to that lady, no more 
 
 should it languish unseen, 
 But was called to its rightful station, the home 
 
 of a social queen, 
 And the lady had paid a liberal price, almost a 
 
 fabulous sum. 
 A monarch's fee, and 'twas through Saville that 
 
 this fortunate chance had come,
 
 And so she had earned a commission, she must 0e 
 
 not be over nice, of J&unffe 
 
 She was poorer than he himself was, and here 
 
 was the half of the price, 
 He fathomed the dullness abhorred of her daily 
 
 routine at the Hall, 
 There were nettles 'mid silkiest cushions, and 
 
 the bread was besprinkled with gall, 
 And here was the money, her earnings, not his ; 
 
 she must take it and hasten away 
 To the rose-misted mountains or chrysoprase sea, 
 
 and rest for a long holiday. 
 
 One word incoherent and sudden she spoke in a 
 
 doubting reproachful tone, 
 Then struggled for dignity all too late, for the 
 
 word had been simply " Alone ? " 
 
 Full often the mind, when fate's dense cloud 
 suddenly ominous lowers, 
 
 Or sparkles with gold or crimson, charged by 
 kindlier powers, 
 
 Works in the groove a master cut, in deeper ex 
 pressions than ours, 
 
 And Kyrle but mused how the knight of old 
 mourned of his fateful sin 
 
 49
 
 That he dare not pluck it forth of his heart, 
 of JJatnffe since all that was lovely therein 
 
 Was tendrilled and knotted with what was evil 
 
 in union so vital and strong 
 That which was tainted and which was pure he 
 
 wist not, nor right from wrong. 
 
 " Now surely this were a sin," mused Kyrle, "or 
 a cowardice, which is worse, 
 
 A month ago I had spurned the thought away 
 from me with a curse. 
 
 What should such fellows as I do," forsooth? 
 and Hamlet as good as his word, 
 
 Weak, irresolute, yet put by the plea of tempta 
 tion unheard, 
 
 Yes, and thanks to his reasoning so unim- 
 peachably sound, 
 
 To this Alpine glimmer of purpose high in his 
 brain's fantastical round, 
 
 His poor, poor love with her pansied hands and 
 her daisied tresses lay drowned 1 
 
 And Oh ! he was weary of prudence, that frigid 
 
 fanatical nun, 
 In her hateful name what straits he had seen, 
 
 what tasks superhuman had done, 
 50
 
 He had chidden his lips for smiling, forbidden 0e 
 his blood to run, of 
 
 And now at the thought of breaking her bond, 
 Kyrle's heart, exuberant, wild, 
 
 Leapt as a cataract plunges o'er masses of granite 
 up-piled, 
 
 Sweet is a reckless beat in a pulse long glacier- 
 gentle and mild ! 
 
 Again did a master's words come back in rippling 
 
 mellifluous flow, 
 " Whither, O whither, my love, shall we flee for 
 
 a sweet little summer or so ? " 
 And he said, " The thorn-girded Princess arose 
 
 and followed her lover, but no ! 
 You are hedged with a thousand conventional 
 
 briers, Saville, and you dare not go, 
 It is but a dream that we twain might wed and 
 
 sweep in a swallow-like flight 
 Away for a roseate triple-mooned day, and then 
 
 ere autumnal sad night 
 Slip back to our niches appointed and strait, 
 
 and arm for the winter's fight, 
 Yours, the hushing of peevish complaints, the 
 
 filling of futile demands, 
 Mine, the patiently facing the dark and chafing 
 
 the listless hands, 
 
 51
 
 JJforg But no ! 'tis the dream of a dastard, a dolt, 
 of Jiatriffe 'twere a children's folly, a sin 
 
 Yet what right doing of all our lives, what sacri 
 fice ever shall win 
 
 Reward so regal ? And yet, the end ! If I held 
 you once as a wife, 
 
 God ! what a thing were I to sink content to the 
 old blank life ! 
 
 But it is not I who shall blench at the risk, 
 the madness, the crime, if you will, 
 
 Yours is the right to rebuke or accede, Will 
 you marry me then, Saville ?" 
 
 Sobbing she answered, " Dear heart ! the wrong, 
 
 if any there be is mine, 
 I should have vision for both of us ; but I am the 
 
 night-shade's vine, 
 
 Purple and scarlet with poison, throttling what 
 ever I twine, 
 These are hysterical ravings ! Forget them ! 
 
 My spirit hath passed 
 Through a long purgatorial penance, but now 
 
 soareth lark-like at last, 
 And I cannot be sorry this moment, dear heart, 
 
 e'en for your lampless eyes, 
 I am glad they must fail to discern in my own 
 
 the exquisite rapture that lies 
 
 52
 
 Mixed with my tears, -tears vanishing now un 
 der your kiss as the dew 
 
 In the sun ! And where have you lingered, my 
 king, these horrible centuries through, 
 
 While I pined and paled in the dungeon-damps, 
 waiting for you for you ! " 
 
 of 
 
 S3
 
 of JUatriffe y^~x August imperial ! Night divine ! O infinite 
 \_S passionate sea 1 
 
 Each of itself is a gift so rich that well may 
 
 the high gods be 
 
 Envying man the sweet low earth and their beau 
 tiful trinity ! 
 
 Kyrle and Saville went wandering on, slow pac 
 ing the surf-beat shore, 
 
 And he stumbled not, for she chose the path, 
 and heavy his arm hung o'er 
 
 Her delicate shoulders ; so faithfully, so spaniel- 
 humble she led, 
 
 Kyrle had not dashed his foot on a stone since 
 the vernal day they were wed. 
 
 Fair is the dawn, when the half-waked robins 
 
 closelier nestle and croon, 
 Fair, but faint by the smiting white supernal 
 
 splendor of noon, 
 And they who but warble of "Love's Young 
 
 Dream " methinks can never have known 
 The gordian tie of an older love, where shadow 
 
 and substance have grown 
 Incorporate utterly, not as the moss clings into 
 
 the crannied stone, 
 54
 
 But knitted with intimate penetrant pangs, as t 
 
 bone knitteth into bone, of 
 
 By the hours when shuddering nature brings to 
 
 racking reluctant birth 
 Another soul to unravel anew the painful riddle 
 
 of earth, 
 By the nights in the chamber of sickness when 
 
 the horror of death cleaves through, 
 And one fears to wipe or to leave unwiped the 
 
 brow of its clustering dew, 
 By the time when the last hard gasp is hushed 
 
 and the poor little body lies still 
 O God ! I have not forgotten ! Let any write 
 
 of it who will I 
 By the kisses that leaven the soddenest lives, the 
 
 kisses that stab as with spears 
 Of rapture the dull integument of the sordid and 
 
 leaden-paced years, 
 Kisses for which full many a man and maiden 
 
 have counted it well 
 To court dishonor and death and burn forever in 
 
 burning hell, 
 Shall a slight thing come to dissever the twain 
 
 cemented thus heart to heart ? 
 Shall they sundered be though earth divides ? 
 
