Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN < 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 IDYLLS OF WOMANHOOD
 
 By the same A utkor. 
 
 SAPPHO. 
 
 Some Opinions of tbe press. 
 
 " Whatever the situation may be or require, the 
 poetry itself is often of admirable quality human 
 always if not dramatic, full of thought, of pensive- 
 ness, of quiet feeling, with a tone in it, measured 
 and brooding, as of one taking delicate note of the 
 things within and without not ideas, not emotions 
 merely, but the flash of drops from the leaf, the 
 voice of the thrush from the thicket, the glint of 
 gold on a passing drapery. Not the Greek Sappho 
 indeed Greek in nothing but her name unsensu- 
 ous, self-restrained, a moral minister yet the 
 Sappho whom we see here is a woman ' worthy the 
 loving and the world's delight,' drawn by one who 
 is able to portray a noble ideal, as one sees it now 
 and then, incarnated in some rare woman." 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 " An epic of much poetical force and strength in 
 blank verse, but rhythmically melodious, is Mr. 
 C. A. Dawson's ' Sappho.' Sappho's soliloquy is 
 worthy to rank beside some other eloquent and 
 famous passages of blank verse, and Mr. Dawson 
 deserves to be congratulated on what we assume to 
 be his first public appearance as a poet." Graphic, 
 
 " ' Sappho ' is a work of which it is difficult to 
 convey an adequate idea in a bnef review. Enough 
 has perhaps been said to show that its author has 
 elevation of style, as well as poetical fancy." 
 
 Morning Post. 
 
 " In ' Sappho 'Mr. C. A. Dawson has produced 
 a poem not unworthy of his theme. It is full of 
 high aspiration and beautiful idealism, of melody, 
 passion, and power." Scotsman.
 
 IDYLLS OF 
 WOMANHOOD 
 
 BY 
 
 C. AMY DAWSON 
 
 AUTHOR OF ' SAPI'HO 
 
 LONDON 
 
 WILLIAM HEINEMANN 
 1892 
 
 {All rights reserved^
 
 To 
 
 F. T. C. 
 
 THIS BOOK /S DEDICATED 
 
 IN 
 REVERENT AFFECTION 
 
 BY 
 
 10S6S31
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 TAGE 
 
 A WOMAN'S ETHICS . . i 
 
 A WOMAN'S LOVE 17 
 
 KUKHMABAI 37 
 
 WOMAN'S WIT . . 64 
 
 A WOMAN'S VENGEANCE 67 
 
 A WOMAN'S FAITH 92 
 
 A WOMAN'S SIN 99
 
 A WOMAN'S ETHICS 
 
 OUT of the deeps of the valley, the shadowy deeps grey- 
 green, 
 Where the glimmer of twilight water, steals up thro' 
 
 ascending glooms, 
 And the pines are a whispering darkness, clear-sketched 
 
 in the after- glow 
 Of a sun-god slain in his berserk, and slain with his face 
 
 to the foe, 
 Out of the deeps we toiled, and found the leaves on the 
 
 lawn 
 
 Tossed in a windy swirl, a dance of russet and brown, 
 Tossed and scattered and torn, as thou and I in the 
 
 past, 
 The past that is folded in dark, as our dead in the silence 
 
 of God. 
 
 And I felt with the wind on my brow, and the stretch of 
 
 the golden skies 
 A-deepening down the hills, till their radiance gathered 
 
 and passed 
 
 A
 
 of IKHomanbooO 
 
 And only the eyelid of wisdom, might hold the sun-beauty 
 
 foreseen 
 And evolved thro' the numberless ages of mist, and 
 
 chaos, and dark 
 I felt that the pain must have speech, that the life of my 
 
 innermost life, 
 The life that was hushed in despair, as a spring in the 
 
 caves of the sea, 
 Must rise, heart-ruddied and rise, till it broke thro' the 
 
 billows of sleep, 
 Till it ran up the weed wet beaches, and shallowed away 
 
 and was lost, 
 A scattering echo of grief, that is stilled by the dirge of 
 
 the deep. 
 
 Friend friend of my noon of the dawning and strife of 
 my day 
 
 My friend to hearken and heed, tho' the lapsing cloud- 
 heavy years 
 
 Have burdened thee sore with a sorrow, an infinite 
 sorrow God wots 
 
 Not grief like my absolute grief, a pool that is stagnant 
 and still ; 
 
 Not death like that absolute death, that is held in the 
 dying of love, 
 
 But parting the parting of souls the parting of souls 
 for an hour, 
 
 Or less for the space of a cry, of a wind-echoed wander- 
 ing wail.
 
 a lUoman's JEtbics 3 
 
 Not you to forget how we dreamed, when the larch new- 
 
 tasselled with green 
 Swayed over our heads in the woodland, and brown on 
 
 the bloom-white spray 
 
 Swelled the throats of the songsters warbling of summer- 
 rich glooms and gold. 
 We dreamed, and our dream was a hero a Galahad 
 
 virgin-pure 
 With a face like the freshness of morning and thoughts 
 
 unsoiled as the light, 
 When it leaps thro' the heavens aflush, gold-spearing the 
 
 recreant shades. 
 And we vowed standing deep in the mosses, we vowed by 
 
 the bonds of our love, 
 By our sisters lost in the cities, by womanhood's weakness 
 
 and strength, 
 That the men we would wed should be pure, should be 
 
 pure of all sensual sin 
 As the Christ and our maiden souls, we vowed it and 
 
 turned again, 
 Threading the tangle of grasses, and wandering deep in 
 
 the wood. 
 
 We dreamed when the rose was in bud, and before the 
 
 full flush of the flower 
 Had lighted the gardens, and given its golden-sweet heart 
 
 to the sun, 
 One came from the city your hero, a scholarly man and 
 
 grave,
 
 4 35sll6 of TKflomanbooD 
 
 Wise with the wisdom of science, a thinker, a worker and 
 more 
 
 Yet who knew not of love, was content to search out 
 beginnings of truth ; 
 
 A man half-asleep but you spoke, and he roused as the 
 warrior afar, 
 
 Who hears the faint note of the clarion, the echo of 
 thundering feet, 
 
 All the turmoil and hurry of conflict, and stumbles full- 
 armed to his feet ; 
 
 A man with the faults of his manhood, but rilled with an 
 earnest desire 
 
 To learn, as a child of its mother, to climb, groping up- 
 wards and on, 
 
 Till he paused on the levels of love, the levels where God 
 meets the soul 
 
 And sanctifies, purifies, burns, till the dross has been 
 parted, and leaves 
 
 The pure metal, the gold, the love-gold, the element 
 matchless and rare, 
 
 So rare in our pitiful world, that we blend it and tinker 
 and spread, 
 
 Just its gleam on the poor wooden frame of the daub that 
 we show as a life. 
 
 Thus were dreams over-filled ere the summer had 
 
 deepened the green of the beech ; 
 You wedded, and from the white roadway the thunder of 
 
 galloping hoofs
 
 S tUoman's Etbics 5 
 
 Smote chill on my heart tho : the lilies yet lifted their 
 
 pride by the way, 
 And the lark was triumphantly trilling his story of music 
 
 and love. 
 You left me, a girl in the flower and flush of impetuous 
 
 youth, 
 A girl with a scattering" of gold where now is thegreyness 
 
 of time. 
 And behold, now the autumns are ten, since we trod the 
 
 brown leaves under foot, 
 (Half-a-score of hot years! so o'erfilled with labour and 
 
 earnest desire 
 To lift the dark earth out of pain and the seedlings and 
 
 urgings of sin, 
 That our hands have not touched) you return, but alas in 
 
 the shadow of loss, 
 You return, but your footsteps are lonely, you stretch out 
 
 a tremulous hand 
 For help and remember. Oh death, of the mystic " one 
 
 flesh " making twain, 
 Making twain with a rattle of bones with skeleton face.s 
 
 a-grin, 
 Methinks thou wert wanton in snatching, when others 
 
 had leapt at thy call, 
 Merry footing to tunes of despair, to the echo of clods 
 
 on a grave. 
 
 And I ? Well he came in the autumn, a man happy- 
 hearted and hot,
 
 of WomanbooD 
 
 With laughter laid under his lashes, a man of intangible 
 
 charm, 
 But you know it the charm of one man for one woman, 
 
 the charm 
 That is love at first sight, the dim knowledge that here is 
 
 our nature's completion ; 
 He came, but my meadows were many, my gold as the 
 
 wheat of a land, 
 And he was but a soldier, the son of a race that had 
 
 sprung from the soil 
 In the near yesterday. So they spake, and my lover went 
 
 forth in his pride, 
 In a madness of pain, that must burn, tho' he steeped it 
 
 in passion and sin. 
 
 The days grew apace into months, but the dew of the 
 
 morn was a tear, 
 A pathqs now lurked in the valley, a sorrow lay dark on 
 
 the hill, 
 And the. woodland was ever a whisper that throbbed with 
 
 the sadness of love, 
 While all music was mystery, yearning a tremor of 
 
 memories awake 
 The murmurous sound of a voice, a voice that was sweet 
 
 in my ear 
 
 As the nightingale's song. Standing rich in their bind- 
 ings of vellum and calf, 
 Were the tomes that my fathers had gathered, the 
 
 thoughts of the wonderful dead,
 
 a "Ottoman's Etbica 7 
 
 And I learnt, sitting low at their feet, until life seemed a 
 
 moment of time, 
 And my pain but the breath of a \veecl that has rooted 
 
 and bloomed among flowers 
 Till rich with the wisdom of ages, and walking in meadows 
 
 of thought, 
 I learnt an endurance of all things. Elaine had been 
 
 many-year wife 
 
 To his brother, and widowed now dwelt, within neigh- 
 bourly distance a friend, 
 With a tongue that must ever be pouring its runnel of 
 
 wearisome chat, 
 Yet his sister and therefore a friend. One languorous 
 
 storm-heavy gloam, 
 When mists lay dense on the marsh and the waves of a 
 
 whitening sea 
 Heaved greyly and fell, we were sitting in dusk of a 
 
 darkening room, 
 And dropping her voice to a whisper, she spake of men's 
 
 folly, the sin 
 Of one man among others my love. I turned with the 
 
 thrust in my heart, 
 Turned dumbly and left her the fires of a shrinking and 
 
 sensitive shame 
 Ablaze in my soul, ruddy flames, that flickered and 
 
 brightened and burnt, 
 Till the sweetness of love, its white honour, its purity, 
 
 patience and trust, 
 Were as weeds on a smouldering heap or the ash of a 
 
 funeral pyre.
 
 8 3&gll5 of lUomanbooD 
 
 But out in the gloom of the woods where brandies were 
 
 wailing the storm, 
 For the winds with a wakening sough had crept out of 
 
 their caves and away, 
 And the sea had a moan in its murmur, a prescient 
 
 sorrowful moan 
 I could suffer. The plash of the rain and the quiver of 
 
 loose-leaping light 
 Were round and above me, with crash of the mutinous 
 
 thunder, but deep 
 In my world-hidden glen, was a strife more deadly, for 
 
 faith had been bruised, 
 And the patience that comes from unfaith is a patience 
 
 akin to despair. 
 
 The storm-pinions folded again and the day that had 
 
 wounded my life, 
 Beyond healing and hope laid its head on the merciful 
 
 bosom of night, 
 But the dawns that should be, must follow and creep from 
 
 the arms of the east, 
 Must redden the apples and change, must scatter the 
 
 yellowing leaves, 
 Till the first hoar-frost of the winter stole over the 
 
 meadows, and took 
 The old life from its chair by the ingle. I rose up as 
 
 carelessly free 
 As the wind in the pines and behold, as a face at the 
 
 window my love.
 
 B lUoman's Etbics 9 
 
 Oh God ! but his kiss of betrothal yet burned on my 
 
 tremulous lips, 
 And the ring of his voice was as sweet, as when erst he 
 
 had murmured of love. 
 Was it mine to deny him and pause, to stifle the hunger 
 
 that leapt 
 To answer caress with caress and to cry in the term of 
 
 our vow : 
 " The man whom I wed must be pure, must be pure of 
 
 all sensual sin 
 As the Christ and my maiden soul?" I spake it, and 
 
 whitened again 
 As the answer grew on his cheek, with never denial or 
 
 word. 
 
 When the dizzy beatings of pain had lessened their 
 
 clamorous throbs, 
 I pleaded : " Oh wrong of all wrongs, to betray with a 
 
 promise of love, 
 
 Wrong to her, to the world, and to me, a smirch of dis- 
 honour and shame 
 On the arms that you bear. For the sake of the woman 
 
 who cradled thy youth, 
 Who pointing to purity ever, would show thee the way ; 
 
 for the sake 
 Of one who would hold to thine honour as men overboard 
 
 to a rope 
 Turn back to this flower of the meadows, this flower thou 
 
 hast crushed in the way.
 
 of 
 
 Before God thou hast made her thy wife, and God shall 
 
 require it of thee. 
 Dost thou think, that because man has muttered no 
 
 sanctified form of bald words 
 Over thy union, it was the less marriage, with God for 
 
 the priest of thy vows ? " 
 
 He answered with specious assertion, men were not as 
 
 maids, and his love 
 Had been mine without swerving or change. For his 
 
 sin ? it had been but a slip, 
 A passing temptation, an impulse. " Alas, when the sum 
 
 of our deeds 
 Is told over in infinite time, and we render our sorry 
 
 account, 
 The terrible searchings of truth shall be turned on each 
 
 paltry excuse, 
 Till it shrivel and blacken and fall as a moth that is 
 
 caught by the flame. 
 Before God men and women are bound to be equally 
 
 honest, as pure 
 The man as the woman 'fore God ! Men have tinkered 
 
 humanity's laws, 
 Till the woman so dwells in injustice, her faith is merged 
 
 into a doubt 
 Of all justice eternal or earthly. Oh heart by the love 
 
 that is crown 
 Of our sorrow, turn back to thy choice, turn back as a 
 
 bird to its mate.
 
 a lUoman's JEtbics n 
 
 Oh love tho : our hearts must be torn, until life seem a 
 
 vision of pain, 
 Give me back what is dearer than love, my faith in the 
 
 man I have set 
 After God in my worship, the faith that you only can give 
 
 me again. :> 
 
 Sore was the strife, but he yielded I knew not the thing 
 
 that I asked, 
 Yet if this were the wage of his sin ay me, but his very 
 
 consent 
 Given slowly and grudged was an anguish, an anguish 
 
 edged doubly and sharp 
 As a knife 'twixt the shoulders, a word, that smote on my 
 
 heart as it fell. 
 The country was silent in snow as we whirled thro' the 
 
 desolate land, 
 And saw in a sparkle of sunlight, the spires of the city 
 
 arise 
 With the prayerful breath of the few. We questioned in 
 
 alley and court, 
 Till we found her, a girl very pretty, but flighty and 
 
 garish and loud, 
 A little dim soul that had walked in the dark amid 
 
 pitfalls and slipped. 
 
 And in dusk of a rain-heavy dawning, they stood by the 
 
 altar, a gloom 
 Of dim aisles stretching westward in stillness, a hush on 
 
 the belfry above.
 
 of 
 
 But I turned from the mutter of voices, the murmurs of 
 
 wedding assent, 
 The promise of love that had faded, of honour that was 
 
 but a name, 
 To look through the brightening window, where laughter 
 
 of riotous light 
 Had lifted the curtains of cloud ; and I prayed, " Oh 
 
 Father, Thy strength ! 
 For the burden is heavy to bear, the thorns without ever 
 
 a rose, 
 And I very human and weak, oh weak as a soft-footed 
 
 babe 
 That would hold to its mother and venture." I prayed, 
 
 and was answered in strength, 
 Not mine, nor of me, but a gift ; and could gather the girl 
 
 in my arms, 
 Mine to hold, mine in patience, in love a bride whom 
 
 her husband disdained, 
 Who nor answered his rough-laid commands, his careless 
 
 farewell, nor his touch, 
 An indifferent kiss, a hand-clasp, but looked outward, her 
 
 glance on the grime 
 Of the London-dark houses. Yet thick in forget-me-not 
 
 eyes stood the tears, 
 As his ship, moving out of her moorings, unfurled her 
 
 swan-wings, and the mist 
 Enfolded her swift in its silver, its moon-silver veilings of 
 
 light.
 
 a raoman's jEtbfcs 13 
 
 The glamour of winter yet rested on meadow and forest 
 
 and hill, 
 With a silence of slumberthat stiffened the shadows adown 
 
 in the dells, 
 And deepened the rest of the woodland, stretching the 
 
 icicle down 
 From the thatch-covered eaves of the cottage, and leaving 
 
 a wonder of leaves 
 In frost on the casement ; and we, two souls that were 
 
 nearing in love 
 Went to sick and to sad in the village, the crisping rime 
 
 on the ruts 
 Of the winding desolate street, I, teaching, a word and a 
 
 thought, 
 And she, as a field in the spring, that is softened by sorrow 
 
 in snow, 
 A field that is fit for the plough, and the after sowing of 
 
 seed. 
 For deep in her heart was a spark, neither coldness nor 
 
 absence might quench, 
 And the flash of her love made as daylight our dusk of 
 
 monotonous years. 
 
 Oh ! hey for the roses of summer, the sun-mellowed sweet- 
 ness of June ! 
 
 When the bushes awake into crimson, the richness of 
 verdure and bloom, 
 
 And a pale moss-bud is the chosen, the queen of the 
 blossoming boughs,
 
 of TKflomanbooD 
 
 That nod out their honey-fragrance, in languorous scents 
 
 of the noon. 
 She gathered the wealth of the roses, and turning had 
 
 broken the stem 
 Of a single moon-silver lily, a pure thing widened at 
 
 dawn 
 From bud into perfect bloom, and was standing, the 
 
 flush of her youth 
 Clear-shining in eyes of affection, as sun-brightened waters 
 
 at dawn 
 A wife all as fair as the roses, as pure as the lily she 
 
 held, 
 And as sweet as the fragrance of summer a wife all as 
 
 lovely as Eve 
 In the Biblical legend sweet Eve, ere Adam had roused 
 
 from his sleep. 
 And a stranger who leant on the gate, hushed, marvelled 
 
 a little, and came 
 Crying, in love-happy accents, the accents and words that 
 
 were mine, 
 " Wife ! is it you ? My wife ! Oh, why was this womanly 
 
 grace 
 Undreamed of my heart, all the years that I wandered 
 
 away and away ! " 
 
 And I, who had sat at the window, day-dreaming a little, 
 
 and sad, 
 Caught my breath in a sob. It was well. For this I had 
 
 laboured and prayed ;
 
 B lUoman's JEtbics 15 
 
 For this I had given my hope of a love that should ans\ver 
 
 my own ; 
 For this oh, All-Father forgive ! but the passionate pain 
 
 is alive 
 As an arrow-head deep in the flesh. It is well ; but the 
 
 anguish Oh, God ! 
 Is there salve for me none ? Be content, little heart, that 
 
 has gained its desire. 
 He loves her, and thou art forgotten ; thy patience has 
 
 earned its reward. 
 True husband, he loves without stain. When the harvest 
 
 is cut from the earth, 
 Who cares that it grew on a grave and browned over sleep 
 
 of the dead ? 
 
 The Past is a book which is closed till an Infinite Love 
 
 shall unfold 
 And blot out its errors. We seek after happiness rather 
 
 than good ; 
 And yet in our innermost souls we know it were better to 
 
 leave 
 The feast and the frolic of youth, the soberer sweetness of 
 
 age 
 To pace through the desert alone, and forgotten as love 
 
 can forget 
 Than to sit down content with dishonour, to sit down 
 
 content. Oh, sweet eyes ! 
 That are dim with the sorrow of others, love smites with 
 
 so heavy a hand,
 
 16 
 
 And we are so weak, not a leaf, tossed high in the sport 
 
 of the wind, 
 Not a dew-flashing spearlet of grass, but is stronger to 
 
 bear and abide. 
 
 Lo ! Diana has deepened her silver, and shines as a 
 
 crescent of gold, 
 A light on the hill and a shadow, a darkness in deeps of 
 
 the vale ; 
 The moan of the wandering wind has eddied away, and 
 
 the panes 
 Of the low-browed cottages gleam, each pane with a tiny 
 
 ray, 
 The light of a labouring household father and wife and 
 
 babe. 
 But the earnest touch of your fingers, oh, Mary ! is calling 
 
 me back, 
 And a murmur of patience arises ; of patience content with 
 
 its day, 
 A patience that taketh no thought, and asketh no hope, 
 
 but is glad 
 In its duties, as once long ago, before sorrow and love 
 
 were acquaint.
 