 Can God even drive them apart ? 
 
 55
 
 said that not overmuch do they speak, 
 of JJatnffe lovers long happily wed, 
 
 Nay, 'twere superfluous, where is the need? 
 
 since all that the one would have said 
 The other discerns in a tangent tone, a sigh, 
 
 or a lifted lash, 
 Whose hidden intent doth cycle and spread as 
 
 the waves from a pebble's plash, 
 But not as yet could this pair dispense with the 
 
 word's mere pleasure and need, 
 Nor in silence commune, which accomplishment 
 
 is a matter of lustrums indeed, 
 And Kyrle, sense-hampered and shorn of sight, 
 
 delighted forever to hark 
 Saville, like Elaine, embroidering the velvety 
 
 shield of the dark, 
 She told how a race serenely pure dwelt in some 
 
 fury-fed spark, 
 How a demon-brood infested the whitest orb of 
 
 the glittering arc, 
 How the wandering Pleiad was she herself, who 
 
 had long, long ages ago 
 Resolved to dip to the dear dim earth, rocking so 
 
 tiny below, 
 And had fearfully waited where comets whirred 
 
 and planets loomed monstrous and grim, 
 Waiting the silvery summons of Love, waiting 
 
 for him, for him I 
 
 56
 
 And she fretted oft at the noble verse of The g^ &tort> 
 
 Book " There shall be no night " 
 
 For what were a day everlasting, garishly, 
 
 brazenly bright, 
 To this tablature soft and Egyptian, charactered 
 
 over with light, 
 Where the mind in the giant science trained, 
 
 the lore of the terrible stars, 
 Swings confident past the asteroids slight, past 
 
 neighboring Venus and Mars, 
 Out where each diamond grain of dust is a 
 
 throbbing and thousand-fold world, 
 And the intellect, steady and poised at first, is 
 
 faster and faster whirled 
 Till it staggers and swoons in the awful void, 
 
 and trembling and over-awed 
 Flies as a child to its father to the tenderer 
 
 thought of God. 
 
 And partly she worshiped the night because she 
 was liker her husband then, 
 
 More than himself, she scarce could see, the 
 star-seed, and now and again 
 
 A lamp in a cottage, a Stygian boat, and ever 
 the refluent line 
 
 Of the little sad waves that followed them, seem 
 ing to murmur and pine 
 
 57
 
 And beg for an alms, a dole, from her too munifi- 
 of JJatriffe cent share, 
 
 She could weep in the midst of her happiness, 
 hearing that endless prayer, 
 
 There had been a time she had walked alone by 
 the miserly sea, she said, 
 
 And for one pale pearl from its caverns dim her 
 self had begged vainly instead ; 
 
 She had woven a song, a trifling strain, of that 
 starved and insatiate time, 
 
 Would he hear the thing ? she was something 
 gifted, 'twas said, in music and rhyme. 
 
 ON THE BEACH. 
 
 The ocean is life and the beach 
 
 Is time, and days are the waves 
 That heavily each over each, 
 
 Now wild when the equinox raves, 
 Now languid in summer, do still 
 
 Curl green with the coil of a snake, 
 And ponderous, cruel, and chill, 
 
 In laughter and mockery break. 
 
 I hoped long ago that a wave 
 
 Might bring to me jetsam of price, 
 What tapestries silken and brave, 
 
 What chests full of Indian spice 
 I fancied were destined for me 
 
 58
 
 As I ran to and fro on the strand 
 In search of the treasures the sea of JJatriffe 
 
 Mnst certainly bring to my hand. 
 
 But thousands of waves have come in, 
 
 Mere bubbles and foam as their freight, 
 Oh, weary the watching has been, 
 
 And still do I hungrily wait, 
 For what ? for a morsel of bread, 
 
 Though scarce if it comes within reach 
 Can I rouse from this apathy dead, 
 
 So famished I wait on the beach ! 
 
 And Kyrle mused silent, while slowly his mind, 
 
 as whelmed in the gulf-stream's drift, 
 Swirled far in a vague speculation : This poetic, 
 
 this perilous gift, 
 Whose owner may dwell in the ultimate stars 
 
 and is free of a fairy-knoll, 
 Who heareth the grass give thanks to the rain, 
 
 who readeth a dragon-fly's soul, 
 Who trembles at night to list the winds conspire 
 
 and whisper and plot, 
 Who of choice is blind to all false foul things 
 
 and seeth but that which is not, 
 How can a creature like this endure humanity's 
 
 sordid lot- 
 How sink from its rosy and opal haunts in filmy 
 
 Elysian tracts 
 
 59
 
 To life and its commoner uses, its hard mathe- 
 of gcuriffe matical facts? 
 
 That song of Saville's she had suffered, be sure; 
 
 one could hearken the ruddy slow drip 
 From a heart which relentless Fate had crushed 
 
 in mortal implacable grip, 
 Ah, well ! we are born to suffer, we are bound 
 
 in an iron spiked wheel 
 And roll down a slope precipitous till the senses 
 
 sicken and reel, 
 And hapty their sorrows are lighter and less who 
 
 can sing what their fellows but feel ! 
 
 " Thanks for your song, my sweet," he said " it 
 quickens and quivers with truth, 
 
 And yet I must marvel a woman like you, dow 
 ered with beauty and youth, 
 
 Should have girded at loneliness blank yet brief, 
 nor have guessed it was certain to end, 
 
 Did you not know God in His own good time 
 would happy deliverance send ? " 
 
 The liquid plaint of the lapsing waves was the 
 
 only sound for a space, 
 Then Saville : " My beauty you never have 
 
 named till now, shall I dexterous trace 
 60
 
 Word-semblance thereof, and limn for you the 
 
 lines of this poor fair face ? " of JJatriffe 
 
 " Not so ! " laughed Kyrle, " too well I fathom 
 your woman's and poet's ways 
 
 The truth within you abideth not, you would 
 lure me into a maze, 
 
 And muddy your matchless beauty, miring it 
 with dispraise! " 
 
 " No, no 1 " quoth Saville, " Oh, I should not 
 
 dare ! What, speak of my person a lie, 
 Defaming the charms which had you but seen I 
 
 surely had won you by ? 
 Nay, dear heart, shall I paint for you a meteor's 
 
 arrowy flight, 
 The captain jewels that blaze serene in the tiara 
 
 of night, 
 And not do justice to this my beauty and bring 
 
 it full plain to your sight ? 
 For I am beautiful, amethyst clear are mine 
 
 eyes, and yet amaranth deep, 
 Violets held by a nixie's hand under the liquid 
 
 sweep 
 Of a brook, little wells where truth celestial lieth 
 
 in summery sleep, 
 And my hair glints gold as our marriage ring, 
 
 and lifts in a shimmering cloud 
 
 61
 
 Over a face that is girlish fair, candid and noble- 
 of ^atriffe browed, 
 
 Yet 'ware of its own perfections High, and some 
 thing haughty and proud, 
 
 Scarce warmer in tint than the cornel's leaf or a 
 runlet's eddying foam 
 
 Till your voice or touch calls the straying blood 
 back to its natural home, 
 
 And then, not the heart of a half-blown rose 
 holds ever a hue so sweet 
 
 As the pink in the cheek of a woman where 
 youth and happiness meet ! " 
 
 " I am as a wanton boy who rifles the trillium's 
 
 marshy bed, 
 And wins unweeting an orchid rare, sacred, 
 
 dove-shapen instead, 
 I, presumptuous, kneel at your shrine, abasing 
 
 my penitent head I " 
 
 " Yet what is Beauty unknown of Love? Naught 
 
 but a sea-lamp unfed, 
 Uninformed by the golden oil and flame, a dark 
 
 in the dark overhead, 
 No beacon to save the mariner's bones from 
 
 seeking the bones of the dead, 
 And I was not always so beautiful, dear; the 
 
 flush and the light to my face 
 62
 
 Came as the sun strikes rosily through some 
 
 cold alabastrian vase 
 With the first swift words that I heard you say, 
 
 and 'twas under your quickening kiss 
 That I grew to be as adorable, love, as parian- 
 
 perfect as this ! " 
 
 of
 
 XI. 
 
 of |&nriffe ^-^ AME a season when Nature from smiling 
 
 V^/ ceased and lay with a deathstruck stare 
 
 Drowned on the beach with oozy weeds and 
 
 brown wet shells in her hair, 
 With her vesture drenched and her poor bruised 
 
 feet lying all stark and bare, 
 And leviathan billows bemocked their prey, and 
 mangled and mouthed her there. 
 
 And the wind demoniac howled around the 
 
 house, scarce more than a hut, 
 Where Kyrle and Saville and their happiness 
 
 were safe from the tempest shut, 
 And the cheery lamp shed a kindly glow over 
 
 the humble place, 
 And the nets and the bits of coral and spar lent 
 
 it a simple grace. 
 
 " If only this cottage were ours, Saville ! if this 
 
 our idyl might be 
 Played for , a white half-year divine down by the 
 
 ice fringed sea I 
 But alas I the sable curtain must drop, and the 
 
 actors perforce must flee ! " 
 
 Then the wife, who crouched on the rug, her 
 head on her husband's knee,
 
 Murmured, " Fret not thyself, dear heart, but tfc 
 leave thou the matter to me I " of 
 
 " No, no*1 " said Kyrle, " you have often read 
 how shipwrecked men in a boat 
 
 Of their meagre provision of water and bread 
 take painfullest reckoning note, 
 
 Sweet captain, how many days shall elapse that 
 we together may float ? " 
 
 Then the woman broke out in a passion of sobs, 
 
 grovelling down on the floor, 
 "Oh, I have tricked you and trapped you, Kyrle ! 
 
 I am vile to the innermost core I 
 I am not what I seem what I swore that I was, 
 
 to make your deception complete, 
 A destitute girl, I am rich instead, rich, and 
 
 a liar and cheat ! " 
 
 Then Kyrle sprang up in an agonized whirl of 
 
 righteous horror and wrath, 
 Like one who beholds a malignant snake rear 
 
 green and gold in his path, 
 What 1 had he given his father's name, his heart, 
 
 and his honest clean hand 
 To a thing defiled by the pavement's soil, out of 
 
 society banned, 
 
 65
 
 Destined to uses unlawful and stamped with a 
 of ^atriffe scarlet brand ? 
 
 Not oft in this century's languid end do the 
 
 fingers itch to garrote 
 Like the Moor's the blue-veined animate snow of 
 
 a darling delicate throat, 
 No, no 1 'twas a virginal soul, Saville's, the eyes 
 
 of his mind were not seared, 
 And his heart fell calm and he said " Speak on 1 " 
 
 and she never wist what he had feared. 
 
 Then she told her story, how she herself was 
 the beautiful chatelaine 
 
 Of L'Estrange, how her wealth and beauty 
 were tawdriest baubles and vain, 
 
 For of all the suitors that asked her hand never 
 a one could convince 
 
 The maid that he wooed for herself alone, a gen 
 uine Fairy Prince, 
 
 And then when he came in triumph at last, her 
 hero, her king, her Kyrle, 
 
 And offered his tiny pittance as to a dowerless 
 
 girl, 
 What could she do but accept it and dwell with 
 
 him down by the sea 
 
 In a world where romance and passion and by 
 gone miracles be ? 
 66
 
 How she had panted to tell him I her heart had 
 
 ached that a lie, of 
 
 However so harmless and tacit a one, shonld 
 
 sully their intercourse high, 
 That a gossamer slight as a thistle's down should 
 
 cross the cerulean sky 
 There were wives, she knew, who smiled and 
 
 sang, some sepulchre-secret untold 
 She herself was a verier woman than such, nor 
 
 cast in an Amazcn-mold, 
 And now that he knew her trespass a weight 
 
 from her bosom rolled I 
 
 Kyrle silent sat, but he reached his hand to the 
 
 living gold of her hair, 
 
 Thinking how pure must the nature be, how in 
 wardly white and fair, 
 That cowered at such a venial sin in uttermost 
 
 shame and despair, 
 Their bond, though of steel, had unriveted been ; 
 
 most perfectly had she known 
 They must travel their weary and several ways, 
 
 walking forever alone, 
 If but to his spirit startled and proud a hint of 
 
 the truth were blown, 
 She had had wisdom and daring for both Ay, 
 
 she had been overwise !
 
 A serpentisli feminine creature, compounded of 
 of JJatriffe lures and of lies, 
 
 Void of the commonest honesty even, false to his 
 
 helpless eyes, 
 Strange ! that tonight, next week, next month, 
 
 or when fifty years had gone by, 
 Whether she chid or caressed him or laughed, 
 
 or mourned with a bitter sad cry, 
 He perforce must debate the thing in his heart, 
 
 " But is this true now, or a lie ? " 
 Why, he had trusted her as his God, and lo! 
 
 she had bought him and sold, 
 Made him a chattel, a page, a toy to deck with 
 
 her chains of gold, 
 A Delilah's dupe, 'twere better to be mould in 
 
 the churchyard mould ! 
 