 A WOMAN'S LOVE 
 
 NURSE, is he coming ? set the door ajar 
 
 That I may hear the thud of horse'' s hoofs 
 
 That side the river, hear it above all 
 
 The deafening" beats of blood that whisper '' death ! : ' 
 
 To die ! to fold my hands in prayer, and leave 
 
 What shall be to the father-mother care 
 
 Of the All-loving, this hot agony 
 
 Or hellish pain, sleep-withered as a leaf 
 
 Which the night frosts have nipped, and all my griefs 
 
 Turned to the numbness of yon marble urn ! 
 
 Dead ! my griefs dead ? This heart-ache as a pang 
 
 That is forgotten, and my yearnings hushed 
 
 As though they had not been ? If death could bring 
 
 A sure forgetfulness he were not held 
 
 So terrible, as sweet. And yet to leave 
 
 The cycling of my love a faithless moon, 
 
 Deserting its wan planet for an age 
 
 Of solitary whirling through the heavens ; 
 
 To leave friends kindred home nay then such loss 
 
 Were less than nought in this dark hour of pain, 
 
 When I must leave not home, nor kin, nor friends, 
 
 But only Mark, my Mark
 
 i8 
 
 A step that rings 
 
 On the resounding flags ! it comes alas, 
 The echoes answer faintly, and it dies 
 Upon the hill, as yet another hour 
 Is counted from the steeple. Though he spur 
 The gallant roan, I may not hope to hear 
 The sudden splash of riders at the ford, 
 Until the freshness of the dawn has dewed 
 The sweet lush grass, and every yellow eye 
 That opens on the mead. The night is chill, 
 Or I am numb with cold of creeping death ; 
 So numb, the pain has gathered round my heart, 
 And life is but a yearning, an intense 
 Strong prayer, too deep for issue of poor words 
 That I may linger till these tired eyes 
 Have looked again on that stern-featured face, 
 Which in the long ago I learnt to love 
 Oh not too well, when once we break the box 
 It needs must follow that the precious oil 
 Will spill its golden fragrance drop by drop 
 Upon the chosen life. Come hither, Nurse, 
 Your watching will not bring him, and I fear 
 To pass with all this weight of craving love, 
 These tarnished memories and the secret hurt 
 That sapped my joy, unspoken. In that hush 
 Whose gloom is even now about my feet, 
 The hidden burden of my life might press 
 Too heavily upon my sleeping soul 
 For quiet rest, and I be roused to walk 
 As other wandering souls about the world,
 
 B tlloman's 2Love 
 
 Until the trump of doom. So sit you nigh 
 Till I can find the outlet of sad words, 
 And with their bitter, hasty overflow 
 Loosen the ice the ice about my soul. 
 
 Mark was my fathers godson, and the child 
 Of an old comrade who had left his dull 
 And wifeless age, this tender legacy. 
 My father's godson and his heir ; a strong 
 And merry presence in the ancient halls 
 That gloomed above a student and his books. 
 But ere my Mark had sown his college cats, 
 The old man's fancy chanced upon a maid 
 Who took the picture for its golden frame, 
 The shrunken thinker for his lands and wealth 
 And I was born, as Isaac, a weak thing, 
 Which yet was destined to stretch out a hand, 
 And snatch at Ishmael's promised heritage. 
 I wronged my Mark in living, and the toss 
 And tangle of this after time have grown 
 From those unnecessary breaths, which laid 
 My hapless mother in her grave. 
 
 I lived, 
 
 But did not think to play as other babes, 
 Being uncertain of my strength, and sad ; 
 With memories of a near eternity, 
 Yet looking from my wistful eyes, and death 
 Beckoning ever with my mother's hand. 
 Yet did I struggle out of infancy 
 As lilies grow, a slender stem, a leaf,
 
 of IClomanbooD 
 
 Grass-like and poor, and a yet hidden flower ; 
 
 And all my joy was in the whispering woods, 
 
 Where the brown rabbit brushed tlr uncurling brake, 
 
 While under tassels of the larch, the pale 
 
 Blue mist of bells chimed out a honey-breath. 
 
 And overhead in solemn gathering 
 
 The rooks debated, and a wanderer sailed 
 
 Into the red heart of the setting sun. 
 
 To sit and watch, sometimes to read till all 
 
 The mighty volumes ranged along the shelves 
 
 Of that dim room wherein my father wrote, 
 
 Were as wise friends, not wholly understood 
 
 But studied was the solace of a youth, 
 
 So lonely that the very thrushes sang 
 
 Beside it unaffrighted. The old man 
 
 Bowed under the hoar burden of his years, 
 
 Till Time had counted eighty and yet eight. 
 
 And then he, dying, called my Mark again 
 
 From where he laboured in a foreign town ; 
 
 Saying, " If I was father to thy youth 
 
 Prove it this day, and take the child I leave 
 
 Into thy ward. Take her her lands her gold 
 
 And make them thine so shall I die content," 
 
 And flushing with some memory of youth, 
 
 He turned the pathos of dim eyes, that strove 
 
 And strove in vain to pierce the mists of death 
 
 On Mark. " You do not love ? " he said, and stayed 
 
 Until the face before him with a flash 
 
 Of love and pride and easy confidence, 
 
 Dispelled the doubt ; " Love is a thing apart,
 
 21 Idoman's Xcvc 2\ 
 
 For idlesse or for earnest, and my life 
 
 Has been too kill of labour, for much stir 
 
 Or heat of passion therefore am I free ; 
 
 And Mildred from this hour shall be my ward 
 
 My charge my wife, that so I may repay 
 
 In slender measure ail the store of love 
 
 Expended on my drifting orphan-hood." 
 
 So were we wedded ere my father died, 
 A scholar and a wilding of the woods ! 
 But each as other ignorant of love, 
 And the deep mystery of dual life 
 Not passion but the breaking down of walls 
 That stretch between us and the sympathy 
 Of kindred natures the free intercourse 
 Of souls that loving once, shall never more 
 Be closed in loneliness. We pledged the dim 
 Unknown of days, sowing the seed of ill 
 With prayers, and vowing an enduring love 
 That could not be, as lightly as a child 
 Might swear to compass deeds of Heracles; 
 For neither knew the sin of wedding-bonds 
 That bind no love, and in white ignorance 
 Must choose the downward path. 
 
 Too weak to bear 
 
 The myriad petty cares of household rule, 
 And over young for wifehood, I was sent 
 To a dull London school, where leaves and buds 
 And laughter of the dryads of the woods, 
 Were as the memory of light, to some
 
 Blind captive ; there in pale routine, to shut 
 
 The date of battles in a brain, that searched 
 
 All history for the might of hero-thoughts, 
 
 And loathed to hear of wanton strife, of hosts 
 
 Slain by some ruffian warrior, and the rude 
 
 Blood-staining of the innocent green sward. 
 
 For two long tedious years I strove to learn 
 
 All fair refinements that a county dame 
 
 To whom the still-room is more beautiful 
 
 Than any glade bemossed and flower-strewn, 
 
 With wide boughs nearin^ the green earth, and glad 
 
 Brown waters brawling on their lilied way 
 
 Should know. But ere I parted from my nook, 
 
 The bent arm of an oak, to walk sedate 
 
 Through lordly London streets, my husband spake 
 
 Of all that I must grow before he came 
 
 To claim me as his bride, and though so young, 
 
 I lifted my white eyelids to his height, 
 
 And found him not too lordly, for the close 
 
 Barred chamber of my heart to have and hold, 
 
 So loved him with the fervour of a youth 
 
 That had gone lonely since its cradle-days. 
 
 As the too slender lily spreads its bud 
 
 Into a star, and breaks upon the world, 
 
 I wakened from my pallid maidenhood, 
 
 To see a regal loveliness, of fair 
 
 Sun-glorious hair, as a rich halo shine 
 
 About my brows ; and trembling as they spake 
 
 Of eyes that might have lighted a wan saint
 
 B ICloman's Hove 23 
 
 In mediaeval times to angel-hood, 
 I dared not taste the pleasure of this strange 
 New loveliness, until my husband's praise 
 Should crown it as desirable and sweet. 
 Alas ! for the still. visions of the night, 
 And all the light ambitions that are hid 
 Behind the front of ignorance ! When Mark 
 Kissed me farewell beneath those spinster-eyes, 
 That held the touch of even wedded lips 
 Well-nigh a sin, his brow was clear as mine, 
 A virgin-brow that knew no grief nor lack, 
 But bent its gravity upon the world 
 In calm and studious coldness. Yet when time 
 Had closed my pupilage and he returned 
 To claim his bride, the glooms of some regret 
 Were darkling 'neath his lids. I saw their gleam, 
 And shivered as a man upon whose grave 
 Some stranger walks, noting the chilly glance 
 Tiiat dwelt upon my beauty but was moved 
 No whit, and the half wistful tenderness, 
 Which to a wiser heart had said : " We two 
 Are bound in law, and have a friendly love 
 Each for the other, we must be content 
 To live the long years in a kind accord 
 Which knows no passion." 
 
 As upon my lips 
 
 Reserve had laid its silences, I raised 
 No questioning, but laid my hand in Mark's, 
 With gladness of a trusting child, which takes
 
 24 JfcElls of IdomanbooD 
 
 An offered kindness as the test of love. 
 A horse's gallop, or the wind? oh nurse, 
 I think, mine ears would waken to his tread 
 Tho' clay lay heavy on my breast, and dank 
 Dull autumns have left twenty seasons' leaves 
 Upon the mould that wrapped my winding-sheet. 
 Only the wind ? the wind among the elms ? 
 A whisper sad as breaking waves that beat 
 Thro' the grey ages with incessant moan 
 On some dim northern waste of rock and wrack. 
 
 He took me home and on the levels broad, 
 
 And ever broader stretched the swathes of light ; 
 
 Till roses, flushing, changed the gold to red 
 
 And climbed the ancient gables, shedding sweet 
 
 Blush-petals over all the velvet lawns. 
 
 And there, in harmony of life, we stayed 
 
 Till five long years had crowned our wedding-vows 
 
 And changed into a memory, so sweet 
 
 That tho 3 I die to-night, without that love 
 
 Which was my prayer, I yet am half content 
 
 Having that five-year memory of peace. 
 
 My husband was a father to my youth 
 
 Most tender teaching training, till my thought 
 
 Could move with his thro' all the world of books. 
 
 So tender that I ripened as a peach 
 
 Upon the south side of a sheltering wall, 
 
 For having never known the signs of love, 
 
 Nor seen its fire as summer-lightning leap 
 
 From a man's eyes, I knew no want nor flaw
 
 B lUoman Xcve 
 
 \Ve went one August when the bines were bent 
 
 (From where they over-ran the tallest poles 
 
 And should have fluttered in the breezy air ) 
 
 By golden weight of hops, across the fields 
 
 To meet some county notables and dine 
 
 With a new-wedded cousin of my Mark's. 
 
 And as I sat conversing of this maid, 
 
 And that fair infant, how to bake and brew, 
 
 And what good bargains Lady Ann had bought 
 
 At the forced sale, a-weary yet constrained 
 
 To aid the trifling chat, a girl was led 
 
 Towards me by my hostess. " Norah Grant, 
 
 A cousin of your husband's and his friend 
 
 "While you were yet at lessons," and I saw 
 
 A slender girl, not beautiful but strong, 
 
 A girl who had no barriers of reserve 
 
 To overleap, when any tender thought 
 
 Stirred in her soul, but turned it from her tongue, 
 
 As Nature turns a seedling which may grow 
 
 Or fall into the maw of hungry swine. 
 
 " My husband's cousin and his friend ? " I saw 
 
 His eyes turn suddenly on her, and fire 
 
 With a wild joy that faded out in gloom. 
 
 And all that night I pondered on his glance, 
 
 Turning and turning till the welcome dawn 
 
 A rush of light, a flight of golden wings
 
 3-&BH5 of TOflomanbooD 
 
 Had wakened all the songsters of the wood. 
 "Your cousin-friend," I said, "has charmed my ear 
 With the sweet ripple of her speech, and I 
 Would ask her here. Our dual solitude 
 Were nobler for some sacrifice 
 
 But Mark 
 
 Demurred a little, as he gave my brow 
 The morning kiss. " Leave well alone ; the girl 
 Is kindly-natured, once she was my friend, 
 But now oh, I am older, let her be." 
 
 Yet still we met by chance, until our lips 
 Touched in the kiss of a chill cousin-hood ; 
 For my reserve and a close fear that lay 
 Beneath the sunny surface of her speech, 
 Forbade the nearing of our souls in love ; 
 Yet much we spake, as those who think and think 
 Thro' silence of long years, and meet at length 
 A comrade, who has touched the self-same hopes ; 
 While Mark, who held his passions as his horse 
 Under control, and spake no hasty word, 
 Nor many words at all, dwelt on her face 
 As I on his, until a doubt, a fear, 
 A dim suspicion, bitter as the drops 
 Of a slow poison, stirred in every hour. 
 
 I found a mystery or fancied one 
 
 In every fervid word that moved her lips. 
 
 And she was one of those, whose greater thought 
 
 Can realise that the penurious lives
 
 a tUoman's love 
 
 About us, are the children of one love 
 
 The sons and daughters of the Lord not foul 
 
 Xor base nor squalid, but dim souls ar.d sad ; 
 
 Born to the sceptre of humanity, 
 
 But early bound apprentice to that \vheel 
 
 Which knows no pause, until the tul-\\ora frame 
 
 Is laid where neither oaths, nor scre:ms, nor blow: 
 
 Can break its quiet rest. My own chill blood 
 
 That knew no passion of philanthropy, 
 
 Warmed in me as she spake, but still I put 
 
 The fervour by, not curious, but moved 
 
 (By secret dread of what my hand might touch; 
 
 To search, until at length one whispered it, 
 
 Not out of malice, but pure carelessness 
 
 Or so I think I who had been more blessed 
 
 In dying then, a happy wife, a girl 
 
 Whose hand had never chanced upon the pricks 
 
 That roses hide, than if some four-score years 
 
 Should strike their hours upon my burdened soul. 
 
 My Mark and she had met in sunnier climes, 
 While I was yet contenting me with husks 
 Of knowledge, learning ever of the bald 
 And evil lives of kings, of history 
 Which was too lofty to record the ways 
 And wills of the unnumbered multitudes 
 Yet called itself the history of our land. 
 I was a child at school, enduring all 
 Of copies, dates and needlework that pass 
 For mental training with a class of maids,
 
 28 5&Biis of WomanbooD 
 
 When Mark beneath the chestnuts raised his eyes 
 To that wan face, and found it beautiful. 
 
 '' Of course, my dear, his bride reclaimed his heart, 
 
 It was a passing fancy, nothing more." 
 
 And I could dully echo " Nothing more," 
 
 Altho' a vision of the south was warm 
 
 Upon my canvas a wide stretch of hills 
 
 Beneath the vaulting azure, and the deep 
 
 Sweet music of a babbling water-flow, 
 
 Where straying feet had brought a twain who loved, 
 
 Yet knew it not, who spake of books and song, 
 
 Perchance had read the poets of the land, 
 
 And drawn their rhythmic fervour into life. 
 
 My Mark had loved her. Had ? I knew too well 
 
 That love with such as Mark is long as time, 
 
 And patient, oh, as patient as the sea 
 
 That creeps, and creeps, until the strand is hid. 
 
 To look and love alas to wake and find 
 
 Its longing as a weary, weary ache 
 
 Within the breast. Oh husband mine, that I, 
 
 Thy child-wife, should have brought so dark a doom 
 
 Upon thy life. To long ? alas, my Mark 
 
 Thy love was answered, mine must knock and knock 
 
 At that heart-door I have no key to fit, 
 
 Must knock and be denied. My love, my Mark 
 
 Alas not mine my husband, that at least ; 
 
 A perfect husband, bearing with my youth 
 
 In such unruffled tenderness, I deemed 
 
 Thee calm with the content of middle age,
 
 B IUeman'5 Hove 
 
 And lovinj, but \\ith manhood's reticence. 
 
 A step, dear Xur.se, unbar the outer door 
 
 And let him in. Xot Mark, she tarries long 
 
 And the night darkens with the chill of dawn. 
 
 I have not found the day so full of light, 
 
 That I can yield to the enshrouding dark 
 
 Without one sunset gleam, without one touch 
 
 Of clinging and regretful lips. My Mark, 
 
 Had parted from his manhood's love, content 
 
 To suffer, so he kept that reckless oath 
 
 Made to a dying man. And when the truth 
 
 Was spread before me as an open book, 
 
 Methought the bitterness and dark of death 
 
 Had closed about my life ; but when its pangs 
 
 Were somewhat dulled, and the first flush of pa in, 
 
 Of passionate unreasonable pain 
 
 As but a selfishness had been repressed 
 
 Denied I wakened to a softer will, 
 
 In which the self that mars our nobler deeds 
 
 Had neither place nor part. I willed to stand 
 
 As strong before the judgment of my soul, 
 
 As they who parted under chestnut boughs 
 
 In Italy. I loved him, Nurse, so well 
 
 That I would free him even from my love ! 
 
 And yet in vain, for death has ever fled 
 
 My wooing touch. The fever came and went, 
 
 The lightning blasted one I almost touched, 
 
 And the mad horses dashed adown the hill, 
 
 Leaving me by the way-side, but unhurt 
 
 Alas, unhurt. The scourge of cholera
 
 3<?\2lls of 
 
 Lashed the fen villages with death and dread, 
 
 And I was keen to succour, but must stay 
 
 Mark's will not mine within the boundaries 
 
 That shut our wealth from the poor lives about 
 
 Must stay secure, while he went to and fro 
 
 Untiringly among the stricken folks. 
 
 One languid noon, when all the air was rife 
 
 With darkening pestilence, I sat to brush 
 
 Slowly and lazily, the lengthy gold 
 
 Of my loose hair, until the whining voice 
 
 Of a chance beggar stirred my reverie. 
 
 The maids had found him food, and in return 
 
 He poured the gathered gossip of the way 
 
 Into their thirsty ears. " My lady's nurse 
 
 Was stricken yesternight, and her poor babes 
 
 Are crying in the road way." Thro' the panes 
 
 Of the wide window fell a tinted light, 
 
 And as I over-leant the ancient yard 
 
 I caught the further details : " Motherless ! 
 
 Oh, ay, before the night." 
 
 The hour was mine ! 
 
 For Mark was watching by a stricken man, 
 And would not come again before the night. 
 Rising, I wound the gold about my head, 
 And slipped away to find the stable yard 
 Deserted of its guardians, who were met 
 To drink and gossip with the maids. I led 
 The old white mare out of her littered stall, 
 And rode away, down leafy glades and o'er 
 The springy turf, where palest heather bloomed,
 
 a tUoman's Sieve 
 
 And the bees murmured round the fragrant gorse : 
 
 Jiut when I clattered thro' the village street 
 
 It was to find the story false, that ill 
 
 On which I waited, gloomed in many a hut, 
 
 But had avoided yours, as tho : the blood 
 
 Of Paschal lambs was on the lintel-piece. 
 
 Yet even in that hour my prayers were heard ! 
 
 The mare was old, and as we turned, she caught 
 
 Her hoof among the cobble-stones and fell. 
 
 I knew an agony of pain, an hour 
 
 Of anguish crushed into a second's beat ; 
 
 And then a sudden darkness as of death 
 
 Enwrapt my sense. Yet have I looked again 
 
 On things familiar, tho' it only stayed 
 
 My passing for a little Litter space. 
 
 My features are unharmed ? My face as fair 
 As when I left the world of school a bride 
 So glad, so careless, and oh God, so young ? 
 My poor, fair face, well I am strangely glad 
 His eyes should gather a fair memory, 
 To store in the chill chambers of regret. 
 I die, that he may quaff the cup of joy 
 And yet and yet oh Nurse I cannot bear 
 To dream that other in my place, his wife, 
 A wife so well-beloved that our six years 
 Of wedded happiness, will only seem 
 As a grey dusk that has preceded day. 
 I cannot bear that all my household gods, 
 The poor things that I touched with reverence
 
 32 3&El!s ot TUomanbooD 
 
 Of love and memory should pass to her ; 
 That her sweet tones grown deeper with content 
 And wifely joy should echo in my halls 
 When I am silent, that her feet should turn 
 To the long window that commands the road, 
 That she may watch, as I, for his return. 
 My rival and his love ! I was his wife, 
 Never his love, and tho' my day has stretched 
 Thro' lives of pain, I am so young too young 
 To give up all, to lie back in the earth, 
 And know another woman in my place, 
 Yet for his sake 
 
 Oh God, let me sleep well 
 Let me be hushed upon the mother-breast 
 Of Nature, and forget the love I missed, 
 The love that she will gather on the morn. 
 Let no dim consciousness of earth disturb 
 My rest, and shew their love, but deepen sleep 
 Till I am deaf, undreaming, dead. For I 
 Not only lose this present, but the hope 
 Of future meeting in that after time 
 When life for all is as a garnered sheaf ; 
 For tho' love sleeps, it sleeps to rise again 
 And flood the halls of heaven with its light. 
 Must I go hungry even there ? and find 
 A crown of thorns within the circlet's gold ? 
 Nay, God is merciful, and I shall lie 
 Hidden in the deep hollow of His hand, 
 Until forgetfulness as a white worm 
 Has eaten all my heart. But Nurse no word
 
 H XUoman's love jj 
 
 To mar their future, let me lift the cup 
 Of happiness to my Mark's lips unspoiled 
 By any bitter drops that I may shed. 
 