 Ah, well ! myself, I have pity alone for the 
 
 women who fail of the right, 
 I know not in faith how it is we are made so the 
 
 black seemeth often the white, 
 We aspire to a dew-drop's clarity, to a resolute 
 
 self-control, 
 To face the world why, the woman lives not 
 
 who even can face her own soul ! 
 Ah, frail is our tenure of sanity, safety, serenity, 
 
 calm, 
 68
 
 At the mercy of any unlooked-for pang or merest 
 
 material qualm, of JJatriffe 
 
 And the astral truth that is grasped today in 
 prayerful solitude 
 
 Seems but a trifle, a thing of naught, in tomor 
 row's hysterical mood I 
 
 But Kyrle was a man and so heaven had blessed 
 him with absolute masculine sense 
 
 Of the right and the wrong, with a grand dis 
 dain of subterfuge and pretense, 
 
 He had harbored a foe in his household, and 
 now he was stung with a doubt 
 
 How to punish the viperish evil and cast the in 
 truder out. 
 
 Then Saville, still sobbing, writhed up to her 
 
 knees, and he felt her poor heart beating 
 
 wild 
 'Gainst his own, resentful and harsh as Lear's, 
 
 obdurate, unreconciled, 
 And for pity she plead, and pardon, and her plea 
 
 was the plea of a child, 
 "There are many worse women than I am, dear, 
 
 truly, though you have forgot, 
 I must read you the terrible papers and show 
 
 you if there are not 1 " 
 
 69
 
 And she seemed of an infantine weakness, and 
 of J&uriffe sudden lie felt ashamed 
 
 To be wroth with so cyclamen-frail a thing, and 
 never a word he blamed 
 
 His penitent love, but hushed her sobs, implor 
 ing her not to weep, 
 
 And she strove with a broken smile to obey; but 
 thrice in the midnight deep, 
 
 Kyrle, lying awake while the equinox raged, 
 heard a moan break sharp through her 
 sleep. 
 
 Ah ! in that night that must come to us all, when 
 
 a dear one low lies in the grave, 
 Pray God that we need not remember how once 
 
 the lost darling did crave 
 In vain for our word of forgiveness and tenderest 
 
 patience, Nay, more I 
 Pray God we recall some moment we might justly 
 
 have scarified o'er 
 With lava-reproaches a trembling offender, but 
 
 sweetly forbore I 
 
 70
 
 XII. 
 
 OUR life is a triplicate twisted cord of gray of 
 and of gold and of white, 
 The gray is the strand of the body and sen 
 suous subtle delight, 
 
 The gold is the intellectual force, Jovian in tri 
 umph and might, 
 
 And the essence astatic, ethereal, eternal, that is 
 the filament white, 
 
 And none on the low brown earth there be so 
 wholly of white and gold, 
 
 So rapt in unperishing verities on heights of 
 Siberian cold, 
 
 So saturate with conviction, so pierced with 
 truth icicle-keen, 
 
 As to cast the servitude utterly off of pleasure 
 in things terrene, 
 
 And Kyrle, lapped soft in a luxury he never 
 had known or had dreamed, 
 
 Grew half content for a little space with the 
 things of this world and seemed 
 
 To drowse in uxorious slothful fields, lotosed, 
 Lethean-streamed. 
 
 And Saville was the sweetest of ministrants ; the 
 scheme of her life was full plain 
 
 To her sight ; she but lived for this man ; her 
 fathers had garnered the grain 
 
 71
 
 Of tlieir wealth for Ms use and behoof; her 
 of J$curiffe mother had travailed and died 
 
 That Kyrle in the fullness of time might have 
 
 her to hold as a bride, 
 She had studied the lore of the ages, had drawn 
 
 from Pierian wells, 
 Her fingers and voice she had trained to blend 
 
 as the pealing of silver bells, 
 She had learned to wile from the poet's page a 
 
 poetry more than his own, 
 Had won from the spinning earth its song and 
 
 its axle's undertone, 
 Merely that he in his barred black cell might 
 
 feel himself less alone. 
 
 We can but smile at the modern cry for an 
 
 equaler social plan, 
 Man is the servant of God alone, but woman 
 
 serves God and man, 
 And God is the greater, certainly, but man 
 
 dwelleth here below, 
 Not at a vast vague altitude, too loftily far to 
 
 know 
 If we lay at his altar the homage meek, the 
 
 allegiance that we owe. 
 We may wrap in a napkin our talents and God 
 
 will not thunder or smite, 
 72
 
 But woe to the household drudge who keepeth 
 
 the fire on the hearth not bright. of 
 
 What are we in spite of our gifts and graces but 
 
 merest Circassian slaves 
 Shallops fragile or stately ships lashed by the 
 
 wind and the waves, 
 And none dare impugn though the ocean be 
 
 covered with rudder-less spume-sprent 
 
 wrecks, 
 'Tis nature's immutable law, and endures through 
 
 the ages while sex is sex. 
 
 I grant we might wander in wisdom's ways and 
 follow the windings thereof, 
 
 If we might but free our little white feet from 
 the tangling briony, love, 
 
 'Tis sad when a woman to whom the fates An 
 tony's powers allot 
 
 Will eloquent thrill a multitude, for freedom will 
 plan and will plot, 
 
 Then weeps next morning a good two hours for 
 a parting kiss forgot ! 
 
 Yes, truly, 'tis said there are women who their 
 
 earthly pilgrimage run 
 Unloved, unloving as is the Sphinx ; speak not 
 
 of it ; me, I am one 
 
 73
 
 With a horror of any monstrosity rank in the 
 of ^atriffe smile of tlie sun j 
 
 But to resume: This lesson, O friend, God 
 
 grant thou hast long ago learned, 
 No blossom that springs in our weedy path is 
 
 small enough to be spurned, 
 Is it a gold-graven chalice of wine, the cup of 
 
 thy present delight, 
 Or only an oak-leaf filled from a spring, dripping 
 
 with diamonds white ? 
 Drink thou as if it were proffered of gods, e'en 
 
 as the draught were thy last, 
 To-morrow mayhap the water and wine and the 
 
 sweet strong thirst will have passed 1 
 
 Came a day when Saville saw 'twas over, saw it 
 
 too cruelly plain, 
 The months that had been a restoring lull 'twixt 
 
 gusts of repining and pain, 
 As an eglantine scent blown over a brook 'mid 
 
 dashes of August rain, 
 As the noontide rest of two wayworn gipsies hid 
 
 in a leafy lane, 
 For seeking out Kyrle in his room one day she 
 
 found him asleep in a chair, 
 The westering rays on his handsome face and 
 
 bronzing the brown of his hair, 
 
 74
 
 And lie seemed as a carven statue, and the wife 
 
 stopped stricken and gasped, 
 For close in his long unused right hand his 
 
 palette and brushes were grasped. 
 