 Hark there he comes ! The breaking of the night 
 
 Has brought the clatter, clatter of hot hoofs 
 
 Upon the rounded stones 
 
 My Mark, my love : 
 
 There is no present need for such a fear 
 As damps your forehead, for I linger yet, 
 And for a little while. The burning pain 
 Has left me numb and tired, but not too dull 
 To feel your presence, as a misty world 
 That reaches out towards the hidden sun. 
 The mare was old, but I forgot her years 
 And rode her far, what wonder that she fell ? 
 Alas, it was to leave me low, sweet-heart, 
 So low I shall not rise again to walk 
 Thro' household ways with you. My fault : and I 
 Must suffer nay, the suffering is done ; 
 I am so tired, our very parting seems 
 As a good night upon the edge of sleep, 
 A calm good night altho' our wedded years 
 Have been so \\hitely perfect, that I would 
 They could be stretched and stretched till sixty years 
 Ay until six times sixty, till all time 
 Had leisurely been told. Oh love, your care 
 Has made my winding way so sunny wide, 
 At once so sheltered, and so broad of view 
 O'er all the level country at our feet, 
 That I must falter as I bless you, I 
 
 c
 
 34 3Dlls of tUomanboot) 
 
 Who was so young a wife, dear-heart, I wist 
 Not all my duty, tho' there was no hour 
 Wherein I did not seek to bind and loose 
 As you had wished. If, in my ignorance, 
 I e'er had wronged you as a child might sin 
 Against an elder's peace, forgive it now. 
 At least I loved you, and the faults of youth 
 Are such as time may mend and patience pass. 
 Tears ? Oh my Mark, I am not worthy grief 
 So passionate, and yet it reconciles 
 My heart to the long sleep. To close mine eyes 
 And know your tears are falling on my grave, 
 As showers on a green memory, is to sleep 
 Contented as a child in mother-arms ; 
 To sleep and smile, as one that in his dreams 
 Beholds the vision of undying love. 
 
 The cold is creeping on towards my heart, 
 And I have that to say before we part 
 Which must not be delayed a last request 
 Which like a seed must slumber in your soul 
 Thro' all the coming winter. 
 
 When the fires 
 
 Of Yule are lighted on your hearth and time 
 Would bring old hopes, old faces as a mist 
 Between you and their glow redeem my wish ; 
 So shall I rest more calmly in my bed 
 Two yards of earth beneath the dripping yews. 
 I must go hence, and yet I cannot leave
 
 B lUoman'y TLovc 35 
 
 Your life to a long loneliness, content 
 That a pale memory should fill my place, 
 Smiling its misty thoughts across the board, 
 And keeping silence in our childless halls. 
 I cannot die, a frightened star that falls 
 And falls, until the bosom of the night 
 Has hushed it into sleep, with the reproach 
 Of all your solitary days and nights 
 Upon my soul. 
 
 It is my dying wish 
 
 You bring another to your home, a heart 
 To mark your goings, long for your return, 
 And fill the nest with babble of young birds. 
 A maid to whom my duties will be joys 
 (Hush there the word is bitter ay) a wife. 
 My death-dreams will be cleansed of earthly taint, 
 If I can know one nobler in my place, 
 Can trust my duties, and the household gods 
 I treasured, to some woman worthier 
 Of your regard Love, I can scarcely see 
 Your dark strong face the dawn is surely stayed, 
 Or is this death ? One kiss, and now your hand 
 Warm on my clay-cold fingers darkness death. 
 But tho' I am so tired, oh Mark, to leave 
 You you for ever therein lies the sting, 
 And bitterness of death. 
 
 Oh Mark, my love 
 The darkness shadows all I cannot hear
 
 36 3-fcElls of Tidomanbood 
 
 Your voice, save as a far off murmuring sound, 
 Borne to me on the waters of this stream 
 That surges, surges, drifting out my soul 
 Towards the misty broads, a wreck, a raft, 
 A white sail shining in the light, and lost 
 Within the thickening haze. 
 
 Sleep ? Ay, to leave 
 
 Not life, but love ; to sink beneath these waves 
 And never know the freshening of the deep, 
 To never seize the substance of our hopes 
 
 Mark love to leave you you
 
 RUKHMABAI 
 
 WE sat together where the London roll 
 Of traffic as a dull continuous roar 
 Beat on the lofty windows, she and I, 
 An Indian with hushed memories of wrong 
 Beneath her patient eyelids, and a maid 
 Whose Irish blood must send her hotly forth 
 To strive with evil customs of the world, 
 Until the shadow-angel spreads his wing 
 Of darkness over the broad face of heaven. 
 And walled about from that incessant sea 
 Of faces, that has made our London sad, 
 We let the hours float out in changeful talk 
 Of Sutras, Sanhita, the ancient law 
 Of Manu, and that newer Brahmo-cult,f 
 Which asks no mediator, but would go 
 To the All- Father as a child who loves 
 
 * A daughter first-born is a casket of wealth. Hindoo proverb. 
 t The Brahmo-Samaj, or church of the reformed Brahmins.
 
 38 3DEU0 of TRHomanboo5 
 
 Too greatly to be fearful ; of the castes 
 
 Brahmin and Kshatrya ; of leadership 
 
 And many a usage, dim and rich and strange ; 
 
 Of eastern thought, and that wide wondrous world 
 
 Of Hindustan, the land of bodhi-trees, 
 
 Of the too-fragrant champacs, of hid pearls, 
 
 And spice, and gems, whose sand is molten gold ; 
 
 Its dusky folk in number as the drops 
 
 That falling, falling through the centuries 
 
 Have filled the mighty hollows of the earth. 
 
 A land of dreams, of old philosophies 
 
 That looked upon the morning of the world 
 
 Of dreams, alas ! that have gone out in night. 
 
 And as we talked, the drifting wave of words 
 
 Chanced in its ebb upon a darker theme 
 
 The widowhood of little idle babes 
 
 At play with life, their wedlock ere the sweet 
 
 Bewildered eyes have visioned thro' the gates, 
 
 Which lock the heritage of deepened life 
 
 From every callow wonderer, a world 
 
 Beautiful rich the gems of every age 
 
 Set closely deeply in its prismal front. 
 
 And a quick sadness hushed the overflow 
 
 Of converse, as a cloud will still the songs 
 
 That rise from every copse, till Rukhmabai 
 
 As one who dreams began a tale of wrong 
 
 And wronging, such as clouds a myriad lives 
 
 Condemned to open their brown wistful eyes 
 
 Beneath the light of Indian suns a tale ? 
 
 Rather a passionless account of years
 
 IRufcbmabat 39 
 
 Terrible strange, of a while soul alone 
 
 And warring with her world, a white strong soul 
 
 In whom the martyr spirit stood confessed. 
 
 And as the gentle accents rose and fell. 
 
 The turmoil of the city surged away 
 
 To leave us as two friends beneath the shade 
 
 Of waving palms, and with the murmurous hymn 
 
 Of ocean echoing round the rocky feet 
 
 Of Bombay, the sea-girt, the beautiful. 
 
 " Ere I had learnt to trust my baby feet 
 
 Across a room, the father that I knew 
 
 But as an arm that bore me to and fro, 
 
 Was plucked away a green unready fruit 
 
 The wind had loosened, and I yet recall 
 
 The veil of tears that dimmed my mother's eye^ 
 
 In those young happy half-remembered hours 
 
 Beneath the roof of Hurischundrajee, 
 
 My grandsire, the sweet mornings when I sat 
 
 Within the foolish shadow of a neem; 
 
 And I yet faintly see the patient face, 
 
 That overwatched as the rich matron-moon 
 
 Would seem to note the wanderings of the stars. 
 
 " My parents were not of that holy caste 
 
 Being not Brahmin but Kshatrya, 
 
 Whose widows, be they babe, or child or wife, 
 
 Must cut the lengthy tress and dwell accursed 
 
 As having by some sin in former lives 
 
 Brought death upon their husbands. And of those
 
 40 3DgUs of IClomanboofc 
 
 Who speaking with my grandsire stayed to woo 
 
 Was the physician Sakharam Arjun, 
 
 So patient-wise a lover, that the grief 
 
 Of a long faith but sanctinecl his love, 
 
 One who could wait until the falling tears 
 
 Were dried by ocean breezes, for we dwelt 
 
 Where the deep murmur of the Indian sea 
 
 For ever echoed in our cars, with song 
 
 Of all the goodly vessels that had sailed 
 
 To wealth and fame, and ne'er a dirgeful note 
 
 Of those who cumber the dead ocean-ground 
 
 With wrecks and slime and the white bones of men. 
 
 When the wan years had gathered seed and fruit 
 
 These seven times, since my young father passed 
 
 Into Nirvana's rest, Jayentibai 
 
 Who would no second wifehood, felt the strange 
 
 New pricking of a doubt. What if her wish 
 
 To stay unwedded in her father's house 
 
 Were born of self? And when the little doubt 
 
 Grew to a certainty, she bowed her head 
 
 Upon the offered love ; and with them, I 
 
 As a beloved daughter went. We shared 
 
 A house with others of our class, a house, 
 
 Where six brave daughters filled the laughing air 
 
 With melody of bubbling song that wells 
 
 From happy youth in summer. And my dreams 
 
 For lonely childhood ever dreams were filled 
 
 With wonder of new thought, as one who comes 
 
 Among a stranger-people, and is held 
 
 Uncertain, dwelling on their marvellous ways
 
 IRufcbmabai 41 
 
 And critical, but giving neither praise 
 
 Xor envious blame. For Huriscru:ndrajee 
 
 Had held the orthodox and narrow creed, 
 
 Which later men, by stone and stone, have built 
 
 Upon the holy A'edas. He observed 
 
 All customs of our race, and thought them good 
 
 As given by Gods, who walked the earth in days 
 
 So dim, so far, the faintest star-world speck 
 
 Were nearer. But in this new home, the yoke 
 
 Of pale observances to which we set 
 
 No certain meaning, weighed but slenderly 
 
 On youth or age, and freedom was the note 
 
 To which the sitar of our life was tuned 
 
 Not freedom for the men alone, but fresh 
 
 Untrammelled liberty for wife and maid 
 
 And every soul within the circling \\alls. 
 
 The women came and went, the maidens passed 
 
 To daily classes in the schools and stayed 
 
 Unwedded till their growth of happy years 
 
 Had bloomed thro' twelve red summers ; while more 
 
 strange 
 
 To one whose feet had trod the orthodox 
 Secluded path they spake with bearded men 
 No veil about their beauty, and no sense 
 Of wrong to trouble the calm innocence 
 That sat enthroned in their deep-gazing eyes ; 
 And though my mother wondered, she was fain 
 To take her husband's judgment, seeing faults 
 In the old order and the new, yet glad 
 To recognise in this sweet liberty,
 
 42 JDglla of 1Hllomanboo& 
 
 The tramp of serried thinkers who would 'win 
 Towards perfection. 
 
 " I was e'er a still 
 
 And sullen child, thinking my stir of thoughts, 
 Until the gloom and gold of fancy stretched 
 Beyond the merry circle, and I walked 
 In a dim solitude of dreams, to muse 
 On all the marvels of this newer world. 
 Behind me as a sunlit yesterday 
 Eight happy years lay dead. Eight happy years ? 
 Ay, happy tho' as stagnant as the pools 
 That in the jungle shadows lie concealed, 
 Dim years in which the utmost task of youth 
 Was to set grains of rice in little heaps 
 And mingle therein millet, white and brown, 
 Then patiently to sort the separate seeds. 
 A foolish waste of the hour-sands, a task 
 So tedious poor and worthless, that I thought 
 The sun must murmur as it sank away 
 Thro' the hot heavens ' Lost a day a life 
 The life of every idler in the land.' 
 But the old indolence of orient life 
 Slumbered behind me, and a keener day 
 Was rousing all to effort, tho' I went 
 Not schoolways, being of a fearful mind 
 And well content to gather of the strange 
 New wisdom hovering on my father's lips ; 
 Which tho' not wholly understood, was drawn 
 Thro' memory into my very blood.
 
 IRufcbmabai 43 
 
 So in the rose-sweet garden of my youth 
 I wandered, gathered a bud, a deep 
 Hid golden heart, and later the red globe 
 Of hairy yellow seed so lived and learnt, 
 Until the Brahmins named my wedding-day, 
 And the fair morning darkened as with cloud, 
 Wailing of waters and the hollow rush 
 Of a tempestuous wind. 
 
 " My father deemed 
 Our early marriages, the cankered fruit 
 Of a fair tree, and to the trembling joy 
 Of her he loved, withheld my passive youth 
 From thoughts of wedlock, till the eager years 
 Passing as bearers down the way, had brought 
 My dreamy steps unto the edge of ten. 
 And I, who saw the sad child-mothers laid 
 To early sleep, with weakly wailing babes 
 Profaning the dead silence of their rest, 
 Who watched them withering as stricken flowers 
 Which have no strength to broaden from their bud, 
 But linger, linger, till the browning leaves 
 Shrivel about their stem, would fain have stayed 
 For ever childless, husbandless, a trail 
 Of verdure clinging to its parent shade. 
 And hearing all they purposed I was moved 
 To conquer that shy reticence of speech, 
 Which ever hid the fancies of my heart ; 
 Crying : ' Oh must I wed ? Must every maid 
 Be mother ere she come to womanhood f 
 Must I ? The little Yasobai, who sat
 
 44 3&sns ot TKHomanboofc 
 
 Beside me but a score months ago, 
 
 Is dead to-day, and her still baby lies 
 
 Within her arms. Oh, mother, let me stay 
 
 In this dear home unweclded.' And tho' thick 
 
 Unwonted tears were gathering on the fringe 
 
 Of those deep eyes, she answered as in sad 
 
 And patient resignation, ' Little one ; 
 
 It was not Brahma's will, that any maid 
 
 Should keep her childish happiness. We all 
 
 Must win to deeper life thro' pain, must grieve 
 
 To learn, and suffer to be purified.' 
 
 Meanwhile my father sought throughout the caste 
 
 For one in heart, and wealth, and lineage, 
 
 Worthy their leader's grandchild, but could find 
 
 No fitting youth, and in perplexity 
 
 Of half reproaches, grave unspoken blame 
 
 That he had thus delayed my marriage hour 
 
 Until too late, must hastily select 
 
 A youth of his own kindred, Dadajee, 
 
 Who tho' but poorly dowered, being son 
 
 Of a long-widowed mother, was content 
 
 To learn and labour till his diligence 
 
 Should build a home. 'And if,' they said, ' he takes 
 
 Our Rukhmabai to wife, he shall be trained 
 
 In all the wisdom of the schools, ourselves 
 
 Will find the necessary gold.' 
 
 " I heard 
 
 ' The child shall wed with Dadajee,' yet spake 
 No word, but ran and hid myself and wept. 
 Not that I held my future lord in fear
 
 IRuhbmabai 45 
 
 Or loathing, having seen him now and then 
 About the house, and if I needs must \vccl 
 It little mattered who or what the man, 
 But that I dreaded marriage as the tine 
 White line which would divide our sunny years 
 From the on-coming noons of cloud and grief. 
 And tho ; I wept, it was in lonely hours, 
 For who would listen to a childish dread 
 And let it traverse all his ripened plans ? 
 And so in dull unspoken grief I saw 
 The last sweet golden weeks and days and hours 
 Slip madly by, as steeds that fly the rein, 
 Till on the latest evening as I dreamed 
 With weary lashes meeting, a v. ild dread 
 Possessed my soul, and roused me to a cry 
 Of ' Mother ! Mother ! must I pine and die 
 In that grim silence* which is laid on wives 
 In presence of their elders ? I have heard 
 Who has not ? of the household cruelties, 
 To which the mothers of our husbands stoop 
 In blows and meagre food and ill report, 
 That they may come between us and the love 
 That had enriched our twilight, as with flush 
 Of the up-leaping sun and surely death 
 Were softer than the cushions of a bride. 
 
 * An Indian girl is not allowed to speak in the presence of her 
 elders, and as the new wife is generally the youngest person in the 
 house, this rule is often very oppressive. One woman indeed as- 
 signed this unbearable silence as her only reason for attempting to 
 commit suicide.
 
 46 JDslls of XUomanbooD 
 
 Oh, Mother ! Mother ! save me.' 
 
 And she came 
 
 At that wild cry, soothing me in her arms 
 And murmuring : ' No silence for thee, child, 
 My first born, my beloved no ill touch 
 Or word, or glance, no harsher hand than this ; 
 For he thou weddest, hath but scanty store 
 And could not find the daily milk and meat 
 For any household howsoever small. 
 So shalt thou aid me in domestic ways, 
 As elder daughter, till the lapsing years 
 Would call thy world-forgotten lily-life 
 To woman's duties.' So my nearest dread 
 Was lifted, and with head upon that breast, 
 I sank again into the dreams of youth. 
 
 " The scent of jessamine was floating by 
 As tho' it wrapt the spirit of the breeze, 
 In viewless swathes of fragrance, when the five, 
 Who ever bathe the bride in water flushed 
 With turmeric came lightly thro' the rifts 
 Of silken curtain and disturbed my dreams 
 Making the yellowed water stir and gleam 
 In the young light, until the dancing rounds 
 Flashed their reflection up the further wall 
 In silent laughter. When the loathly bath 
 W T hich was repeated on successive morns, 
 Had left its staining yellows on my skin, 
 They steeped my hair in aromatic oils, 
 And loosened the rich spices, lingering
 
 IRufcbmabai 4? 
 
 Until we heard the cadence of deep tones, 
 
 And knew that in the bird-world of fresh air 
 
 The priests were chanting, till the evil gods 
 
 Should flee the house. When the fat offerings 
 
 Of butter, incense, money, betel-nuts 
 
 Rice and the concoo powder had been made, 
 
 Arthee performed, and the good gods invoked 
 
 They came within, making an altar place 
 
 For the propitious images, with boughs 
 
 Of mango and about them heaping rice 
 
 And cocoa-nuts, with lamps whose dull red flames 
 
 Should linger till the shadows made them shine 
 
 As equals of the quick-forgotten sun. 
 
 "A robe of linen, yellowed dustily 
 With turmeric, was folded on the bride, 
 Who must abide within the doors, till eve 
 Had threaded the palm leaves with rosy light. 
 So stayed I by the altar, with dull blocks 
 Of deathly seeming, carven, staring, stiff 
 Before me as the likeness of my gods 
 Not Brahma but a later thought, for men 
 Must create gods, as gods created men. 
 In the red afternoon, when sunset chill 
 Was thickening the soft and tender haze 
 That dwells about the May-world as a veil, 
 The women of our kindred would rejoice, 
 Sitting sedate about the laden boards, 
 And when the breezy shadows of the night 
 Laden with fragrance of dim roses stole
 
 About the rooms, their comrades of the mart, 
 And camp, and city, gathered to make glad 
 Feasting and holding wassail thro' the night. 
 
 " So ended the first day, but five were yet 
 To close before the marriage was complete 
 In all its ceremonial feasts and gifts. 
 On the succeeding morn the priests made known 
 The marriage-hour, and the musicians came 
 With treble flute, and the hoarse roil of drums ; 
 Seating them under the dark aisle of trees 
 Where widening crimson of pomegranate flowers, 
 With golden mohurs blazed upon the world 
 In tremulous deep bloom, a rain of dew, 
 As jewels yet upon their peachy breadth, 
 And the faint stir of breezes snatching stray 
 Sweet petals from above to strew the breast 
 Of the May-world, that as a bride was crowned 
 With budding jessamines. 
 
 " They plucked for me 
 
 Mograh and silee flowers, and knit the close 
 Fine stems into a chaplet for my hair, 
 When the deep yellow of the bath had dyed 
 My paler skin, and they would have me don 
 My father's gifts of gold and burning gems, 
 The nose ring of seven pearls, the silver bars 
 That chimed about my ankles. And I stood, 
 Reluctant as a creature in the toils, 
 That views the glory of the outer world 
 Thro' mesh and bar, and shakes the net in vain.
 