 And how he had found in the dark these things 
 
 she could not imagine or know, 
 And she closed the door and stole away, leaving 
 
 him sleeping so, 
 And in solitude knelt for a bitter hour and 
 
 wrestled alone with her woe, 
 Yet loved him a hundred-fold better because he 
 
 had broken the thrall 
 Of her arms for a vision of duty, nor made her 
 
 his all in all. 
 
 Came another day, outside 'twas wild, and the 
 
 wind whistled scimetar shrill, 
 Whipping the terrified snowflakes sheeplike 
 
 over the hill, 
 But in the library dense with thought where 
 
 loitered Kyrle and Saville 
 Peaceful was all the atmosphere, solemnly, heav 
 
 enly still, 
 Save as the woodbine tapped the pane with little 
 
 coquettish starts, 
 Or an ash fell feathery on the hearth 'neath 
 
 rosy and violet darts. 
 
 75
 
 They were sitting the width of the room apart 
 of JJatriffe and she had been reading from " Maud," 
 
 When sudden he spoke in a voice at once ex 
 ultant and deeply awed, 
 " Saville, dear heart ! I have not dared to say 
 
 what for days I have guessed 
 That God in His infinite mercy and wisdom and 
 
 love accounteth it best 
 
 To relume the lamps in their sockets, to sum 
 mon the long-fled guest, 
 To roll the hideous weight away that years on 
 
 my life hath pressed, 
 There, as I point, is a grayness a glimmer a 
 
 dark less Cimmerian profound, 
 Am I right ? Is it haply a glimpse through a cur- 
 
 tainless casement of snow-covered ground? 
 Here on the left is a lurid lifting of shadow, it 
 
 almost is red, 
 Is it only a sulphurous devil within, or the 
 
 ruddy clear fire instead ? 
 I scarcely dare hope, yet I have remembered 
 
 all of this year, Saville, 
 That the day we met you promised my sight 
 
 But what is it, love ? Are you ill 
 Are you gone from the room that I meet with 
 
 alone this silence so strange and so chill ? 
 Why, I looked for a tempest of laughter and 
 
 doubts, and for floods of rejoicing tears,
 
 We shall never have cause for such joy again in 
 
 all of our three score years ! of 
 
 Speak, I command you ! 'Tis cruel as hell to 
 mock at my helplessness so, 
 
 'Tis unworthy, unwomanly, all unlike the tender 
 Saville I know, 
 
 Dear, I am frightened a whimpering child 
 come to me or I go 
 
 Seeking you, sick to the soul with fear, stagger 
 ing to and fro ! " 
 
 And he rose and gropingly crossed the room, 
 
 grasping the empty air, 
 And loud in his heart was a knocking dread and 
 
 low on his lips was a prayer, 
 And at last by the door his foot struck dull in 
 
 the coil of her soft sweet hair. 
 
 77
 
 XIII. 
 of ^atriffe *TT* H pu ] se came back to the mar ble wrist 
 
 A and the faint sad lids unfurled, 
 
 And Saville perceived with a wild regret 
 that 'twas not the end of the world, 
 
 And slowly she turned on her languid divan, 
 dismissing them all from the room, 
 
 And shuddering flung her cerements off, like 
 Lazarus in the tomb, 
 
 And dragged her rebellious feet across the vel 
 vety carpet, and flung 
 
 Herself odalisque- wise on a couch where a mir 
 ror magnificent hung. 
 
 For women, methinks that the text should read, 
 " If haply ye have all things 
 
 And have not beauty, then have 3^6 naught," 
 for beauty such benison brings 
 
 No woman would barter it for a crown or the 
 wealth barbaric of kings 1 
 
 Ah me ! we are gambling our lives away, play 
 ing a desperate game 
 
 Where we suffer in winning or losing alike, 
 'tis law, and there's no one to blame, 
 
 And the stake that we play for is only love, and 
 beauty and love are the same, 
 
 Or if not the same, then so closely knit that 
 none can dissever the two, 
 
 78
 
 Men swear that they love us for mind or soul, 
 
 and haply they think they do, of JJatriffe 
 
 But the veriest dairymaid milking her cow 
 
 knows it is wholly untrue ; 
 Surely, plain women are sometimes loved; but 
 
 Love is a wizard so kind 
 That he glamours and gilds the thing beloved, 
 
 and causeth his servant to find 
 In his choice the graces of Hebe, Minerva, and 
 
 Venus combined 1 
 
 O friend ! think never to please a woman by 
 praising her housewife's thrift, 
 
 Her spiritual fervor and zeal for God, her 
 rythmic or musical gift, 
 
 Say rather you like the shape of the ear, or the 
 eyelid's languorous lift ! 
 
 Saville was enwrapped in a silken robe, woven 
 of delicate pink, 
 
 All branched with lilies of silver, petalling link 
 into link, 
 
 Fair as the blush of the peach in May, and sil 
 ver and pink were her feet, 
 
 And her body was framed of a lily's curves, sil- 
 verly white and sweet, 
 
 And her hair was a glimmering golden mist, the 
 aureole of a saint, 
 
 79
 
 A heavenly halo above a face Nay hush ! for I 
 of l&Hriffe dare not paint 
 
 That face with its birthmark fatal and foul, its 
 hideous carrion-taint 1 
 
 But Saville had confronted it all her life, and to 
 day with a ghastly mirth 
 
 She twisted her lips to a livid smile, " 'Tis well 
 that she died at my birth, 
 
 My mother," she mused, " for to-day her life she 
 would deem but of slenderest worth ! " 
 
 And she lay and mourned how strange it was, 
 how passing all utterance sad 
 
 That naught in the heart or mind of a woman 
 the love of a man forbade 
 
 So utterly as a surface blemish, a faulture gos 
 samer thin, 
 
 Sprung from a tissue freighted too deep or a 
 hindered current within, 
 
 For a woman may have a petrified heart, icy, 
 and rock to the core, 
 
 Scarred by tempests and seamed and gashed, 
 lichened and rusted o'er, 
 
 Of pity incapable, never to beat with a pulse of 
 kindliness more, 
 
 She may have a mind, if you call it a mind, the 
 
 sluggish dull animal sense 
 80
 
 That biddeth her eat and cover her limbs and 0e 
 maketh a decent pretense of 
 
 To veil with chatter or shroud with silence the 
 shame of her ignorance dense, 
 
 She may have a lupine and viperish soul, disin 
 tegrate with disease, 
 
 Fibrous and pulpy with poison, a pestilence 
 spoiling the breeze, 
 
 'Tis a pitiful comment on this our life that a 
 woman may have all these, 
 
 And yet for her royal favor a man will sue on 
 his knees, 
 
 Dazzled so blind by her beautiful face that 
 never a fault he sees I 
 
 If ever a woman on earth might hope to be wor 
 shipped for mind alone, 
 
 Or heart or soul, 'twas Saville, who was worthy 
 the love of a prince to have known, 
 