 IRufcbmabai 
 
 " My mothers brother brought the marriage robe, 
 
 Silk saffron, and as soft as sheeny breast 
 
 Of the sun bird the knife, the cocoa-nut, 
 
 Gilded and to be left between my hands 
 
 All the long day, the luscious betel-leaves 
 
 And the two nut and bulb which should be tied 
 
 About my wrist to keep me from all spells 
 
 Of evil gods. And once adorned, they brought 
 
 My slow unwilling feet unto the place 
 
 Of offering, and gave me rice to drop 
 
 In invocation, while the household went 
 
 To pray the bridegroom's presence, for the hour 
 
 Of sunset neared the hour that was to link 
 
 Our separate lives in that unhappy bond. 
 
 In this fair isle, that as a mother soothes 
 
 Her sons with murmur of a hundred seas 
 
 And gentle beauty of low hills, the dales 
 
 For ever green and the rich pasturage 
 
 Deepening in fertile valleys in this land 
 
 Of greater light, you have esteemed it sin 
 
 To wed without some growth of friendly love. 
 
 But we ? What love is there between two babes 
 
 Who but obey the older stronger will ? 
 
 Two children, who are fain to run and play 
 
 When the dull ceremonies cease ? I think 
 
 The freer is the nobler plan, more meet 
 
 For human dignity and that proud p.ace 
 
 We hold as in the front of time. 
 
 " They brought 
 
 My bridegroom thro' the busy sunlit streets, 
 
 D
 
 50 3-&BU5 of tldomanbooO 
 
 With music and due following of friends, 
 His horse slow-pacing, and upon his brow 
 The shining marriage jewel, while his lithe 
 Long fingers closed upon the string of beads 
 Which should adorn a wife. They laid his gift 
 On my reluctant neck, giving my hand 
 Its trail of flowers, and seating us on grain 
 That one had gathered into heaps yet held 
 A veil between our anxious eyes, and stayed 
 The great event. I heard the busy priests 
 For ever chanting, chanting, till the bowl 
 Sank thro' the gleaming waters and the chant 
 Brake suddenly into triumphal sound, 
 The clash of music and the joyful beat 
 Of hands, with treble wailing of the flutes. 
 Then fell the veil, and my young husband stooped 
 Towards me with his beaded chain, while I 
 All timorously flung my fragrant wreath 
 About his neck, forcing the tear-drops back 
 And yielding my chill hand unto his clasp 
 As unto clasp of Death. They brought us forth, 
 To where the golden champacs were in flower, 
 Looming large on us as we drove away 
 Still side by side, but ever hushed and still, 
 As two wan children, set for punishment 
 Some task that overawes them as they work. 
 
 " So ebbed the marriage week, and I was free 
 To look again upon my mother's face 
 As wedded maid, to live the happy years
 
 TRufcbmabaf 51 
 
 That were too golden to be long", in calm 
 Of studious labour, here an easy task, 
 And there a twilight frolic with the babes, 
 While the sweet mother-face, itself the law, 
 Must smile and smile, upon our foolish youth. 
 
 " But when I turned from the deep joys of home, 
 
 To learn and read and gather of the world 
 
 Me-seemed the sorrows of surrounding lives, 
 
 In wrongs and poverty and lack of love, 
 
 Were of so vast a compass, that my heart 
 
 Was still within me, lest the burning prayers 
 
 I uttered might be, as a whisper lost 
 
 In city shouts. The world that Brahma willed, 
 
 The world of palms, asokas gleaming pale, 
 
 And fragrant palsa-blooms the world of waves, 
 
 Where delicate green fronds are lightly bowed 
 
 Beneath the wandering breezes, the live world 
 
 Of peoples, wise and many tongued, and sad 
 
 As the last echo of a tempest, cried 
 
 Thro' chants and mantras, offerings and prayers, 
 
 Up to the far Trimurti for redress 
 
 Of all its sorrows ; and I heard the deep 
 
 Half-stifled wail of millions as it rose 
 
 To echo in the all-wide ear of Brahm, 
 
 Until its rhythm was the only sound 
 
 Mine ears could hold, until it filled my days 
 
 With anguish and my very sleep with pain. 
 
 The maids who listened to my story-songs
 
 52 JfcElls of WomanbooO 
 
 Of the old Vedic days, when woman trod 
 The laughing earth as queen, who over-thought 
 My scanty store of books until the cloak 
 Of prejudice had fallen from their lives, 
 Were haled to wifehood, their reluctant feet 
 Beating sad measure in my dreams, and some 
 With weary, weary face of widowhood, 
 Turning the visions of my night to prayer. 
 
 " So dropped the years as a ripe flower that shakes 
 
 Its petals forth upon the amber air, 
 
 To swell about the hidden seed. I read 
 
 Seeking the purer faith that Brahmos teach ; * 
 
 And storing all my second father's words, 
 
 As the pearl-seeker gathers every shell 
 
 That may contain a gem. 
 
 " Meanwhile the lad 
 
 My husband, left the even paths that bear 
 Towards an honourable age, for hours 
 Of spendthrift riot, till the punishment 
 Of evil ways befell his wasted frame, 
 And he went nigh to death. A terror robbed 
 The hearts about me of their household peace 
 As one by one, like shadows when the night 
 
 * The Brama-Somaj, or Church of the Reformed Brahmins, is 
 the purest form of Theism, holding the same views as the Reformed 
 jews and theTheists of Swallow Street, Piccadilly.
 
 IRuhbmabai 53 
 
 Is dewing the deep heaven with stars, the foul 
 
 And loathly stories crept into our ears ; 
 
 Stories so dark and terrible, 1 vo\ved 
 
 To spend my days in labour, loneliness, 
 
 Endure the utmost ill of mind or flesh, 
 
 Ere I would link my whiter life with one 
 
 So spotted and besmirched. My father spake 
 
 His deep remonstrant word only to stir 
 
 A gust of passionate, disdainful wrath ; 
 
 So was enforced to sit with folded hands 
 
 And watch the gradual wrecking of his hopes. 
 
 " Meanwhile the lad, in whose had lain my hand 
 
 That wedding evening, lingered through the years, 
 
 Till three were numbered ; when new vigour stirred 
 
 His languid pulses and he rose and walked 
 
 The green earth in new life of feebleness ; 
 
 Yet did not ask my presence, had belike 
 
 Forgotten the dim ceremonial bond 
 
 That bound our lives. As a dead history 
 
 Of bitter words and deeds, I can recall 
 
 When nineteen years had murmured in my ears 
 
 Their tale of numbered deeds and thoughts, a yague 
 
 Yet angry war anent the leadership 
 
 Of proud Kshatrya, our martial caste ; 
 
 A war that raged until its stony words 
 
 Had ground a rough and jagged enmity 
 
 To deadliest edge. The spirit that would work 
 
 Another evil, finds the downward way 
 
 To be of soft descents, an easy road
 
 54 3>Ells of iaonumboo& 
 
 Winding and winding over thymy turfs, 
 
 A upas-shadows here, the purple bloom 
 
 Of nightshade there. But moving ever down 
 
 Through glade and glade, it loses the world-view, 
 
 The clear still light upon the mountain-heights 
 
 And the expanse of heaven, yet knows it not, 
 
 Having its eyes upon the slimy path 
 
 In search of weapons, and its mind so filled 
 
 With shadow, that the void of outer dark 
 
 Is but material image of its thought. 
 
 So those who sought to harass our repose, 
 
 Had searched but little, ere their cunning chanced 
 
 Upon a very poison-blade of ill 
 
 I was not with my husband and if half 
 
 That rumour whispered of his life were true, 
 
 His claim must be the sorrow of my life, 
 
 Its one dark drop of ill. 'Twas easy then 
 
 To hold discourse, a cunning-shaped discourse 
 
 Of wifely wealth, desertion, and the rights 
 
 Of even the most unconsidered man 
 
 Of even the most weak and vicious man, 
 
 Until the tool was sharpened for their work. 
 
 Enough that Dadajee was roused to send 
 
 And claim his wife ; and that I greeted those 
 
 Who came, with no denial or excuse, 
 
 Saving the question :' Had he a fit place 
 
 For any woman, say a single room 
 
 And certainty of six rupees a month ? 
 
 I could not dwell with women of the stamp 
 
 Of those unfortunates, who made the roof
 
 IRufcbmabat 55 
 
 Which sheltered him, a byword and reproach. 
 And incensed at my calm reply, with stamp 
 Of angry feet upon the floor and threat 
 Of legal force, they hurried thence alas 
 To put the threat in force, to file a case 
 Against us in the courts. 
 
 " But ere the long 
 
 Delays were over, and the judgment given, 
 A slow breath ceased to leave me fatherless. 
 
 " My father died, and even as we wept, 
 The blank and unknown future stared us down 
 Into new fears, for his had been the hand 
 That aided me in walking the new ways 
 Of western thought, in claiming liberty 
 To break the contract that I had not willed ; 
 And others might believe the old was right, 
 And Infant Marriages which had begun 
 In stormy ages, when the Tartar chiefs 
 Where pouring their rough thousands over Ind, 
 More righteous than our fallible reforms. 
 So was I even as a startled child 
 That scarcely knows her fear, and yet is held 
 Unmoving, silent, till the light is brought, 
 And all the mighty shadows of the dark 
 Melt into nothingness. So with my dread ! 
 For, moved by pity and a softened heart, 
 My grandsire laid a kindly wrinkled hand 
 Upon my head, and bade me strive or stay 
 As the white impulse of my womanhood
 
 56 3->Ell6 of TKHomanbooD 
 
 Should urge and the fell shadows of my grief 
 Lessened a little, changing into hope 
 A tear-wet dream, through which the distant light 
 Was dimly visioned. 
 
 " In the weary days 
 
 Of loss and patience and still memory 
 The silenced voice for ever in our ears, 
 And the dear step an echo in the dim 
 Death-shadowed rooms, I chanced upon the words 
 Of one* who strove to turn the seething tides 
 Of custom, and unloose the woman's bonds ; 
 A large and kindly soul that faced the storms 
 Of adverse prejudices with such a front 
 Of steadfast calm as Buddha may have worn. 
 And shaking off the shackles of distrust 
 Which had confined my utterance to the small 
 Kind world of home, I penned a burning cry,t 
 The wrongs of my dumb sisters given sound, 
 And set before the world a cry of pain, 
 Wailing and wailing thro' our Indian night, 
 So dark a night that tho' the western wealth 
 Of freedom give us rule, altho' the lights 
 Of far free centuries shine dimly down 
 The ages, we must ever turn and turn 
 In shadow and the shine of fainting stars. 
 
 * Mr. Behramji Malabari. 
 
 t Letter on infant marriages and enforced widowhood, which 
 appeared in the Times of India, and for whose irreproachable 
 English, Rukhmabai was indebted to the kindly correction of a 
 friend.
 
 IRufcbmabai 57 
 
 " Upon the very morn my case was tried 
 
 And Justice Pinhey stigmatised the \vill 
 
 To overbear a chill reluctant maid 
 
 As barbarous that chronicle of wrongs 
 
 With which I thought to stir a lion's sleep, 
 
 My letter filled the columns of the press, 
 
 Was answered, praised, reviled : " A woman's heart 
 
 Throbs thro' the earnest pleading." " We insist 
 
 The style is masculine, a woman's pen 
 
 Had never such a boldness ; J: and my words 
 
 Vibrating thro' the land, were echoed back 
 
 By every journal, till they crossed the seas. 
 
 And called, thro' the wide columns of the Times, 
 
 Upon a greater multitude than that 
 
 Which rules our India. 
 
 " Dadajee appealed, 
 
 And once, twice, three times, in as many years, 
 The verdicts ran, the balance of the law 
 Inclining now on his side, now on mine, 
 But latterly, without a break, on his ; 
 So that my little world of kindly souls, 
 Indian and English, drew more anxious breath, 
 As fearing for me the blank prison walls. 
 But what were months of durance to a life 
 Of loathed wifehood ? What the prison air, 
 To that which stagnates in our narrow rooms 
 Behind the purdah ? And meanwhile the man 
 (Whom I had thought to honour in old times 
 When the new marriage-bond but lightly bound 
 My spirit, and the flowers of hope were red,
 
 of 
 
 A loose and careless blossoming of rich 
 Rose-petals nodding, nodding in the sun) 
 Must pour a printed lie into the world, 
 A lie to blacken my dead father's name, 
 A lie a creeping evil and as such 
 I blazoned it ; and when their baffled rage 
 Drew me before the judge, he left the lie 
 With those who spake it, and I came again, 
 Altho' the people cursed me as I came. 
 
 " Upon the next appeal I was condemned 
 To join my husband, or be shut away 
 In prison for the space of half a year 
 To join this husband who might wed again, 
 Divorce this wife or that, love here, love there, 
 And sin against us. Remedy ? Divorce ? 
 Alas ! the only remedy is death. 
 And to such pass is womanhood betrayed, 
 By the new law that England has been pleased 
 To graft upon the laws of Manu Law ? 
 If it be law to re-stitute a right 
 That knew no institution. One appeal 
 Remained to my unwearied band a suit * 
 Which should be tried in England ; but the men 
 Who wrought against us feared the sympathy 
 Which would look richly out of English eyes, 
 And offered to forego their specious claims 
 For a consideration of rupees 
 
 * Before the Privy Council.
 
 IRukbmabat 
 
 Red gold in lieu of a reluctant wife. 
 
 And those about me urged the compromise 
 
 On my reluctant will, till at the last 
 
 I yielded to repent before the day 
 
 Had gathered in its sheaves of light. The law 
 
 Was stayed, but that decisive 'yea : or 'nay' 
 
 Which should determine the uncertain fate 
 
 Of generations yet to come, remains 
 
 A space unspoken. Better I had borne 
 
 The pain of durance ay, and greater pains - 
 
 If by so doing I had roused the world 
 
 Into repression of old usages, 
 
 Which, cursing the sad mothers of our race, 
 
 Recoil upon their children. I would die, 
 
 If this poor life could buy repeal of laws 
 
 Unjust unworthy of this England's fame ; 
 
 Could purge the statute-book of these decrees, 
 
 Which bear upon the.lives of maid and wife, 
 
 As an intangible dull weight." 
 
 But I 
 
 Who felt the throb of earnest English life, 
 And loved the mighty mother, must upraise 
 Protesting voice, as one who should maintain 
 Her honour against all the world. " Such law, 
 Had it not reason, were a grievous stain 
 Upon the justice of our rule, yet men 
 Will worship divers gods, and we would give 
 Brahmin and Buddhists ay, and Mussulman 
 The utmost liberty of faith. I think 
 The grievances of women must be due
 
 60 3<5glls of TJQomanbooD 
 
 To precepts of their creed, rites that our law, 
 Respecting the dim faiths of every folk, 
 Would fear to touch, rites which must fade away 
 Thro' wear of time and growth of younger creeds." 
 
 " Ah, say you so ? And yet the Shastras fix 
 
 The time for marriage, at that age of youth 
 
 Which holds a maid upon the dreamy edge 
 
 Of her ripe womanhood, and would that lads 
 
 Should close their prentice-years of studentship, 
 
 Before they take the burdens of full life 
 
 Upon their strength. And if this victor land 
 
 Refuse to tamper with a people's faith, 
 
 Why was the Juggernaut procession stayed, 
 
 Suttee forbidden and infanticide 
 
 The death of the unwelcome, made a crime ? 
 
 This breadth of love and judgment that can bear 
 
 With every harmless superstitious rite 
 
 Were worthy of your England, but her heart 
 
 Should rise in mother-protest to forbid 
 
 The bitter woman-martyrdom, that fills 
 
 Our heavenward space with its despairing cry. 
 
 Nor do we ask a rough subversive change, 
 
 But merely that you should not force a maid 
 
 To ratify the contract that was framed 
 
 In her unconscious youth, that you should pass 
 
 A law enabling parents to delay 
 
 The marriage age, and leaving one who takes 
 
 A second spouse, the money that was hers 
 
 By her first husband's will. Merely to aid,
 
 TRufcbmabai 
 
 By standing still, where hitherto your hands 
 Have pushed us onward ; by alight shift of law 
 To ease our burdens, not so great a change 
 Save in its meaning to the numberless 
 Pale women weeping behind purdah-silk. 
 Let England rise in her old strength and strike 
 As Mother of Free Nations at the laws 
 Which lay our millions in the jewelled dust 
 Of crumbled empires and dead usages. 
 The stern responsibility is laid 
 If 'duty must be measured by our powers ' 
 On the broad shoulders of the ruling race. 
 
 " We ask our human rights ; the liberty 
 
 Of marriage contract ; the long rights of babes 
 
 Now taken, given, stolen, but of which 
 
 The law is guardian, here, ay and with us ; 
 
 The right of justice even if we be 
 
 But women, for tho' India is afar 
 
 Justice is Justice over all the world. 
 
 "And you?" I asked, leaving the mighty cause 
 
 For smaller detail, as we leave the moon 
 
 To mark the glowworm's tremulous green spark. 
 
 " Some of your earnest English gave me help, 
 Their countenance, sweet leisure and a home. 
 And one * who loved our common womanhood 
 
 * Mrs. Eva McLaren.
 
 62 30slis of THttomanbooD 
 
 Ay, all who bear the burdens of that name, 
 
 The burdens and the glory, without let 
 
 Of creed or class or country, called me thence 
 
 To rest upon her wondrous mother-love, 
 
 That spark of the divine which lifts our sex 
 
 Above its fellow and if great in her 
 
 Who spends it upon clustered golden heads, 
 
 How far more great in those who fold their arms 
 
 About the helpless children of a world. 
 
 " To give love worthily, and find it grow 
 Thro' glorious years until the cause is won 
 The wife and husband walking as true mates 
 Towards the far event my friend's deep hope 
 A hope in part fulfilled. And I who heard 
 Her clear voice calling thro' the storm, arose 
 Crossing the turbulent high wave, and now 
 Would learn all doctor-lore, that I may go 
 Again to those who need me, may rejoice 
 My mother's heart and heal the sick and sad, 
 So labour till the fulness of my days 
 Has lifted me into Nirvana's calm." 
 
 And as I plunged into the outer whirl 
 
 Of our unresting London, a rich dream,' 
 
 The optimistic and Utopian hope 
 
 Thrilled thro' the troubled turmoil of my thought ; 
 
 Till I beheld an age when broader minds 
 
 Should sway the people's sceptre, statesmen seek 
 
 Not so much the advancement of their land
 
 IRuftbmabat 63 
 
 In the world's eye, but in the eye of God. 
 As the dim centuries roll out of time, 
 Their hopes and aspirations are a lamp 
 To guide us thro" the twilight, till we near 
 The throne of His perfection and look deep, 
 Thro' veils and mists into the shining light 
 Of day that shall be ; wherefore then the feais 
 That hold us back from any daring good ? 
 The day must break, and every step we take 
 Towards the east shall bring us nearer dawn ; 
 What matter then if all the onward way 
 Be set with flints, and but our children live 
 To reach the morning-land ? To-day is ours, 
 A space whereon to write our works in fair 
 Bold lettering, or the hasty scrawl of fear ; 
 A space which shall go down the countless years 
 To bear us record. 
 
 Oh ye woman-hearts 
 
 Who are the strong salvation of our land, 
 Let the deep sorrows of a kindred race, 
 Sprung with our own from the old Aryan home, 
 Awaken you to burning thought and speech, 
 Till the pathetic echo of your tones 
 Has made the weakest strong, the strongest sad ; 
 Till English millions send a rousing cheer 
 Across the sea and the child-wife is saved, 
 The widow one wife of one spouse set free 
 To wed in honour, and our India's wound 
 An anguish of the past.
 
 WOMAN'S WIT 
 
 [When Conrad III. was in 1138 proclaimed Emperor of Germany, 
 the Duke of Wittenberg refused to acknowledge him as such. 
 The Emperor therefore besieged the Duke, who had taken 
 refuge in his fortified town of Weinsberg. The Duke in the 
 end was forced to yield ; whereupon the indignant Emperor 
 declared his intention of putting all to fire and sword, but 
 granted permission to the women to depart in safety, and to 
 carry with them whatever they regarded as most precious. The 
 Duchess of Wittenberg, taking advantage of this concession, 
 with ready wit took her husband, the Duke, upon her back. 
 Her example was followed by the other women ; and the Em- 
 peror, seeing them thus come out with the Duchess at their 
 head, was touched by the spectacle, and pardoned the men for 
 the sake of their wives.] 
 
 THEY are hushed the hoarse voices of battle, 
 
 The clashing of shields, 
 For at sundown, despairing of succour, 
 
 The proud city yields. 
 Then fill me the ruby-red beaker 
 
 Brim-high at the spring ; 
 To-morrow we drink amid plenty 
 
 ' Wass-hael ! ' to the king !
 
 tUoman'5 lllit 6; 
 
 Oh, sweeter than toil of the bondsman, 
 
 Than hawking of lord, 
 Is the snort of the earth-spurning charger, 
 
 The play of the sword. 
 
 What, ho 1 are they pleading for mercy, 
 
 The treacherous foe ? 
 Shall we listen with many a brother 
 
 Laid silent and low ? 
 Nay, nay ; let the women and children 
 
 Go forth with their best 
 Of jewels and house-gear and linen 
 
 Short shrift for the rest. 
 Oh, sweeter than toil of the bondsman, 
 
 Than hawking of lord, 
 Is the snort of the foam-whitened charger, 
 
 The play of the sword. 
 
 They come over-burdened, I warrant, 
 
 With treasurings rare ; 
 Wives, mothers, and matrons by Odin ! 
 
 'Tis men that they bear. 
 " Have mercy, O army victorious ! 
 
 You bid us go free, 
 With the gold and the gems that we value, 
 
 The babes at our knee ; 
 But dearer than house and the children, 
 
 Wherever we roam, 
 Are the treasures we bear on our shoulders, 
 
 The shields of the home." 
 
 E
 
 66 3bv\\s of "CQomanbooD 
 
 " There are wives by the strand of the ocean, 
 
 And maidens as fair, 
 Who weep through the whir of the spinning, 
 
 And shield us with prayer ; 
 For the sake of those watching and waiting 
 
 Afar by the sea, 
 For the love and the faith of the women, 
 
 Pass on ye are free ' ;: 
 Oh, sweeter than carnage and glory, 
 
 Than jewels and gauds, 
 Is the neigh of the home-coming charger, 
 
 The sheathing of swords.
 
 A WOMAN'S VENGEANCE 
 
 MY cottage mine ! I pace the earthen floor 
 
 Seven paces either way, and count the steps 
 
 From hearth to threshold, from the white array 
 
 Of household ware, to yonder western panes. 
 
 The veriest hovel dark and damp and dull, 
 
 Is some dim soul's ideal of a nest 
 
 Wherein to rear its young a nest, a home, 
 
 A wall about the sacredness of life, 
 
 As the warm flesh is set between our souls 
 
 And the world-eye. Before my latching door, 
 
 Some feet of sward and waving bloomy growth 
 
 A clump of lilies and the golden globe 
 
 Of a faint evening primrose, where the rich 
 
 Rayed sunflower nods throughout the drowsy noon, 
 
 With further the wild hyacinth, and dusk 
 
 Of pansies under shelter of the hedge 
 
 Some feet of sweet and scented garden earth 
 
 Slope to the little gate beneath the limes ; 
 
 The little gate whereon in twilight hours 
 
 I lean a-weary, the o'er-busy day 
 
 Remembered but as winter, when the sun
 
 68 SDglls of taomanbooD 
 
 Is browning the rich yellows of the wheat, 
 
 While chatter of brown house-holds, lightly rocked 
 
 In the leaf-darkness over-head, grows faint, 
 
 A murmur and a silence, a low note 
 
 And the swift flutter of belated wings. 
 
 The land is mine, a space of God's good earth, 
 
 A quarter of an acre and a house ! 
 
 And mine by honest labour, mine to hold 
 
 Until the dulness of old age shall shut 
 
 The glint of sunlight on a pansy heart, 
 
 The thrush's liquid song, the scent of thyme 
 
 Out of my knowledge and the twilight hush 
 
 Deepen into the drowsy night of death. 
 
 A breeze has wakened and the lily-heads 
 Tremble upon their stems, a cool sweet breath 
 That murmurs of the kine, kneedeep in grass 
 Beyond the river, of the flags and reeds 
 That rustle o'er its slaty gleam. The light 
 On yonder plain is still as golden pure 
 As when the mammoth feasted on its low 
 And watery levels, the pale glow of blue 
 An opal steadied, shines as faintly clear 
 As ever before thronging human feet 
 Brake through the darkness of primeval Time, 
 To soil the springing sweetness of the meads 
 With brick and stone and staring window-eye. 
 But we, who gather memories of sweet 
 And bitter, as two flowers on a stalk, 
 Must leave our youth before its red and white
 
 B lUcmnn's Ucncicancc 69 
 
 Of < hestnut bloom be driven from our cheeks. 
 We age betimes, when death and falsehood keep, 
 By turn and turn, the watches of the night ; 
 We age betimes when a long summer drought 
 Follows upon the spring-time of our love, 
 And faith be withered in the heated noons. 
 So am I old, who loved in innocent 
 May-glooms, who loved to lose, and see the dark 
 And purple poison-flower burst the sheath 
 That should have held a lily hate for love. 
 Oh, heart ! the growth is fine, the flower is fair ! 
 Lily or nightshade he who sowed the seed 
 Shall pluck the fruit ! 
 
 The year that dreamy space 
 
 Of golden morns and noons that brought the dream 
 Alas, no more ! of an abiding love 
 Into my life, was one of rain and sun ; 
 A shower, a smile, and every day a shower 
 With after sun, until the oat was ripe, 
 Or ever the green stem had yellowed fair 
 Into the rustling straw. But ere the lights 
 Of rosebud May had broadened into suns, 
 And yet the grass was waving in the deep 
 Rich water-meadows, through the village street 
 With cant of poverty on artist-lips, 
 A painter wandered ; one who sketched his home 
 As a dull attic in a London street, 
 And spake of early struggles ; yet who heard 
 " Sir Wilfred " from the world, and knew no more
 
 7c 3&Ells of IClomanbooD 
 
 Of stinted bread than the dull sovereign 
 
 Who dreams himself a beggar. Had we heard 
 
 Of rank that needs must wear the ploughman's shirt 
 
 To gain a happy hour, we should have smiled 
 
 As wise grey fathers when the children talk. 
 
 Happy ? the poor ? No prince of long descent 
 
 Would lift the golden circlet from his brow 
 
 For any hope of happiness in toil, 
 
 For any hope of comfort in the loss 
 
 Of cleanly ways, of delicate desires, 
 
 And all that makes existence sweet and fair 
 
 To souls of gentle breeding. So the plea 
 
 Of broken health and poverty sufficed ; 
 
 And Wilfred set his easel in the room 
 
 Low-browed and white, and sweet with lavender, 
 
 That overlooked the thymy common-land ; 
 
 A painter who could sketch our gentle hills, 
 
 The blacksmith in his cavern, and the b'ench 
 
 Beside the ancient alehouse, that could show 
 
 A wondrous passage under earth, and gloom 
 
 Of deep unhappy dungeons. He must aid 
 
 In stacking, threshing the rich sheaves, and stand 
 
 Beside my bin, as browning fingers pulled 
 
 Its dusty golden treasure from the bine, 
 
 For ever plucking, plucking, till the soft 
 
 Rich hillock rose upon the canvas sides. 
 
 And when I glanced from all the busy world 
 Of autumn to the shadows of the brush, 
 In deepening colour laid upon the white
 
 21 Woman's Uengeance 7 ! 
 
 Snow-stretch of canvas, I must ever find 
 A face familiar dusky-eyed and ripe, 
 With cloud of crisp, rebellious hair, and lips 
 A ruddy all the pool had flashed me back 
 Since first I looked into its depths and laughed. 
 For though none other than a farmer's child, 
 I think I know that I was all as fail- 
 As any born to ermine of a throne 
 Their all ; for mark you, queen and serving-maid 
 Are simply women in the thoughts of God. 
 Fair? Ay, accursed with beauty, which had been 
 The dower of richer women, but in me 
 Seemed a presumption. Beauty should be born 
 To the maid-children of more leisured thought 
 Than that which delves and spins. A farmer's child ? 
 Then give her, for all dower, an honest face 
 An honest breadth of face with flush of health 
 Beneath the browning kisses of the sun. 
 More beauty were presumption ay, a lure 
 Of Satan, rather than a gift of God ; 
 A lure to catch the eye of gentle blood, 
 And stoop it to a wedlock out of place. 
 
 Can love be out of place ? when human blood 
 
 Would claim a kinship with the breathing wrongs 
 
 Of half a world, and when the ancestry 
 
 Of peer and peasant started from the soil 
 
 As brothers, in the yesterday of time ? 
 
 What is this gentle blood ? The pride of wealth, 
 
 A little more refinement in the blood,
 
 72 3&gll6 of 
 
 A little greater knowledge of the small 
 Pale lies that fall as oil upon the wheels 
 Of social life ? And love of meeting souls ? 
 I am a simple woman ; but I think 
 The earnest love of man and womanhood 
 A something holy something over earth, 
 And chance, and all that lower men would find 
 In its impassioned mystery. 
 
 Through all 
 
 The morrows of a sweet rain-heavy June, 
 When every blue-bell in the woods was hung 
 So thick with dew, it drooped anigh the earth 
 As though to lay its sorrows on the breast 
 Of the Eternal Mother, Wilfred stayed, 
 Painting and dreaming ; a rich breath of song, 
 A zither, and a voice that called me fair, 
 More fair than all the cultivated blooms 
 That shake their heavy petals in the breeze 
 A stray wild rose, that glorified the hedge 
 Of bramble, nettle, bracken, and was touched 
 With the soft blushes of departing day. 
 What wonder that I listened that I loved ? 
 A painter poor ; a gentleman the name 
 Gave a traditionary ring of worth, 
 As when we strike a healthy round of gold 
 Upon the board. What wonder that I deemed 
 The artist-soul, behind those slumb'rous deeps, 
 As honest as the labourer's in the field ? 
 More honest, being born to noble thoughts
 
 a lUcman'5 Ucngcancc 73 
 
 Of a fair mother, who had taught his lips 
 
 Their infant prayer of love and penitence, 
 
 While yet the merest words were sweet and strange. 
 
 What wonder that I gave a simple faith, 
 
 And found it only wonderful and sweet 
 
 That I, a sweet-leaved briar of the hedge, 
 
 Was chosen, while the stately lilies bloomed 
 
 In glistening purity and bloomed alone. 
 
 I, a poor rose, that he must prune and train, 
 
 Until its briars should o'errun the home 
 
 With buds and widening flowers and scented leaf. 
 
 I was young then so young that I must sing 
 
 Morn in and through the noontide, until eve 
 
 Was washing the red sunset from the deeps 
 
 Of darkening space. I was young then, too young 
 
 To comprehend the stirless hot-house pride, 
 
 Which looks through windows on our common earth, 
 
 And holds aloof, ay, verily, is proud 
 
 Of folded hands ; yet with an equal pride 
 
 I churned the cream until a golden heap 
 
 Of butter lifted from the thinner milk ; 
 
 And truest pride if pride at all be true 
 
 Must sooner rest with those who earn a meed, 
 
 Than with the silken soul whose idleness 
 
 Was purchased by ancestral toil or fraud 
 
 Or fraud ? belike, for fortunes can be built 
 
 Upon the lives of poorer men be forced 
 
 From failing hearts and houses, the red gold, 
 
 The blood-red, gold. Alas ! the wisest rogue 
 
 Heaps to himself the riches of the earth,
 
 74 S&EUs of WomanbooD 
 
 While honesty goes barefoot all the day 
 The little day of this imperfect life. 
 
 For all the merry thoughtlessness of youth, 
 I had o'erthought the future, a few springs 
 Of freedom a long courtship in the lanes 
 Laborious noons, and a long dreamy eve, 
 With old hands resting on the elbowed chair, 
 And old dim eyes regarding the fair heads 
 Of children's children. 
 
 A sweet hope a dream! 
 Alas, that all the fairest in our thought 
 Should yield to time and as the emerald light 
 Of glow-worms fading, leaves a worm indeed 
 Be all the darker for the sometime glow 
 Of a dead hope. The rustic wooer came, 
 As in my school-girl thought a man of worth, 
 With farm and homestead and a hundred kine. 
 An honest man and loving, one whose hand 
 Would have held mine in faith of wedded life 
 Thro' all the years. But Wilfred flashed a smile 
 Thro' the mist-morning of my maiden dreams, 
 And rougher honesty was overpassed 
 For then arid for all time. For who can heed 
 The cry of corncrakes, when a nightingale 
 Is flooding the dim world with song? Alas, 
 Not I, who listened till the music sank 
 Into my soul, 
 
 till a low echo woke 
 To give again the rapture of its trills, 
 And I I loved.
 
 B lUoman's Ucngcancc 7 
 
 The harvesters' ripe moon 
 Was waning tenderly as down the paths 
 We strayed in converse or sweet silences, 
 Until the last dim evening. He had drawn 
 My hands into his keeping ere we paused 
 To lean upon the stone- work, lichen grey, 
 Of the old fountain. A neglected briar 
 Was leaning its last bud upon the edge 
 Of the smooth round, a white thing, mirrored fair 
 In the still stretch beneath our gazing eyes. 
 And to our hearts the silence of the night 
 Had brought a. sudden wistful tenderness, 
 For tho' content with love, a doubt, a dread- 
 Foolish as fancy of a bead of cork 
 In wine of clear and bubbling gold, had roused 
 The vague disquiet of too happy hours ; 
 Till in a tremulous dismay I clung 
 Yet closer to his arm ah me, and heard 
 Only the echo of my fears. "Alas 
 That clouds must overcast our love, and bring 
 The winds of winter swirling thro' the boughs 
 Of every green retreat, but men must eat. 
 And if I will to line our city nest, 
 I needs must labour till the dreary yoke 
 Of winter has been lifted from the land. 
 But trust me child, and I will come again, 
 Ere yonder clump of sleeping lilies turn 
 A widening petal to the sun" 
 
 I broke 
 Into quick sobs : " You will not come again ;
 
 76 Sbvlle of 
 
 Some mist will come between us oh, I know 
 You love me and such love as ours can stretch 
 From world to world, from age to age nor change 
 Tho' all the persecutions of ill-fate 
 Should overwash its patience, yet I fear 
 Some woman-instinct lifts a warning hand, 
 And if we part to-night - " 
 
 He bent his lips 
 
 To mine, as tenderly as when we pledged 
 Our love in the dim stillness of the woods, 
 Where the brown needles of forgotten years 
 Deadened the steps. " And if we part to-night, 
 The love that has detained my wandering feet 
 These many months will turn them hitherward, 
 Whatever lion venture to contest 
 The backward path." So held me close and went 
 As must all good, all evil when the wheel 
 Of fate has turned. 
 
 The ruddy leafage died, 
 
 And starlings thronged the mead, a whirl of snow 
 Whitened the thymy common, and lay deep 
 Upon the further hills, but sunny dreams 
 Were in my heart, until a rumour fell 
 As sudden winter on my life. " A poor 
 And struggling artist, who for daily bread 
 Must sketch and sell and sketch ? A likely tale 
 When all the county knows of Wilfred Burne 
 Sir Wilfred since his father's death a man 
 Eccentric if you will but true of heart,
 
 21 lOcman's Ucngcancc 
 
 And to be wedded ere the close of June 
 To an Earl's daughter Lady Agatha." 
 
 So, like the sudden fading of a haze 
 
 My dream dissolved, and I was left to face 
 
 The wide grey prospect of a desolate 
 
 Unhappy day. But when my father came 
 
 From market with the rumour on his lips 
 
 I heard and smiled, pouring the home-brewed ale 
 
 With strung still hand, until the father-thought 
 
 Was all content. " My lass can hold her own 
 
 With any of your gilded gentlefolks/' 
 
 For with a bubbling laughter on my lips 
 
 I echoed back, "A wedding did you say? 
 
 I trust he will invite us to the feast. 
 
 You to the tenants' dinner, I to join 
 
 Light-heart, light-foot in every mazy dance." 
 
 But tho' I smiled, it was as one who hides 
 
 A darkness in her thought as the still pool 
 
 May glitter golden in the morning light, 
 
 Altho 3 the dead are tangled in its weed. 
 
 Oh death of love that leaves an after pain 
 For time to heal ! Alas that manhood's vows, 
 Tho' strongly told, and bound about with hopes 
 That shine as jewels in the morning sun, 
 Should be but as an arm-thick rope of sand 
 A rope that crumbles into pitiful 
 Poor dust, before the hand has stirred its coils. 
 And yet my heart, the longest day is lived,
 
 And dull to-morrows steal our very hurts, 
 Till all that has been, seems but as a cloud 
 Across the noon-tide sun. 
 
 When New Year frosts 
 Were leafing all the panes, Sir Wilfred sent 
 A jewel with his love a golden round 
 Whose eastern over-pearling closed in fire 
 Beneath the hot eye-rubies of a snake ; 
 A jewel and a page of pale regrets : 
 " For all his love, he might not hold my youth 
 To a long waiting upon fortune's tide 
 When worthier men " from first to last a lie ! 
 The lie of one who set the world's regard 
 In the high places of his soul, and deemed 
 It out of nature that a gentleman 
 Should need to give account of all his works ; 
 Should even when divested of his silk 
 And purple by the hand of death descend 
 To the dull level of ignoble folks. 
 
 A lie ! and with no poor imprudent hint 
 Of whence it came, beyond the London mark 
 Upon the cover, lest in love or hate 
 I should pursue him I ! who was as proud 
 As ever royal dame, too proud to more 
 Than close the jewel in its velvet case, 
 And send it back without a written word, 
 Save and except the outer name the name 
 And title that he fancied unconfessed !
 
 B lUcman's Ucngcancc 79 
 
 Oh false and rickle heart of man ! Have all 
 Who bear them proudly under that poor name 
 So small a power of loving ? is all faith 
 In man a virtue of so rnre a growth, 
 That it were well, if woman ever deemed 
 Her lover false, till time had proved him true ? 
 Alas the slighter vessel, soonest heats, 
 And that slow love of womanhood that grows 
 About the man and house to warm a life, 
 Can only hope a year-long passion-gleam 
 In answer, the hot flash of bursting light 
 That leaps and sinks, and sinking fades away, 
 As utterly forgotten as the breeze 
 That fanned our foreheads on the yester-eve. 
 
 When spring returned to scatter thro' the woods, 
 Her wealth of pale unscented flowers, and fair 
 In every meadow hung the cowslip heads,' 
 My father went into the fields at dawn 
 A man in the brave autumn of his years, 
 Yet who must tell them over in the grave 
 Before a week was added. Two and two 
 The tramp of heavy feet upon the flags 
 Smote on my heart and as I turned, behold 
 I knew the secret of that hurdle-couch, 
 That four strong men were bearing tenderly 
 Across the little yard beyond the door. 
 I knew and had no need of faltered words 
 To tell me that my father was asleep,
 
 8o JDslls of IdomanbooO 
 
 With mystery of slumber in a smile 
 
 That should not change uutil the trump of doom. 
 
 So was I loosed from every tie of love 
 
 That I would suffer ; for the patient soul 
 
 Who waited waited and must win reply 
 
 To a renewed petition, in the hour 
 
 When I was saddest and most lonely, found 
 
 An equal faith that set against his wish. 
 
 " Love, marriage, children, home ? I rather choose 
 
 The solitary way, and will to learn 
 
 That learning I may serve." So went my way 
 
 To the great city with its drowning deeps 
 
 Its million hurrying feet that beat the wall 
 
 Of the down-trodden into triumph-songs, 
 
 To learn of nursing in the orderly 
 
 Long wards of a grim hospital to learn, 
 
 And watch, and serve, and after patient years 
 
 Be lent to yonder black unlovely town. 
 
 I work the past if not a folded page, 
 
 At least concealed beneath the press of small 
 
 Sufficient duties, as a desert death 
 
 Is hidden by the shifting flow of sand. 
 
 I work and wait, knowing that all things come 
 
 To an exceeding patience. Love is long, 
 
 Longer than life, and hatred as its twin 
 
 Day light and dark, can mock at time and chance, 
 
 In a long day which overpasses death 
 
 And triumphs in the grave.
 
 B lUoman's Uengcancc Si 
 
 I was a maid 
 
 As innocent as any nursling child, 
 When Wilfred cast the shadow of his love 
 Across the stir and purpose of my day. 
 I should have been a happy wife thank Heaven 
 My hands are strong to labour, I am free 
 To wed or work, and need not take the home 
 And the man with it, from desire of bread, 
 As many a hapless creature who is rocked 
 In jewelled cradle. Had Sir Wilfred loved 
 For but one heart-beatone I had forgiven. 
 But even while he wooed me with low words 
 His heart was hers, and this will I requite. 
 I think we women were not served so ill, 
 If vengeance, swift or slow, but ever sure 
 Waited upon the wronger. 
 