 But ah ! 'tis impossible nature revolts men 
 may sin against God on high, 
 
 But not 'gainst the law of selection ; however 
 they truckle and lie 
 
 And successfully feign, they cannot love a thing 
 from which love must fly, 
 
 Poor girl ! she had seen In pauper's hovels where 
 she was dispensing bread 
 
 81
 
 Disgust in the eyes she had wiped of their tears, 
 of JJatnffe a sneer on the lips she had fed, 
 
 A beggar's brat full patient and still through 
 
 many a fevered dream 
 Yet start convulsive at sight of her face and turn 
 
 with a ringing scream, 
 She had come to believe that the dogs in the 
 
 street howled as she passed them by, 
 And every glance at her face was a blow, and 
 
 her every breath was a cry ! 
 
 And now her body seemed but as a leaf that 
 shrivels and curls in a flame, 
 
 And she shrank as a slave shrinks under the 
 whip under her terrible shame, 
 
 She had given herself as a wedded wife to a 
 stainless knight and a true, 
 
 She whom never a churl on earth could know 
 ingly, honestly woo, 
 
 Oh ! in a biting shame like this there's only one 
 thing to do I 
 
 Ah, why did he love her so passing well ? For 
 
 the very force of that love 
 Idealized, glorified, sanctified her, throned her 
 
 all women above, 
 Made her a star in the firmanent, the marvel and 
 
 wonder thereof, 
 82
 
 He thought to see if at last he awoke from his 
 
 two years' visionless trance of Jljatnffe 
 
 That she whom the fates had sent to him by a 
 
 miracle's happy chance 
 Was a goddess unparagoned, cinctured with 
 
 cloud, divinely, immortally fair, 
 Sceptred and crowned with loveliness, a nimbus 
 
 upon her hair, 
 Violets springing up under her feet O God! 
 
 O God I could she dare 
 Lift her Medusa-face to his own and harden it 
 
 into despair ? 
 A commoner, coarser-natured man might better 
 
 have borne such blow, 
 But Kyrle to be gyved to this body of death, 
 
 Kyrle to be manacled so, 
 Kyrle, with his artist's vision for colors and con 
 tours trained, 
 Kyrle, forsooth ! And she laughed aloud, seeing 
 
 what thing remained 1 
 
 And 'twas not the physical stigma, the blot on 
 the skin alone, 
 
 That his spirit might soar above, but Oh ! he 
 could never condone 
 
 Her wicked deceit of silence, her garbled super 
 fluous lies, 
 
 83
 
 JJforp That were as a snivelling hypocrite's prayers, 
 of JJfttriffe a whining coward's who tries 
 
 To slaver himself with pretense of virtue and 
 whiten him in God's eyes 1 
 
 A sonnd behind her, and Kyrle came in, and with 
 
 her low call for a guide 
 He crossed the room with his slow soft step and 
 
 sank on the couch at her side, 
 And belted her body within his embrace and 
 
 pressed his clear ivory cheek 
 'Gainst hers no, not that word no, no! but 
 
 barred with its baleful streak, 
 And murmured, " Saville, my wife, my queen 
 
 pardon the haste that could speak 
 Such tidings so blunt 'twas a glowing breeze 
 
 and thou but a hyacinth weak, 
 And hast thou a womanish fancy, love, that 
 
 mayhap we might drift apart, 
 I having once more the armor and steed to enter 
 
 the tourney of art, 
 That I might grow careless of home and thee ? 
 
 Perish the thought, sweetheart ! 
 There's one fair thing in the world, Saville, that 
 
 ever I long to limn, 
 That first shall dawn on my long, long dark and 
 
 rise through the shadows dim, 
 84
 
 That is more than the emerald forests or azurine 
 
 heavens to me, 
 For a mother ne'er longed for her babe unborn 
 
 as I this treasure to see, 
 Which is mine and still not mine as yet, thou 
 
 knowest it ? thou canst guess ? " 
 
 And Saville, with her eyes on the mirror, steadily 
 answered " Yes I "
 
 XIV. 
 
 of triffe T T r E MAY dwell content in a lowly cot, 
 V V wearing our homespun gray, 
 
 Neighbored by robins and lambs alone 
 
 and the squirrels across the way, 
 Disprizing wealth and keeping aloof from the 
 
 breakneck race of greed, 
 Our brows unbeaded by hard-wrung sweat ; but 
 
 in time of a dear one's need 
 Money is freedom, 'tis wings, 'tis power, 'tis 
 
 verily life indeed, 
 
 Oft do we watch our darlings droop in the merci 
 less Northern blast 
 Knowing we well might save them if fortune 
 
 would only cast 
 In our way the means to carry them far where 
 
 zephyrs auroral blow 
 What the rich spend oft in a single feast if only 
 
 'twere ours but no ! 
 'Tis ours instead to watch next spring the grass 
 
 on a new grave grow ! 
 
 Saville herself wrote bravely the letters sum 
 moning over the land 
 
 The skill that hath earned the right to come at 
 only a Croesus' command, 
 
 And she quietly waited the verdict ; she had 
 
 written with steady hand 
 86
 
 And heard with uneager impassive face the words %$t JJforg 
 of the surgeon bland : of 
 
 There was every warrant for deeming the eye 
 balls' nubilous blur 
 
 A mere superficial obstruction ; he would confi 
 dent even aver 
 
 They should see complete restoration ; and Sa- 
 ville gave sign of no stir 
 
 In her pulse at this gospel of light to him, of 
 dark everlasting to her, 
 
 And never her fingers faltered through many a 
 day and night 
 
 To bathe with lustral lotions and to number the 
 drops aright. 
 
 And as one death-doomed by a mortal ill, know 
 ing his sojourn is brief, 
 
 Wastes never the precious moments in useless 
 repining and grief, 
 
 But rather endeavors to sweeten each hour, to 
 make its scarce-hoped-for boon 
 
 Something to sweetly recall 'mid the dark he 
 reluctant must enter so soon, 
 
 So Saville grudged every atom of time she did 
 not with Kyrle commune. 
 
 She little had practiced the ways of the world, 
 this cloistered immured Saville,
 
 But now she set snares for the bird Renown, 
 of J&wffe an( j the journals began to fill 
 
 With notes of Kyrle's long hid sketches, praise 
 of his wonderful skill, 
 
 Predictions of his renascence and greater tri 
 umphs in store, 
 
 So that he gleefully laughed as she read, remind 
 ing her o'er and o'er 
 
 How she had said in her very first words that if 
 he would only adore 
 
 The Fairy Saville all things of good would serfs 
 at his beckoning be, 
 
 " And first 'twas Love and then 'twas Wealth, 
 dear heart, that thou gavest me, 
 
 And now 'tis Fame, and Vision draws nigh, lured 
 to mine eyes by thee 1 " 
 
 And he said 'twas strange to reflect indeed that 
 
 if he had been alone 
 Throughout the term of his blindness, if God 
 
 had not made her known 
 To his cankered heart, 'twas certain the mordant 
 
 malevolent tone 
 Of his mind would have tainted his later life, 
 
 projecting through future days 
 When the hand's sleight wedded to strength of 
 
 purpose should fill the world with his 
 
 praise,
 
 And had marred his work with an atheist's doubt 
 
 of God and His questionless ways. of JJatnffe 
 
 But e'en as he strayed, a bewildered child, where 
 
 the tide swirled over the beach, 
 A starry seraph had caught his hand and guided 
 
 him safe out of reach 
 Of the waves seductive of unbelief and their low 
 
 insidious speech, 
 Whispering, " God is over us all, and He cares 
 
 for His children each ! " 
 
 And he said that often it frightful seemed that 
 
 aught should hinder or ban 
 Our life of a minute's duration, should shorten 
 
 the firefly span 
 Of effort and strength and passionate zeal for 
 
 truth allotted to man, 
 But it had been well for himself to pause, in 
 
 the interval he had thought, 
 Had won experience deep and rich that should 
 
 in his work be wrought, 
 And he could not thank her in all his life for the 
 
 wonderful things she had taught, 
 Henceforth his pictures should sing of her, Sa- 
 
 ville their dominant tone, 
 
 Merely the pigments and tactile skill, the out 
 ward shell, were his own,
 
 JJforg 
 of J&atnffe 
 
 While tlie essence informing, the spirit divine, 
 that was Saville's alone ! 
 
 And he had fought down his impious wish : 
 Though helped by Angelico's shade 
 
 To worthily trace her portrait, he was certain 
 that if he essayed 
 
 So high a task great Jove would smite and the 
 thunderbolts make him afraid ! 
 
 90
 
 XV. 
 
 of 
 
 EACH century hath, it is said, its peculiar 
 favorite sin, 
 A chamber of horrors so grewsome and 
 
 dank no poet may dwell therein, 
 But the special crime of this passing day touches 
 
 us all so near 
 
 We cannot therefrom withdraw our eyes how 
 ever they widen with fear, 
 The journals will spare no details of the suicide's 
 
 act and its cause, 
 The plunge or the bane or the bullet Why may 
 
 not the people have laws 
 To defend them from hearing these blasts of 
 
 hell ? O tribunes and senators ! pause 
 In your framing dispensable edicts, smoothing 
 
 scarce-visible flaws, 
 And forbid the monsters black-blooded and huge 
 
 to mangle these gouts in their maws 1 
 
 Saville heard her sentence of death, she felt, in 
 
 hearing the surgeon say 
 The bandage should fall and the curtains be 
 
 drawn on the first sweet morning of May, 
 A year ago how the robins had sung ! it had 
 
 been their wedding day !
 
 JJforp When instinct of self-preservation is nulled' and 
 of JJatriffe " Hfe maddens 'gainst life amain," 
 
 The very loss of that chief instinct is proof of a 
 clot on the brain, 
 
 And it eats and honeycombs night and day like 
 a burrowing mole in the ground, 
 
 Whether one dances or dines or sleeps, till a vi 
 tal point it hath found, 
 
 And the deadliest sting of the subtle disease, the 
 devil's insidious touch 
 
 Is that though a temptation to mortal sin one 
 knoweth it never for such, 
 
 But esteems it the highest duty to which a soul 
 can aspire, 
 
 And is lighted to self-destruction by the martyr's 
 sacrific white fire, 
 
 And how shall one fail to follow where the im 
 molate saints have trod, 
 
 How shrink from inflicting upon one's self the 
 flagellant's merited rod, 
 
 How fear to cast out mere offal a burden so lit 
 tle worth 
 
 There no longer is room for it anywhere in all 
 of the sweet wide earth ? 
 
 Look you, why, haply beneath your roof one 
 
 weareth a steady smile, 
 92
 
 Sedately pacing life's minuet, while steadily all 
 
 the while of 
 
 A horrid design is forming, a fungus spreads 
 
 cancerous-vile, 
 I have held the hand of a friend one hour and 
 
 the next his spirit had fled, 
 Dismissed by self and violent means Who 
 
 knows ? Had I sisterly said 
 A word of love I might have dissolved and 
 
 melted his purpose dread, 
 Clasp close the near ones about your hearth, let 
 
 never caresses lack, 
 For the turn of a card, the fall of a leaf, may 
 
 speed them adown the track 
 Facile, declivitous, into the bourne of the 
 
 Acheron valley black ! 
 
 Yet no, this were not of the least avail ; no aid 
 that is won from without 
 
 Is offeree to cope with interior foes, to vanquish 
 and put them to rout, 
 
 The brood ignoble and self-engendered must 
 even self-stifled be, 
 
 For a wanton zephyr deracinates not the stur 
 diest forest tree, 
 
 And often this deadly virus breeds in a strong 
 determinate mind, 
 
 93
 
 In a soul more stalwart and loftier far than the 
 of J&triffe bulk of the human kind, 
 
 Whose motive is not a coward's, to spare itself 
 
 woe and disgrace, 
 But to rid the world of a tainted thing, to die for 
 
 the sake of the race. 
 