 Hist a step ! 
 
 So like it is, I almost hear the cry 
 Of the loose gravel by the farmhouse door, 
 As when he came a-weary from the fields. 
 He ? But I dream, and dreams have set the sweet 
 Sad echoes of the olden time afloat. 
 Yet Oh my God ! had ever living man 
 As proud a step, as that which strikes the flag 
 Beyond my door, such passionate deep eyes, 
 With such a glitter of rebellious hair 
 Above the azure gleam. It cannot be 
 That he for whom I wait throughout the long, 
 Long years, should chance upon my latching door, 
 And yet and yet 
 
 F
 
 3D\2lls of 'eciomanbooD 
 
 Oh Lord mine hour is come, 
 And Thou hast given me my heart's desire ! 
 
 "The district nurse ? Joan you! I pardon me/' 
 "What is your pleasure ? I am here to serve." 
 
 And in an eagerness that overpassed 
 
 The momentary wonder ; for a grief 
 
 New born and fierce, is more than memory, 
 
 He cried : " And for such service am I come. :; 
 
 " To one," I answered, with a little smile, 
 Malicious, cold, " who owes you a long debt 
 And will be proud to pay it love for love." 
 
 "A debt?" 
 
 " Ay so, the debt of culture. I 
 Was but a farmer's daughter, with some skill 
 Of labouring hands, but strangely ignorant 
 Of many a poet's love-sick rhapsody, 
 Until Sir Wilfred sang. Books, pictures, prints 
 Somewhat of science, more of artist-lore 
 I gathered from his lips, and have besides 
 To thank him for my knowledge of the faith 
 And honour that is closed in gentle blood. 
 What is your need? The Lady Agatha 
 Perchance has found a restless hour or two 
 In her full sheaf of poppy-headed nights ? " 
 But in the gravity of reasoned fears,
 
 21 lUoman's Uengcancc 
 
 He let my bitterness, as something strange, 
 
 Not pertinent, slip by him and be lost. 
 
 " The past is dead, as any autumn leaf 
 
 That hurries thro'" the stonruvind of the north : 
 
 And you whose heart was ever woman-warm, 
 
 Will scarcely turn from childhood's agony 
 
 Because the father sinned. My child : and left 
 
 To toss in lonely fever ; for an ill 
 
 Of loathsome dens, has rasped her lily skin 
 
 And mother maids Can no affection bear 
 
 The strains of time and sickness ? I am mad 
 With a destroying terror, and my lips 
 Would pour the bitterness which they have drawn 
 From one chill life, upon the greater hearts 
 Which teach us in their mother-care, of love 
 Beyond this human. Bear with me the child 
 
 " Your child ? " 
 
 " My only child." 
 
 " The Lord be praised : 
 
 Blessed be He who hath maintained my cause, 
 Who hath delivered them that hated me 
 Into mine hand ! " 
 
 " That you may compensate 
 Your soul for an old wrong, with coals of fire." 
 
 " So spake the Christ, but royal singers poured 
 The will of God in wilder strains of song ; 
 And I I follow David. You forget ?
 
 of XillomanbooD 
 
 Ah well, your soul's salvation is not set 
 
 Upon the Hebrew Psalrns. But now your child ? 
 
 " Ay mine, the rosebud of a thorny stem 
 That one dark morning looked upon the light, 
 And since has seemed the one flower among leaves, 
 A stray white blossom, that in innocence 
 Smiled on a garden-world of hidden thorns 
 The sharp beginning, ay, the all of life, 
 For since our summer idyll " 
 
 " You profane 
 
 A memory that should be mine alone 
 My Eden. Innocence ? Had I not been 
 So childlike, I had doubted. Idyll? Ay 
 If lies may be idyllic. Oh false heart 
 How had we wronged you that you should repay 
 Our welcome the rich welcome of the poor 
 With such a poor concealment of your rank 
 Your name your wealth with such a feigned 
 
 regard, 
 
 From dawn to dusk the living of a lie. 
 Forgive me, if in my unpolished speech, 
 The little necessary slip be termed 
 A lie no less and sport of hearts, such sport 
 As breaks a woman's heart in the result 
 Unmanliness. Oh Wilfred, are the streams 
 Of human love so many and so near, 
 That you can start them with a grinded heel, 
 Drink of the bubbling waters and so pass ? "
 
 B lUoman's Ucncjcance 85 
 
 Joan Joan . My little love, my briar rose, 
 
 So sweet, so fresh, so innocent, I loved 
 
 But deemed it were the nobler part of love 
 
 To leave you, tho' I hungered for your face 
 
 And heard your sweet voice singing thro' the hours, 
 
 And singing ever to a broken song, 
 
 In which a sorrow throbbed with the delight 
 
 As in dim twilights the hid nightingale 
 
 Murm'ring of love must tune her note to pain. 
 
 But sweet believe me, tho' her liquid song 
 
 Bring every bird about her feet, she were 
 
 More happy mated with a nightingale, 
 
 Than if she turned unto an eagle's love. 
 
 Her slender wings should spread in woodland flight, 
 
 Her song " 
 
 I broke across the specious words 
 With simple truth : "If eagles may not wed 
 With lesser fowl, they should not stoop to woo." 
 
 " I grant it sweet, but beauty such as yours 
 A rose among the brambles of the hedge, 
 Must bow the wisest to a reverence 
 And some-time worship." 
 
 " Worship and not love : 
 Dear heart, how wise in specious sophistry 
 Of self-excuse, are cultured gentlemen ! 
 Sweet reverence and worship such as kings 
 May yield a loveliness of heaven, is pale 
 As moonlight, after the red light of day
 
 86 
 
 Has blazed a pathway down the western skies ; 
 
 And love the love you pledged in woodland dusk 
 
 Beneath the ranking firs, as far outshines 
 
 That ecstasy of worship, as the fires 
 
 In yonder furnaces my kitchen spark. 
 
 But punishment awaits the broken oath 
 
 As certainly as darkness follows day." 
 
 A shadow fell and deepened in the blue 
 Of those uplifted eyes. " Love punishment : 
 God knows my slender debt of broken faith 
 Was paid, and overpaid, and paid again, 
 By the dull fate that turns our dearest hope 
 Into a dead-sea apple, ere it reach 
 The destined lips." 
 
 " You married where you would," 
 And the deep passion of embittered love 
 Burned in my speech : " a lady fair as dawn ; 
 So fair the rougher winds and rain of heaven 
 May never touch the lily of her throat, 
 Or burn on those red-petal lips ; so fair 
 So wealthy, and of such a high descent, 
 It was an equal wedding when she loved 
 Sir Wilfred Burne an honourable man 
 Of stainless record, one whose constancy 
 A lengthy year had proven. Punishment ? 
 That is to come." 
 
 " I married where I would : 
 A woman whom my lover-dreams had raised
 
 a ICloman's Uengcancc 87 
 
 To a aim eminence of angelhood. 
 
 I married where I would, alas to find 
 
 A coldness of perennial frost, that kne\v 
 
 Xo leaping spirit-throb of love or life. 
 
 A happy man ? So happy, that the fiend 
 
 Is ever pouring the red wine, with chink 
 
 Of gold in little heaps about the board, 
 
 While thro : my thought, the whisper rises ' Drink. 
 
 Drink deep and play, till dull forgetfulness 
 
 Has sealed the brain, or deeper drink and die.' 
 
 But baby hands have beat the tempter back 
 
 And baby-laughter, as a thrush's note 
 
 After long rain, has raised a trembling hope, 
 
 A hope, a dream " 
 
 "And now the child shall die." 
 I spake it hardly, clearly, and the ring 
 Of the slow words was as the fall of steel ; 
 Altho' my heart misgave me, for the love 
 Of children lay a- warm about my thought. 
 " I am the only woman far or near 
 That fears not death, nor this most loathsome ill, 
 And I would sooner slay myself, than lift 
 A finger to delay the hurrying feet 
 Of him who robs us of our pain in sleep, 
 A long, long sleep, Sir Wilfred. What ? is sin 
 To be forgotten in the hour of need ? 
 Is that long ruthless lie to be forgiven ? 
 I think not. You have wrought against my life, 
 And now for all your wealth and poet-lore,
 
 of < GQomanboo& 
 
 For all the artist cunning of your touch, 
 The child must die untended. You may charm 
 The whole wide world and yet be powerless 
 To disarm death. 
 
 Go back, thou lying soul, 
 Fiend-set in such a shape, go, watch the stir 
 Of limbs and lips, until her latest breath 
 Has quivered out upon the night the ear 
 Can have too few of even fevered words." 
 
 " You have no mercy ? " 
 
 " None." 
 
 A dull despair 
 
 Was pressing out the faint and fevered hope, 
 Yet he must turn within the door to urge 
 A thought upon me : " Can no memory 
 Of woodland strolls beneath the ripening nuts, 
 With lengthy grasses swaying in the breeze 
 And a long bramble catching at your robe, 
 Of hours wherein at least we were content 
 Can no such memory disturb your will ? 
 I can recall an evening when you swore 
 The hardest task were as a little sleep 
 The languid dreaming of an hour, when wrought, 
 Begun, and ended, for the tender sake 
 Of one beloved." 
 
 " Beloved ? Oh ay ; but love 
 And I are strangers ; yet if this poor babe 
 Had been the child of other '' 
 
 " Spare me that.
 
 S lUoman's Uemieancc 
 
 " The child of other than Sir Wilfred Burne 
 I had not dallied thus/' 
 
 He put a hand 
 
 Unto his heated brow and turned away : 
 "Alas I my little Joan, that thou shouldst pay 
 The forfeit of thy father's sin ; that guilt 
 Should be washed out in blood of innocence." 
 And as he passed me, with a staggering step 
 That sought the door, I caught at the lax hand. 
 " You called her Joan ? ;! 
 
 A bitter accent leapt 
 Into the husky and despairing voice. 
 " Ay, the chill loveliness of marble brings 
 A pang of longing for those warmer arms, 
 That clasped and clung in the hey-day of youth. 
 But let me pass, the wailing of a child 
 Is in my ear and I forget the past, 
 Love pleasure all. The child, and there is none 
 To moisten her parched lips, to give her air, 
 Oh God, the child ! " 
 
 I was of woman born, 
 
 And in my time had felt the warmth of love 
 Yield unto creeping of a chill despair ; 
 I was of woman born, and loving once 
 For all the loosened bitterness and pain 
 Of a dark hour, must share his passing thought, 
 His anguish, tho' a cruel wrong was walled, 
 As heaven-high, between our meeting hands.
 
 9 5>Blls of TidomanbooD 
 
 "The child, the little Joan ; oh, Wilfred, stay 
 
 That I may overthink the grievous pass 
 
 In which I stand the vengeance that I vowed 
 
 Before me, and the need of such a one 
 
 A babe, a little helpless dying child 
 
 Beyond my door. Stay then," and to and fro 
 
 I paced in wildered thought, until a wave 
 
 Of dim emotion rolled across my soul, 
 
 And I was fain to seek the freshening cool 
 
 And silence of the flower-guarded gloam. 
 
 How starry-pale the lilies are in dusk 
 
 Of an approaching night ; and lo, a bud 
 
 Is broken from the rose-tree, such a bud 
 
 As blossoms in Sir Wilfred's life. Poor babe ! 
 
 The mother-love which should have ministered 
 
 Unto thy grievous sickness, is so fine 
 
 So delicate and rare an ornament, 
 
 That it must lie in velvet and be set 
 
 Above the vulgar uses of the world. 
 
 I prayed for vengeance and the bitter draught 
 
 Bubbles before me, yet the icy grip 
 
 Of hatred slackens on my heart, and low 
 
 Thro' every silence comes the wailing cry 
 
 Of babes in pain. 
 
 Were it now well to leave 
 This old dead wrong in the unsleeping care 
 Of justice to drop mercy on the need 
 Of even such a lying soul as looks 
 From yon beguiling eyes ? The flushing lights 
 Of sunset fade, and a clear after-green
 
 B lUomnn'5 Ucmicancc 91 
 
 Steals o'er the west, as even draweth on. 
 In that last evening of our eager lives, 
 Their darker hopes must wither as a leaf 
 In furnace-fires, and love be all in all. 
 
 " Oh, Wilfred, Wilfred, this sad older Joan, 
 Would put the thoughts of vengeance from her soul 
 God knows, that now I look upon your face 
 Its weakness, passion, patience, I nor hate 
 Nor love you but the child ? My wisest care 
 Shall wait in tenderness upon her needs. 
 You know not all the measure of that wrong 
 You wrought in our fair summer, God must lift 
 The darkness from your world-perverted soul, 
 In his good time. For me I leave revenge 
 And hate and love behind, to work His will 
 In the dark ministry of pain. The child 
 Is His, not yours mine even, if I stay 
 Her errant feet before they overstray 
 The brink of midnight's river I: 
 
 " Joan forgive." 
 
 " I have forgiven. Richly as we love , 
 
 More richly yet, we women can forgive, 
 
 God-helping. Lead me hence. Yon after-light 
 
 Serene, and pale, and fading into night, 
 
 Is given, as presage of the fair regard, 
 
 Which from henceforth shall reign betwixt us two 
 
 Until the end."
 
 A WOMAN'S FAITH 
 
 WHILE the fourth Baldwin of Jerusalem 
 
 Beneath the scourge 
 Of leprosy, yet lingered dark and deaf, 
 
 But on the verge 
 Of that great freedom, which he nightly prayed- 
 
 The Paynim host 
 Brake into fertile Galilee and smote 
 
 From hill to coast, 
 Until the people pleaded with their king, 
 
 For one to lead 
 The hasty levies forth against the foe. 
 
 " In this our need 
 Oh Baldwin, let thy sister take Sir Guy, 
 
 For wedded lord, 
 That as our future king, he may unsheathe 
 
 Avenging sword." 
 So Sybille wedded Guy de Lusignan ; 
 
 But had no love 
 To give the people's choice, for Raymond wore 
 
 Her pearl-sewn glove,
 
 B lUoman'5 dfaitb 93 
 
 And had she chosen, hand had gone with heart ; 
 
 Yet having vowed 
 To be true wife, she willed to keep her oath, 
 
 Until the shroud 
 Of sleep should still the patience-hidden pain. 
 
 Sir Guy rode forth 
 To where the crafty Saracen lay camped 
 
 Against the north 
 As Christian knight, his reckless heart on fire, 
 
 With one rare stroke, 
 To free the ravished land of Galilee 
 
 From Paynim yoke. 
 
 Within his palace lay the dying king, 
 
 The echoed clash 
 Of armour loud in his unhearing ears, 
 
 And the hot flash 
 Of swords victorious striking thro' his dreams. 
 
 There rose the cry 
 Of wondering citizens, and one awoke 
 
 To prophesy 
 Of evil tidings, as a fugitive 
 
 Way-worn, and red 
 With battle, clamoured at the city gate. 
 
 As from the dead 
 Came Baldwin's answer to that unheard cry 
 
 " My God I see 
 (For death has given more than sight) defeat 
 
 They flee ! They flee ! "
 
 94 3&SIIS of Idomanboofc 
 
 So died the king, and all the barons drew, 
 
 But ill-content, 
 Around the Lady Sybille, muttering 
 
 Of treasure spent 
 A broken army a foolhardy kniglit. 
 
 But when she came 
 Thro' grey Jerusalem, white-robed, and fair 
 
 As dawn, to claim 
 Her brother's crown, the common herd rejoiced, 
 
 Shouting: "Sybille. 
 Oueen of Jerusalem, by God's decree 
 
 And our good will ! " 
 Only in hall the nobles spake apart, 
 
 Till from the dark 
 Full-armoured ranks stepped forth Heraclius 
 
 The Patriarch, 
 With the brave counts of Thoron, Antioch, 
 
 And Tripoli, 
 And many another who in loyalty 
 
 Had bent the knee 
 To Baldwin, but must measure fealty, 
 
 When a weak hand 
 Was stretched towards the sceptre. As a wave 
 
 Breaks on the strand 
 And hushes, the hot shouting of the mob, 
 
 Grew sharply still, 
 As the priest tempting while commanding, urged 
 
 The council's will : 
 " Sir Guy has failed in battle, is no man 
 
 To stem the tide
 
 21 ILIoman's dfaitb 
 
 Of ill-success, so is unmeet to wear 
 
 The nation's bride- 
 Therefore we do declare the marriage void, 
 
 De Lusignan 
 Once more a simple knight, and you maid-free 
 
 To choose a man 
 As husband from this gathered chivalry 
 
 Raymond Renaud 
 Or any lesser knight. And he on whom 
 
 You shall bestow 
 Your love, shall be acknowledged as our king 
 
 So swear we all ! " 
 The sonorous reverberation rolled 
 
 From wall to wall, 
 And those beyond the precincts of the court, 
 
 With echoing shout 
 Returned a reverent " So swear we all." 
 
 But in the doubt 
 Of that deep-voiced temptation, Sybille turned 
 
 To where 'a. cross 
 The emblem of renunciation hung ; 
 
 And the near loss 
 Of one whose kingly arm had shielded life, 
 
 As leaves a rose, 
 Rushed into memory. Low kneeling there, 
 
 By throne of those 
 Who knew not Godfrey's sad humility 
 
 She bent in prayer ; 
 For youth and love yet ruled her matron-pulse, 
 
 And mother-care
 
 96 JCwiis of Womanboofc 
 
 Had never filled her day with its content. 
 
 But when she rose 
 It was as tho' some seraph-hand had brought 
 
 A deep repose 
 To all the yearnings of her woman's heart, 
 
 So deep a calm 
 That Raymond felt his passion ebb, and stirred 
 
 In vague alarm, 
 Calling upon the saints. " I choose," she said, 
 
 And stepped between 
 The parting rank, with that slow step of kings, 
 
 Who seek with keen 
 And searching glance some trusty councillor. 
 
 So down the court 
 Of the great hall, she paced with lingering foot, 
 
 Till Raymond caught 
 Her passing glance, and fired it with his own ; 
 
 And suddenly, 
 A strange white anguish brake upon her brow, 
 
 And her bent knee 
 Trembled beneath her as she paused, the pain 
 
 Of all she would 
 Resign, alive in her impassioned gaze. 
 
 A space she stood, 
 As one who asked forgiveness, and then turned 
 
 And down the hall 
 Past Geoffry, Jocelyn fared, till 'twixt her robe 
 
 And the grey wall, 
 Was only scorned De Lusignan. The queen 
 
 Looked on his face,
 
 B Utopian's ffattb 97 
 
 Until the depths of pity overflowed -- 
 
 Till of her grace 
 She clasped her arms about him, and as \vifu 
 
 Indignant cried, 
 " Sir Priest, whom God hath joined together, let 
 
 Not man divide. 
 If I must choose again, my choice is here 1 
 
 So are you free, 
 To swear a wiser king not braver knight 
 
 Your fealty. 
 The crown is but a circlet of red thorns, 
 
 Which he may take 
 Who loves a painful hour." 
 
 And as they heard, 
 
 The people brake 
 Into a shout, but Sybille and her lord 
 
 Went thro' the crowd, 
 All meekly on their way. 
 
 So women cling 
 
 When once is vowed 
 Their faith ; and this true legend of Sybille 
 
 In every clime 
 Has touched the poet-hearts of troubadours 
 
 To verse sublime. 
 A tale of sorrow, of a love which grew 
 
 To bear the flower 
 Of stern renunciation to lay all 
 
 Of queenly power, 
 
 G
 
 ot 
 
 Of tender hope and dreaming, as a cloak 
 
 That is out-worn 
 Behind and so to pass clear-eyed 
 
 Nor all forlorn. 
 Strike ye the harp triumphantly, pour forth 
 
 The glowing rhyme, 
 And send this tale of woman's faith adown 
 
 The drifts of Time.
 
 A WOMAN'S SIN 
 
 WHOM have I wronged ? The dead, the quiet dead ? 
 
 Nay, if I sinned it was against my God, 
 
 From whose far-seeing knowledge of the will 
 
 That yields to sudden and impatient throes 
 
 Of impulse, or is tainted from the birth 
 
 Alone can fall a just impartial meed 
 
 Of chastening mercy. And altho' I loosed 
 
 The silver cord of life, it was with cold 
 
 Deliberate weighing of the present sin. 
 
 My sin against a consequence of good 
 
 That should enrich the after lives of those 
 
 Who were my nearest in this loneliness 
 
 Of social life this bitter loneliness 
 
 Which like the wave about a swimmer holds 
 
 My spirit, tho' I strike it thro' and thro' 
 
 In eager search of ah, I know not what 
 
 A something kindred yet intangible 
 
 Which may be Love or Sympathy or God. 
 
 For me the haunting trouble of remorse 
 
 Is as the fear of babes, an ignorance 
 
 Of the unseen and powerful that runs 
 
 To easy dread. We dream of penalties 
 
 Beyond the sin, and oftent mes we stretch
 
 of WomanbooO 
 
 The little, little fault into an ill 
 As vast as the dim vault above a world ; 
 But as for me the dead is in its grave, 
 A hushed and half-forgotten lawlessness, 
 Of which my hand was guilty in the past 
 And guilty before One who had engraved : 
 " This shalt thou do and this shalt thou avoid," 
 Upon the living earnest of my soul. 
 Guilty and therefore willing afterward 
 When I am cold in death, to strongly beat- 
 Whatever penalty of consequence 
 Is fixed on the transgression. Yet I live, 
 Walk, smile, and change a greeting with my kind ; 
 And that as calmly as the whitest soul 
 That ever set salvation above love ; 
 While as for that long anguish of remorse 
 Which dull tradition would assign my days, 
 Making a subtle horror of the dark 
 And gnawing gnawing till the heart of life 
 Quivers again beneath its poisoned fang 
 What were its purpose power that it should dog 
 My footsteps thro' the pleasant ways of wealth ? 
 It could not give again the breath of life 
 To those still lips nor would I have it given. 
 Nay, I would rather sin and sin again 
 Than hear her voice in other than my dreams 
 Her living voice. I counted all the cost 
 Before I mixed that drowsy draught of death ; 
 Counted it with a still regret that saw 
 The need the consequence
 
 B XUoman's Sin n 
 
 I do repent, 
 
 Acknowledge that my deed usurped the stern 
 Prerogative of Justice, yet rejoice 
 In that the deed is done. 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 A sunward clime 
 
 Lapped my unconscious infancy in scents, 
 And sights, and sounds, of oriental life ; 
 For I am child of one whose dusky eyes 
 Dwelt on an English soldier with the love 
 Of easterns, who forgot her home and race 
 For some few summers of idyllic love, 
 And died contented. I, their single hope 
 Was liker him in face, not fair, nor dark ; 
 A large-eyed babe, a silent dreamy child, 
 A woman in whose ears the rhythmic sounds 
 Of language, are for ever as a song 
 That all the world is singing. 
 
 Many years 
 
 Were lingered out beneath the peepul shade 
 Of the old garden, happy studious years 
 That added day to day, until I stood 
 Upon the golden edge of womanhood, 
 And heard my father's : 
 
 " Child, this flickering torch 
 Hath done its feeble work among the dark 
 And devious ways, and I may look again 
 Upon thy mother's face. One of our kin 
 The brother that is after me in years 
 And wealthy, hath the welcome of a love
 
 of TJClomanboofc 
 
 The love of early days, for me and mine ; 
 
 And to his care, my tender one, I leave 
 
 Thy lands and thee." Thus, with a smile he passed, 
 
 And overseas upon the rugged shores 
 
 Of this grey isle, I found an honest heart 
 
 That in its broad excess of fatherhood 
 
 Could name me " child." 
 
 A stir of autumn wind 
 Was idly loosening the russet leaves, 
 As through the stoneway of an ancient gate 
 That for a many hundred years had frowned 
 Thro' lion-eyes upon the world, we turned. 
 And 'twixt the mighty spread of forest arms 
 I saw a vision as of dusky towers 
 Above a grey and ivied battlement ; 
 A mansion gloomy to my Indian eyes, 
 That missed the glow of marble and of gold ; 
 And yet with a grim beauty, as of piled 
 Rough rocks amid the softness of a glen. 
 On the white steps a deerhound stretched at ease 
 With long wise head upon the crossing paws, 
 And at his side, with trail of crimson leaves 
 Athwart her sombre robe, a lady stood 
 To listen, and the song upon her lips 
 Ceased in a smile, as from beneath the gloom 
 Of stretching boughs, we drove into the warm 
 Late flushes of the light. 
 
 " Doris, I bring 
 A sister to your care," and the deep eyes
 
 B llloman'5 Sin 103 
 
 Grey as the shifting shadows of the gloam, 
 Lifted a wistful question : " Father mine, 
 She cannot know that all these eighteen years 
 I have been listening for a mister's voice, 
 Which is not the less welcome that it comes 
 So late so late." 
 
 Thus were we lightly launched 
 Upon the calm and heaven-azured mere 
 Of sister-love ; tho' as the peaceful years 
 Went bravely forward at the call of Time, 
 Our pleasure-vessels turned and floated down 
 Towards the deep, the deep that was to set 
 A tide of stronger love between our lives, 
 In chill division. 
 
 Every kindling fire 
 
 Hath a young glow of flame from which it spreads, 
 Until it grasp a rotten bough a tree 
 And all the forest burns. So the events 
 The wide unquiet changings of my day, 
 Run finely back into a point of time, 
 Remembered oh, my heart, so well so well ! 
 The heir of a bucolic house had come 
 To man's estate, and all the county-world 
 Must gather in his father's hall. We danced 
 In a long chamber hung with fairy green, 
 On high the crimson of a flaunting flag, 
 And mosses with a trail of ivy hung 
 About the rounded mirrors. From the low
 
 104 3&glls of WomanbooO 
 
 Age-blackened rafters swung the golden lamps, 
 Shedding the softness of a tinted gleam 
 Upon the shifting pageant, that was set 
 Now in the glamour of a dance, anon 
 Changed as a rainbow into points of light 
 Beneath the palms, or in the twilight-depths 
 Of a dim-shadowed bower. And Doris stood 
 In green of spring, with, as it were, a growth 
 Of nodding chiming lilies at her feet, 
 Sweet lily-bells that fill the woodland vales 
 With fragrance, and must nestle at her throat, 
 Nestle and sleep in the soft billowy dusk 
 Of coiled and gathered tresses, nestle deep 
 In every verdurous light silken fold, 
 Until we called her " lilied maid," as sweet 
 As any nodding lily, and as fair. 
 But I was paler in a pansy-gown, 
 With glow of eastern gold in tracery 
 Of mystic forms upon the purple edge 
 Of sleeve and skirt. And o'er the polished oak 
 Of the long floor, we glided in the dance, 
 Until the dawn was loosening a flight 
 Of keen and frosty shafts upon the world. 
 From sundown until break of day our feet 
 Went tirelessly, and either danced again 
 And yet again with Kenneth Leigh, a man 
 Stalwart, erect, and yet as roughly hewn 
 As any clansman of moss-trooping days. 
 And as we talked thro' the mid-winter morn, 
 With all our bravery of silken gowns
 
 B lUoman's Sin 
 
 Thrown lightly by- -it was of Kenneth Leigh. 
 " Pie came but yesterday from France and stays 
 The sennight here,'"' I whispered, with a strange 
 New envy rankling bitter in my thought. 
 Alas, that Doris should look greyly out 
 Of such clear eyes, should walk so maiden fair, 
 When the hot flushes of my heart were warm, 
 Oh warm again as any western thought ; 
 And the dim possibility of life, 
 Intenser, passionate, already seen 
 As far bright lakes beyond the desert sand ; 
 And yet, and yet, if love should hesitate 
 Betwixt our hearts, I could have yielded it 
 Ay, even then, for Doris was more dear 
 Than self. 
 
 The glowing whiteness of the dawn, 
 A chill ecstatic light which slowly parts 
 And brightens into day, drew freshly on 
 Towards the noon, and day succeeded day 
 Until the week had numbered all its hours. 
 And evermore my yearning thought must wait 
 On Kenneth standing in the window depths 
 With Doris, on the careful strength that taught 
 Her feet to strike across the frozen mere, 
 The ear that heard her voice among the crowd, 
 So soft and sweet a voice, the listener 
 Must bend to hearken. Yet an afterthought 
 Was ever lurking sombre by the stern 
 And overhanging level of his brows ; 
 An afterthought that was not all of peace,
 
 106 3&gU0 of THaomanbooD 
 
 Although the shyness of a happiness 
 
 Too deep for words, was shining under dusk 
 
 Of downward lashes and for him alone. 
 
 The sennight passed, and Kenneth stretched a hand 
 
 In farewell to the circle last to her. 
 
 And I, whose heart was tossing on a sea 
 
 Of bitter, bitter pain, must watch the clasp, 
 
 Until I read their faces like a scroll 
 
 On temple wall. An anguish as of death, 
 
 Or of a soul in torment, answered back 
 
 The wistful questioning that Doris raised, 
 
 A questioning that had forgot the world, 
 
 And self, and all that only craved to share 
 
 The reason of his pain the pain itself. 
 
 We were in little groups about the hall, 
 
 And as the sound of wheels upon the road, 
 
 Died in a rolling echo, the old squire 
 
 Must shake his hoary head : " A likely lad, 
 
 Too good for such as Agnes Huntingdon, 
 
 Although he chanced to override her beast 
 
 That morning in the field." And in the dim 
 
 Uncertain gloam through which the sudden leap 
 
 And flicker of the flames broke redly bright, 
 
 A burning tear-drop fell. Some cruel chance 
 
 Had kept the story of a careless ride 
 
 And its misplaced remorse, from either ear, 
 
 And one had walked towards the gate of heaven, 
 
 Only to find the darkness of a pit
 
 a Idoman's Sin 107 
 
 Before the widening doors. Xo fault of his. 
 
 Who thought the story known, and yet a fault 
 
 In that he lingered at her side, and won 
 
 So true a heart again. For Doris spake 
 
 In all the after moments of our life, 
 
 No more of love, but lived her quiet days 
 
 In the exceeding patience of a soul, 
 
 That waits and waits, until the flight of time 
 
 Shall bring a newer hope, a fairer day. 
 
 While I, whose dull unhappy restlessness, 
 
 An ache, a covered hurt, would send me forth 
 
 As sea-bird on the arid waste of life, 
 
 Had but a memory of conventional 
 
 Dull words, of days that held nor love, nor hope, 
 
 But the one presence of the soul beloved ; 
 
 Days when the sun had shone, though not on me, 
 
 Who was a forest flower so deeply set 
 
 In mosses, and the shade of leafy boughs, 
 
 That never ray of heaven's light might fall 
 
 Across its blanching leaves. 
 
 The billowy tide 
 
 Had turned and drifted through opposing bars, 
 To set a width of sad and murmuring sea 
 Betwixt our sister lives ; and I was fain 
 To wander till the hurt was overlaid 
 By drift of trifles, such as time will leave 
 In deepest crevasse of a seaward rock ; 
 Ay, and until I wearied of the change 
 Incessant, various ; of the shifting scenes
 
 IDS Sbylls of TKflomanbooO 
 
 The clamour, clatter, of a foreign tongue 
 And turned with a sick longing in my heart, 
 To verdurous deep glooms, the solitude 
 Of many waters, and the storied halls 
 Wherein my father wakened to the light. 
 
 A belt of gloomy woods so needle-dark 
 
 That in their shade the bramble bloomed alone 
 
 And never rabbit burrowed girt the house, 
 
 An old red pile, with unexpected stairs 
 
 And passages into a secret room, 
 
 Where legendary kings had lain concealed 
 
 In other days ; a quaint and curious place, 
 
 With stains of blood in the long gallery, 
 
 To hint a story of the murderous dead 
 
 Their loves, their passions, and their nothingness 
 
 As after men will point at what I build, 
 
 Saying, " A silent woman, who nor loved 
 
 Nor hated, but has lived her little life, 
 
 And left the record of these added bricks 
 
 To say she breathed." 
 
 A crumbling line of wall, 
 Beneath whose grey and ancient coping-stone 
 The curling hartstongue showed a narrow leaf, 
 And delicate wild grasses found a depth 
 Of moist dark earth wherein to root and grow 
 A wall with many a gap and fallen stone, 
 But yet a wall which marked the boundary 
 Betwixt my meadows and the barren land 
 Which yet remained to Kenneth of the broad
 
 B lUoman's Stn 109 
 
 And golden acres which his mother gave 
 
 A wall which ran beside me as I walked, 
 
 Till one, with elbows on the mossy edge, 
 
 Laughed me a greeting. Through the tender green 
 
 Of the young larches I could see a face, 
 
 Mischievous, bold the face of Agnes Leigh ! 
 
 The face of one I hated, yet for whom 
 
 I found an answering smile, the neighbour-clasp 
 
 Of slim dark hands, and a light confidence 
 
 The trifles of a day. For Agnes Leigh 
 
 Had kindled the slow passion of despair 
 
 In a deep heart that hid the rising flame, 
 
 And let it eat and eat into his life ; 
 
 Her ways unwifely were the county talk, 
 
 Her scattering of gold, her brazen words 
 
 And reckless gallops, gave the nodding heads 
 
 A wherewithal to prophesy the end ; 
 
 Yet for the sake of a sweet memory, 
 
 A sometime love, I smiled into her eyes, 
 
 And was her friend if service be the test 
 
 Of all beyond a casual touch of hands. 
 
 We rode together through the leafy ways, 
 
 And marked the kestrel wheeling in the blue, 
 
 The stir of white as a brown rabbit coursed 
 
 Across the open, and the flirting wings 
 
 Of a long-widowed pie ; and as we stretched 
 
 Across the uplands with the honey-gorse 
 
 Around, beyond, a sea of deepening light, 
 
 I took and with a smile the cooler bows 
 
 Of those who thought to cavil at my friend.
 
 of Womanboofc 
 
 It was for Kenneth's sake Kenneth, who groaned 
 Beneath a load of debt, and lashed his foes 
 With whip of bitter and satiric words, 
 When moved beyond endurance ; Kenneth Leigh, 
 Alas, a man that had been sweet of soul 
 And kindly as a laughing three-year babe, 
 Before the acid of a long regret 
 Had curdled all his thought. A friendly gleam 
 Ran through his smile, when on a lonely walk 
 Our ways encountered ; yet the smile was /iers, 
 And I, her friend no more. Oh ! Doris Rhys, 
 I have indeed been friend to thee and thine, 
 And loyal, though a fierce temptation beat 
 And clamoured in the courtyard of my soul. 
 Ay, loyal ever though the tale I told, 
 The tale of thy unwedded patient faith, 
 Was as the passing of my latest hope. 
 
 On a fresh morrow of the budding May, 
 When promise of the coming fruit was white 
 O'er all the land, and every ferny frond 
 Was slow uncurling in the hedge, we sat, 
 Agnes and I, beside a spark of fire 
 In the deserted hall, and, with a glance 
 Into my quiet face, as one who asked 
 The thought beneath, she drew a written page 
 From the loose purple foldings of her gown. 
 " The farce is played, Yasora." And she shred 
 The budding lilac from its numerous 
 Small stems, as one who, inly resolute,
 
 B lUoman's Sin i 
 
 Vet trembles at the darkness and the depth 
 
 Of the dim gulf, whereto her feet have strayed. 
 
 Gloom suddenly upon her steadfast gaze. 
 
 " The farce is fully played, and no'.v I read 
 
 The prologue o; a drama. Long ago, 
 
 You sought to build the barrier of space 
 
 Betwixt my love my soldier love and me. 
 
 You sent him forth with a last honest word 
 
 Of farewell on his lips, and would have kept 
 
 My straying feet in the domestic path. 
 
 Alas the fates are stronger than your will, 
 
 And now you tremble, but the risk is mine, 
 
 The risk, the joy, the heaven ! He cannot live 
 
 Without me, and I I have never loved 
 
 Other than Kenneth's gold the glittering heaps 
 
 That I have scattered, as an autumn breeze 
 
 Scatters the fallen leafage of the woods. 
 
 Why should I linger when a proven love 
 
 Is waiting ? Hush ! your words are as the fall 
 
 Of raindrops on a scarred and rocky ground, 
 
 And I am deaf to what you urge. Of <iH 
 
 The millions under heaven, you alone 
 
 Have been my friend, but neither you.nor they 
 
 Can stay me now. ' My husband ? ' he will learn 
 
 In a sharp school, that calm perfunctory love 
 
 Is not enough to keep a woman true. 
 
 He has been kind, forbearing oh I grant 
 
 His virtues, but this other is my love. 
 
 ' The children ? ' I am no poetic soul, 
 
 To find a beauty in the natural ways
 
 s of WomanbooD 
 
 And wants of children, rather I would keep 
 
 A staff of nurses to relieve my hands 
 
 Of every mother-duty/' And she laughed 
 
 Until an echo caught the cruel tones ; 
 
 And merriment of multiplying fiends 
 
 Broke from the further wall. I heard and lo, 
 
 A memory of sinister refrain 
 
 Cried from the midnight bosom of the past, 
 
 As once again the blue of India's sea 
 
 Sparkled between the sudden dark of boughs ; 
 
 And glistening sails, as separated pearls 
 
 Gleamed, in their course, above the sapphire depths, 
 
 While the soft accents of an eastern tongue 
 
 Sank thro' my listening, as the creeping tides 
 
 Thro' the sun-hardened surface of the sand. 
 
 " This phial daughter was prepared of those 
 Who dwell among the hills ; a skilful race, 
 That in the silence of the moony night 
 Distil a herbal poison, one that leaves 
 No trace betraying, and whereof a draught 
 Of six clear drops, six pale and tasteless drops, 
 Can lessen the heart's action unto sleep 
 A sleep my child that has no after-thought 
 Of dreams or wakening. It came to me 
 From one who owed thy mother, neither life 
 Nor hope nor liberty, but only love 
 And shall be thine. Some hour of utmost need 
 May render death a sour-sweet remedy, 
 May bid us choose between a tainted joy
 
 B tCloman's Sin in 
 
 And the long- silence death and sin ! Oh, take 
 The lesser ill." 
 
 A delicate fine cup 
 
 Glittered before me in the ruddy light 
 Of rousing flames, and the small phial lay 
 Above my heart. She called her husband "good" 
 And hoped to cast a stain upon his name, 
 A clinging stain that neither time nor change 
 Might wholly cleanse from memory of man. 
 Death or dishonour? ay, the lesser ill 
 Were death. I drew the flask into my hand 
 Nor felt it tremble, praised the glowing skies 
 Until she rose to look upon the piled 
 Red glory of the clouds, nor ever heard 
 A strangeness in my voice. " The western heavens 
 Are battle-stained, and gorgeous with the glint 
 Of golden harness. From the further clouds 
 Leaps the red levin-flash." And six clear drops 
 Sank thro' the coffee as she gazed : 
 
 " Oh ay ! 
 
 A pretty glow of yellow, red and blue, 
 But crude, barbaric. Rake the resinous 
 Brown cones together in a cheery blaze, 
 And draw a-nigh that I may see your face ; 
 I think its dark and earnest smile will haunt 
 My last long dreams, as tho' it overlaid 
 A mystery, the which I cannot probe, 
 But which concerns me. How the cruel flames 
 
 H
 
 ii4 3-DElls of WomanbooD 
 
 Leap up, and laugh, and crackle round the wood, 
 
 Throwing their shadows in a devil's dance 
 
 Uncouth and weird upon the further wall ! 
 
 This coffee" and she drank as one athirst 
 
 " This coffee hath the genuine Mocha taste, 
 
 And is as fragrant as the golden wines 
 
 Of old Tokay. Yasora in the past, 
 
 The past that you have buried fathoms deep, 
 
 Did ever glance of lover stir your heart, 
 
 And waken passion till the placid stream 
 
 Of life, was quickened to a rush of fire ? 
 
 Or did he plead, and plead to be refused, 
 
 And so unhappy pass. You were not loved ? 
 
 Then am I richer far, who held the love 
 
 Of Kenneth from the first, and hold it now, 
 
 Ay, and of others. I am wondrous dull ! 
 
 Not altogether tired, but near to sleep, 
 
 And languid fold the skins about my feet, 
 
 And let me sink into a happy dream 
 
 A long, long dream of love " 
 
 And Agnes slept 
 The weary limbs relaxing as her lids 
 Shut out the shadows of the creeping night 
 Her night, that not an arrow of the dawn 
 Might shatter a long night of dreams perchance 
 Of rest so deep that even dreams are dulled 
 Into forgetfulness. I watched the slow 
 Deep heavings of her breast, until they came 
 More slowly yet and ceased. Repentance ? Fear ?
 
 B Idoman's Sin 115 
 
 They run not in my blood. The deed was done, 
 Done for all time and any pale remorse 
 Had seemed the veriest impotence of fear. 
 
 As with a lion-skin about her feet 
 
 She lay unbreathing, warm I found her fair ; 
 
 Fair, tho' the touch of every reckless hour 
 
 Had left a deepened line about her lips 
 
 A child's lips once, lips that in death were drawn 
 
 Into a smile, the smile of one who dreams 
 
 An innocent glad dream. I laid my lips 
 
 A-quiver with regretful tenderness, 
 
 On the broad brow. I had not loved her well, 
 
 And now the mystery of death my gift 
 
 Was softening her follies, and her sins, 
 
 Into a memory not wholly ill. 
 