 Yet if so be that one conquers temptation and 
 out of the gates of hell 
 
 Flame-blackened with shrivelling garments back 
 cometh alive and well, 
 
 There's not on the earth a stronger soul than 
 such a king-spirit must be, 
 
 That hath even outdaunted Satan himself, bid 
 ding him tremble and flee, 
 
 Nothing can shake the integrity, the rock's im 
 pregnable strength 
 
 Of the fort long assaulted that now is left to its 
 hard won peace at length, 
 
 Exalted, serene, the spirit shall reign in its un 
 touched citadel, 
 
 And look henceforth with an equal eye on the 
 things of heaven or hell ; 
 
 Less ineffable now is the heliotrope scent, and 
 life seemeth scarcely so sweet, 
 
 But neither looms death so dragonish grim nor 
 
 annihilate dark so complete, 
 94
 
 For the soul that was but as a reed in the wind 
 
 hath attained a Nirvana of calm, of 
 
 And is in this feverous desert of life a fountain 
 of healing and balm, 
 
 And pilgrims shall be refreshed thereat, shall 
 gratefully lave and drink, 
 
 And maidens shall garlands wreathe of forget- 
 me-nots fringing the brink, 
 
 And many shall love the spring fern-hidden, 
 shall precious esteem it and dear, 
 
 Not knowing what throes volcanic and fierce 
 have left it so crystalline clear. 
 
 95
 
 XVI. 
 of guriXk * WEET April, blossomy April, the laughing 
 
 *CJ capricious inaid, 
 
 Had velvet enamellar carpets spread in gar 
 den and glebe and glade, 
 
 Had carelessly dropped her loose-clasped gold, 
 dotting with coins the lawn, 
 
 Had lingered for thirty ravishing days, and to 
 night was almost gone, 
 
 For the latest even of April had come, and the 
 soft air, moist with rain, 
 
 Stole through the ivied casement, a lilac breath 
 in its train, 
 
 Over the two who had known together a year of 
 divinest love, 
 
 And who now had come by the will of fate to the 
 last sweet moment thereof. 
 
 " Kyrle, I have something to ask," she said, tim 
 idly stroking his hand, 
 
 " Answer me not with blame of my weakness, 
 but try, dear, to understand, 
 
 It is that you let me leave home to-night, but 
 of course, dear Kyrle, not for long, 
 
 I dare not be present to-morrow, I have aye 
 been so brave and so strong 
 
 That haply you think I can bear all things, 
 but if the result should go wrong,
 
 If you should not see as they say you will, if 
 
 instead of triumphal song, of 
 
 Your voice breaks down in a heartstruck wail at 
 a failure abrupt and complete, 
 
 I could not survive the cruel shock, I should 
 drop down dead at your feet ! " 
 
 " Nay now, Saville, thou art far too bold, why, 
 
 what shall it profit me 
 The fleecy flocks of the sky to mark, the crocus 
 
 and primrose to see, 
 Ay, even my first love, * Rupert's Trust,' and 
 
 not O Saville I not thee ? 
 Yet thou shalt never ask boon in vain, I will 
 
 thine almoner be, 
 A warden most lenient, Go, dear heart ! for a 
 
 score of hours thou art free I " 
 
 And softly she thanked her lord and liege, meek 
 
 as a scriptural wife, 
 And he might not discern from her even tones 
 
 with what pangs her bosom was rife, 
 Nor dreamed that in passing away that night 
 
 she was passing sheer out of his life. 
 
 And she came and knelt by his chair once more, 
 wrapped in her soft rich cloak, 
 
 97
 
 And nestled her poor sad face in Ms breast and 
 of JJatriffe brokenly, tenderly spoke, 
 
 " O love, my love, in the days to come winnow 
 
 thy mind of the ill 
 I haply have done thee, remember alone that I 
 
 was thy Fairy Saville ! " 
 
 And he kissed her thrice and he said " Good 
 night," and she bit back a passionate cry, 
 
 And he noted not in his hope and joy that her 
 answering word was " Good-bye ! "
 
 XVII. 
 
 IT WAS over, Ms long suspense and doubt ; of 
 the delicate daring hand 
 Had executed successfully the intellect's keen 
 
 command, 
 O, scarce in the New Jerusalem paven with gold 
 
 and with pearls, 
 
 Scarce shall the ransomed of God know rapture 
 diviner than Kyrle's I 
 
 For an hour or twain 'twas enough to enjoy, 
 
 merely that God had said 
 " Let there be light I " for him once more, and 
 
 had summoned his eyes from the dead, 
 But quickly the rift crept widening in, 'twas 
 
 but a mere broken toy, 
 A splintered gem, a goblet cracked, if Saville did 
 
 not share in his joy. 
 He blamed himself for granting her prayer, 
 
 she should have remained beside 
 Her husband and bravely fronted with him what 
 
 weal or woe should betide, 
 Alone ? Why, not so alone had he been before 
 
 they ever had met, 
 A tenebrous wall of solitude, carven of solid 
 
 jet, 
 Immured him round, and the air waxed cold, 
 
 e'en as the sun had set. 
 
 99
 
 He sought the room where her laugh and song 
 of Jlatriffe had made the obscurity bright, 
 
 And gazed on trifles familiar and dear to the 
 
 touch if not to the sight, 
 Her bird chirped low in its shining cage, the 
 
 fish gleamed gay in the globe, 
 And careless it lay on the rich divan, her rosy 
 
 and silvery robe, 
 Yes, she herself would be here anon where else 
 
 should she be ? but yet 
 Surely the hour was passing had passed the 
 
 hour she had set 
 To return Good God ! he was stifling, meshed 
 
 in a strangling net ! 
 
 They brought him a note. " Dear Kyrle, Dear 
 
 Love, Briefly and plain must I write, 
 Nor tax God's last best gift to you, the peerless 
 
 blessing of sight, 
 They who shall give you this letter will tell you 
 
 wherefore it must be 
 That you and I are severed nor meet till we 
 
 meet by the jasper sea. 
 I had meant to leave you another way, but I 
 
 could not ! my aim would have missed 
 The head that your hands had benisoned, the 
 
 bosom your lips had kissed, 
 100
 
 I could wish 'twere a loftier motive, dear, some 
 
 impulse of duty or right, of 
 
 But no, 'twas only that what you had loved 
 
 thenceforth was inviolate quite, 
 And so I have only gone away. Seek not, for 
 
 you never will find, 
 Spend rather each precious moment in doing the 
 
 work we outlined 
 For your brush if our Heavenly Father should 
 
 call you back into the field, 
 Strive on, and this present personal need, this 
 
 ache in your heart, shall be healed, 
 For me, I shall think of you there in my home, 
 
 I shall know that you dream of me still, 
 And shall read in each finished picture a starry 
 
 sweet thought of 
 
 SAVILLE!" 
 
 101
 
 SO HERE ENDETH THE STORY OF SAVILLE 
 AS TOLD BY JULIA DITTO YOUNG ^ AND 
 DONE INTO A BOOK \f AT THE ROYCROFT 
 SHOP % WHICH IS IN EAST AURORA, NEW 
 YORK, U. S. A. $t% MDCCCXCVII
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 Form L9-100m-9.'52(A3105)444
 
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