 A letter lay between the folded hands 
 
 His letter and I laid it on the cones, 
 
 Watching it curl and blacken till a grey 
 
 Of fluttered ash was dancing in the flames, 
 
 And only a wan woman lay and dreamed 
 
 Her "long, long dream of love." Ay, long indeed, 
 
 So long, the greatest length of earthly days 
 
 Were but as the quick moments of its youth. 
 
 ' A failure of heart's action," said the wise, 
 Wording a learned scientific why \ 
 Above the silent couch ; and if I smiled, 
 It was in scorn of what a western world 
 Esteems as very learned. Agnes lay
 
 of 1Uomanboo5 
 
 With some six drops of sleep about her heart, 
 
 And any savage woman of the hills 
 
 Had smiled a wiser reading of her sleep 
 
 I nto mine eyes. " A failure of the heart ? ;) 
 
 Oh ay the loosing of the silver cord, 
 
 The shatt'ring of a bowl, not gold, nor good, 
 
 But very earthen any set of words 
 
 That will convey the master-note of death. 
 
 Death the unsmiling mystery that bears 
 
 Our shrinking bodies from the shores of day, 
 
 And love, and knowledge, as the hungry sea 
 
 Will creep about a boat that has been left 
 
 In sandy creek, and float it from the land. 
 
 Death about whom the creeds of every land 
 
 Must dogmatise death and the future hope, 
 
 The hope of love's re-union, of a life 
 
 More beautiful and nearer the divine. 
 
 A hope ? Ay, that alone, tho' eveiy sect 
 
 Clamour " Behold the truth," and would accept 
 
 The dreamy guessings of its holy men 
 
 As knowledge for the consciousness Divine 
 
 Is throned in silence. Man has dared to weave 
 
 His human fables round the primal fact 
 
 Of God and love, yet when the woven strands 
 
 Have rotted back into their elements, 
 
 Love will emerge the heart of every creed, 
 
 Its knowledge and its truth. To serve and trust 
 
 To serve in life and trust upon the brink 
 
 Of what may be a silence or a birth 
 
 A doom or a decay. We cannot know
 
 21 lUoman's Sin 117 
 
 But one more loving, than the saddest soul, 
 That wanders lonely over earth can hope 
 Retains the secret of our destiny, 
 And bids us trust. 
 
 I followed when the tramp 
 Of measured feet would bear a coffin thence, 
 And all the world was moving soberly. 
 For tho' we shatter monarchy and cry 
 " There is no God," the boldest bows a knee 
 When the death-pageant glooms upon his view. 
 The bursting blossom of the May, in bud 
 And bloom and scented lily, lay enwreathed 
 Above the stirless smile of Agnes Leigh 
 The smile that I had lighted. Trill of birds 
 Brake from the ivy of a Norman arch, 
 As the slow service overtold her hopes 
 Of the hereafter ; and the deepening day 
 That erst had flung a gust of windy rain 
 Across the weald, now swept her veil aside 
 And smiled in sudden sunshine of the spring ; 
 While in my heart the smile of Agnes Leigh 
 Was ever shining brighter than the day, 
 Ay, and shall shine in grey or gloom or gold, 
 Until I too am laid as " earth to earth." 
 
 ***** 
 The pines have tossed their branches thro' a week 
 Of stormy winters, since I ventured all 
 My all on that May eve ; and now as wife, 
 A worthier wife than she who sleeps and sleeps
 
 Beneath the sombre sighing of the yews, 
 
 My Doris reigns in the old Manor-House. 
 
 I am beyond the gates, a soul that yearned 
 
 For other than the husks of human love 
 
 A soul that never may be satisfied, 
 
 And so is half-content to sit and watch 
 
 The deepening of a happy matron-smile 
 
 In eyes beloved. The children hold me dear, 
 
 Treading a little pathway thro' the woods 
 
 That stretch between our homes ; and Kenneth's laugh 
 
 Falls on my heart as a sweet sometime song, 
 
 For which we listen thro' the noon and hear 
 
 As the night-shadows fall across the corn 
 
 Content so we have heard it ere we sleep. 
 
 I sinned, and the reward is happiness, 
 
 The happiness of those whom I have loved 
 
 Beyond my God myself. A white reward, 
 
 That should forget the chill of loneliness 
 
 For ever pressing pressing on my heart. 
 
 Yet ns I dream, a dark suggestion falls 
 Out of the woven fancies. It may be 
 That a diviner purpose than the peace 
 Of wedded love hath underlain our lives ; 
 That from the fire of love's imperious pain, 
 Our souls had hoped to issue free of earth 
 As any ore that passes thro' the flame. 
 And if this be if life be such a dream, 
 Given in mystery and laboured thro' 
 Until we pierce that later mystery
 
 a lUcman's Sin 119 
 
 Which will enfold us from the light of day 
 
 Then have I sinned indeed, who thought to mend 
 
 The natural order, with presumptuous hand 
 
 Making and marring. But our human "ifs ;; 
 
 Are never lifted into certainty, 
 
 And if my sin was greater than I dream 
 
 Lo ! I am more than ready to endure 
 
 Its after consequence of pain, to toil 
 
 And suffer till my spirit is absolved 
 
 Of guilt, and I am even as a child, 
 
 A little child that sins and is forgiven. 
 
 I could not clamour at the gates of heaven 
 
 For a mere pardon, till my eager soul 
 
 Had proved its penitence, had wrought and grieved 
 
 And gathered the dim wage of death. We sin 
 
 We suffer ; for the sometime punishment 
 
 Of evil deeds, is sure as ebb and flow 
 
 Of the moon-tides, but our forgiveness lies 
 
 In the deep heart of love. If we are born 
 
 To urgings of inherited desire 
 
 Which bear us into crime, and sin, and shame, 
 
 The God, who giving life, foresaw its will, 
 
 Faulty, uncertain, full of whims and hopes, 
 
 Impulses, turmoils, passions, can decide 
 
 On what is due to nature, heritage, 
 
 Surrounding circumstance, or actual sin. 
 
 Our human breath the gift of God unasked 
 
 Yet treasured has been poured into dim souls, 
 
 All flawed and flecked, the children of a race 
 
 Imperfect, evil ; but the Lord of Life
 
 of WomanbooD 
 
 Yielding us breath, can view our shifts and shame- 
 As mothers view the stumblings of a child, 
 Crippled at birth. So be it with my sin. 
 Perchance this hurt which knows no earthly balm 
 Is punishment enough for such a soul. 
 To love and long ah me ! To know that time 
 Can never bring relief ! To love, and find 
 A constancy that never wintry frosts 
 May hope to wither, a white hopeless faith, 
 That stands a blasted stem among the green 
 And fruiting monarchs of the orchard depths. 
 
 The children cling about me, with rough arms 
 Clasping me round and crushing all my film 
 Of laces, as they crushed the daisy-buds 
 Beneath their hasty feet. Oh sweet rough arms 
 And loving hasty feet, I could not spare 
 One kiss for all the laces in the world, 
 One rushing step for all the daisy-buds 
 That ever the spring showered into life. 
 Your mother ? but alas the memory 
 Which should be holiest to childhood stirs 
 Nor tear nor wistful cry. I did not sin 
 Oh baby-hearts so deeply, hold me close, 
 And kiss away this hurt that stirs my soul 
 To a perpetual unrest. 
 
 Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. 
 London and Edinburgh
 
 H Selection 
 
 MR. IV M. HEIN EM ANN'S LIST 
 
 March 1392. 
 
 Cbc Crown Copv>ruibt Series. 
 
 Mr. Hfinf.mc.nn has mad-: arrangement: with a ri'.iinter 
 of the first and most popular authors of tj-dav, 
 
 ENGLISH, AMERICAN, A.\D COLOXfAL, 
 
 which will enable him to issue a Series of new and 
 original works to be known as the CROIVX COPY- 
 RIGHT SERIES at a uniform price of FIVE 
 SHILLINGS per volume. 
 
 These novels will not pass through an expensive two or 
 three volume edition, but they will be obtainable c.t the 
 Circulating Libraries as well as at all Booksellers and 
 Bookstalls. 
 
 The following volumes are now ready : 
 
 ACCORDING TO ST. JOHN. By AMLIE 
 
 RIVES, Author of " The Quick or the Dead," iS:c. 
 
 THE PENANCE OF PORTIA JAMES. 
 
 Ey"TAS.MA," Author of " Uncle Piper of Piper's Hill/'&c. 
 
 INCONSEQUENT LIVES. A Village Chroni- 
 
 cle, Shewing how certain Folk set out for El Dorado, 
 What they Attempted, and What they Attained. By J. H. 
 PEARCE, Author of " Esther Pentreath," &c. 
 
 In the Press. 
 
 A QUESTION OF TASTE. By MAARTEX 
 
 MAARTENS, Author of " The Sin of Joost Avelingh," &c. 
 
 COME LIVE WITH ME AND BE MY 
 LOVE. By ROBERT BUCHANAN. 
 
 THE O'CONNORS OF BALLINAHINCH. 
 By Mrs. HUNGERFORD, Author of " Molly Bawn." 
 
 A BATTLE AND A BOY. By BLANCHE 
 WILLIS HOWARD, Author of " Guenn," &c.
 
 MR. WILLIAM HEINEM ANN'S LIST. 
 
 Ibetnemann's Juternattonal ILibrarg. 
 
 Edited by EDMUND GOSSE. Price 3.9. t>d. cloth, 2s. 6d. paper. 
 Ne-M Review. " If you have any pernicious remnants of 
 literary chauvinism, I hope it will not survive the series of 
 foreign classics of which Mr. William Heinemann, aided by 
 Mr. Edmund Gosse, is publishing translations to the great con- 
 tentment of all lovers of literature." 
 
 Times. " A venture which deserves encouragement." 
 *** Each Volume has an Introduction specially written 
 by the Editor. 
 
 IN GOD'S WAY. From the Norwegian of 
 
 BjORNSTJERN'E BjORNSON. 
 
 Atkenteuin.. "There are descriptions which certainly belong 
 to the best and cleverest things our literature has ever pro- 
 duced." 
 
 PIERRE AND JEAN. From the French of 
 
 GUY DE MAUPASSANT. 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette. " It isadmirable from beginning to end." 
 THE CHIEF JUSTICE. From the German 
 
 of KARL EMIL FRANZOS, Author of " For the Right," &c. 
 Ne"M Review. " Few novels of recent times have a more 
 sustained and vivid human interest." 
 
 WORK WHILE YE HAVE THE LIGHT. 
 
 From the Russian of COUNT TOLSTOY. 
 
 Scotsman. " It is impossible to convey any adequate idea of 
 the simplicity and force with which the work is unfolded." 
 FANTASY. From the Italian of MATILDE SERAO. 
 
 Scottish Leader. " It is a work of elfish art, a mosaic of life 
 and love, of right and wrong, of human weakness and strength, 
 and purity and wantonness pieced together in deft and witching 
 precision." 
 
 FROTH. From the Spanish of DON ARMANDO 
 
 PALACIO VALDES. 
 
 Daily Telegraph. "Vigorous and powerful in the highest 
 degree Rare and graphic strength." 
 
 FOOTSTEPS OF FATE. From the Dutch of 
 
 LOUIS COUPERUS. 
 
 PEPITA JIMENEZ. From the Spanish of 
 
 JUAN VALKRA. 
 THE COMMODORE'S DAUGHTERS. From 
 
 the Norwegian of JONAS LIE. 
 FLAGS ARE FLYING. From the Norwegian 
 
 Of BjSRNSTJERNE BjORNSON.
 
 Ibeincmann's 35. (3D. IRovcls. 
 
 UNCLE PIPER OF PIPER'S HILL. By 
 
 " TA.-.MA, ' Author of " The Penance of Portia Jam-;-;," ice. 
 
 IN THE VALLEY. By HAR.JLD FREDERIC. 
 
 Illustrated. 
 Atlicnii'iiin." A novel deserving to be read.'" 
 
 THE THREE MISS KINGS. By ADA 
 
 CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 British Weekly. " \ novel to be bought and kept for re- 
 reading on languid summer afternoons or stormy winter 
 evenings. 
 
 PRETTY MISS SMITH. By FLORENCE 
 WARDEN. 
 
 PMIC/I. " Since the ' House on the Marsh,' I have not read 
 a more exciting tale." 
 
 A ROMANCE OF THE CAPE FRONTIER. 
 
 By BERTRAM MITFORD. 
 Observer. " A rattling tale genial, healthy, and spirited." 
 
 THE BONDMAN. By HALL CAINE. 
 
 Academy. "A splendid novel." 
 
 A MODERN MARRIAGE. By the MARQUISE 
 
 CLARA LANZA. 
 Queen. "A powerful story." 
 
 LOS CERRITOS. A Romance of the Modern 
 
 Time. By GERTRUDE FRANKLIN ATHERTON. 
 Athenteum. "A decidedly charming romance." 
 
 DAUGHTERS OF MEN. BY HANNAH LYNCH. 
 
 Author of " The Prince of the Glades," &c. [Shortly.
 
 MR. WILLIA M H El N EM ANN S LIS T. 
 
 IRew IClorhs ot Jfiction, 
 
 NOR WIFE, NOR MAID. By Mrs. HUNGER- 
 FORD, Author of" Molly Bawn," &c. In Three Vols. 
 
 NOT ALL IN VAIN. By ADA CAMBRIDGE, 
 
 Author of "i'A Marked Man," &c. In Three Vols. 
 
 THE SCAPEGOAT. By HALL CAINE, Author 
 
 of " The Bondman." Fourth Edition. In Two Vols. 
 
 MAMMON. By Mrs. ALEXANDER, Author of 
 
 " The Wooing O't," &c. In Three Vols. 
 
 THE MOMENT AFTER. A Tale of the 
 Unseen. By ROBERT BUCHAXAX. Popular Edition, 
 crown Svo, is. 
 
 In Preparation. 
 
 THE NAULAKHA: A Tale of West and 
 
 East. By RUDYARU KIPLING and WOLCOTT BALESTIER. 
 In One Volume, crown Svo. 
 
 THE AVERAGE WOMAN. Containing, A 
 Common Story, Reflfey, and Captain My Captain. By 
 WOLCOTT BALESTIER. With a Portrait of the Author, and 
 an Introduction by Henry James. In One Vol., crown Svo. 
 
 WOMAN AND THE MAN. By ROBERT 
 BUCHANAN. In Two Vols. 
 
 LITTLE JOHANNES. A Fairy Tale. By 
 F. VAN EEDEN. Translated from the Dutch, by CLARA 
 BELL, with an Introduction by ANDREW LANG, and Illus- 
 trations. In One Volume. 
 
 THE TOWER OF TADDEO. By OUIDA, 
 
 Author of "Two Little Wooden Shoes," &c. 
 
 ORIOLE'S DAUGHTER. By JESSIE FOTHER- 
 
 GILL, Author of " The First Violin," &c. In Three Vols. 
 
 THE WHITE FEATHER. By"TASMA." In 
 Three Vols. 
 
 THE HEAD OF THE FIRM. By Mrs. 
 
 RIDDELL, Author of "George Geith," &c. In Three Vols. 
 
 VAN IT AS. By VERNON LEE, Author of " Haunt- 
 
 ings," &c.
 
 MR. WILLIAM HEL\EMAXi\"S LIST. 
 
 Cbc Drama. 
 
 THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF ARTHUR 
 
 VOL. I. The Times. VOL. IV. The Hobby- 
 
 II. The Profligate. Horse. 
 
 With a Portrait. 
 III. The Cabinet VoL ' V - Lad y Bountiful. 
 
 Minister. ~ In ->P" 1 '- 
 
 *.." To be followed by the Author's other Plays. 
 
 NERO AND ACTEA. A Tragedy. Ly ERIC 
 MACK - AV, Author of "A Lover's Litanies," and "Love 
 Letters of a Violinist." Crown 3vo, 55-. 
 
 HEDDA GABLER. A Drama in Four Acts. 
 By HEXKIK IBSEN. Translated from the Norwegian by 
 EDMUND GOSSE. Library edition, with Portrait, small 410, 
 ~,s. Vaudeville Edition, paper, is. 
 
 *** Also a limited large paper edition, with three portraits, 
 2is. net. 
 
 THE FRUITS OF ENLIGHTENMENT. 
 
 A Comedy in Four Acts. By LYOF TOLSTOY. Translated 
 from the Russian by E. J. DILLOX. With an Introduction 
 by A. W. PINERO, and a Portrait of the Author. Small 
 4to, sj. 
 
 THE PRINCESS MALEINE. Translated 
 from the French by GERARD HARRY; and THE IN- 
 TKUDER. By MAURICE MAETERLINCK. Translated 
 from the French. With an Introduction by HALL CAINE. 
 Small 410, with a Portrait. 55. 
 
 STRAY MEMORIES. By ELLEN TERRY. 
 
 One Volume, Illustrated. \In the Press. 
 
 THE LIFE OF HENRIK IBSEN. By 
 
 HENRIK JJEGER. Translated by CLARA BELL. With the 
 Verse done into English from the Norwegian original by 
 EDMUND GOSSE. In One Volume, crown Svo, 6s. 
 
 SOME INTERESTING FALLACIES OF 
 
 THE MODERN STAGE. An Address delivered to 
 the Playgoers' Club at St. James's Hall, on Sunday, 6th 
 December, 1891. By HERBERT BEERHOHM TREE. Crown 
 Svo, sewed, 6d.
 
 MR. WILLIAM HEINEMANN'S LIST. 
 
 .Miscellaneous. 
 
 THE JEW AT HOME. By JOSEPH PENNELL. 
 
 With Illustrations by the Author. 410. [In the Press. 
 
 IDYLLS OF WOMANHOOD. Poems. By 
 
 AMY DAWSON. Foolscap Svo, gilt top, ss. 
 
 THE LITTLE MANX NATION. By HALL 
 
 CAINE, Author of " The Bondman." Crown Svo, cloth, 
 y.'bit. ; paper, as. dd. 
 
 GIRLS AND WOMEN. By E. CHESTER. 
 
 Pott Svo, 2.?. dd. , or gilt extra, 3.?. dd. 
 
 GOSSIP IN A LIBRARY. By EDMUND GOSSE. 
 
 Second Edition. Crown Svo, gilt top, 7.?. dd. 
 
 * f * Large Paper Edition, limited to 100 copies. Price on 
 application. 
 
 THE CANADIAN GUIDE-BOOK. The 
 
 Tourist's and Sportsman's Guide to Eastern Canada and 
 Newfoundland, including all descriptions of Routes, Cities, 
 Points of Interest, Summer Resorts, Fishing Places, &c. 
 With an Appendix giving fish and game laws, and Official 
 Lists of Trout aud Salmon Rivers and their Lessees. By 
 CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS. With Maps and many Illustra- 
 tions. Crown Svo, limp cloth. 
 
 WOMAN THROUGH A MAN'S EYE- 
 GLASS. By MALCOLM C. SALAMAN. With Illus- 
 trations by DUDLEY HARDY. {In the Press. 
 
 THE WORKS OF HEINRICH HEINE. 
 
 Translated by CHARLES G. LELAND, F.R.L.S., M.A. 
 Volume I. Florentine Nights, Schnabelewopski. The 
 Rabbi of Bacharach, and Shakespeare's Maidens and 
 Women. Volumes II. and III., Pictures of Travel. In 
 Two Volumes. Volume IV., The Book of Songs. Volumes 
 V. and VI., Germany. In Two Volumes. Crown Svo, 5.?. 
 each.
 
 MR. WILLIAM HEINEMANX'S LIST. 
 
 DE QUINCEY MEMORIALS. Edited by 
 
 ALEXANDER H. JAPI-, LL.D., F.R.S.E. In Two Volumes, 
 demy 3vo, with portrait, 30^. net. 
 
 THE POSTHUMOUS WORKS OF 
 
 THOMAS DE QUINCEY. Edited by ALEXANDER H. 
 JA?P, LL.D., F.R.S.E. Volume I. Su.spiria dc Profundis 
 and other Essays. Crown Svo, 6.?. 
 
 THE GENTLE ART OF MAKING ENE- 
 MIES. By J. M'NEILL WHISTLER. In One Volume, 
 pott 410, las. 6tL Also, 150 Copies on Hand-made Paper, 
 Numbered and Signed by the Author, 2 2s. each. 
 
 THE COMING TERROR, and other Essays 
 and Letters. By ROBERT BUCHANAN. Second Edition. 
 Demy Svo, 125. dd. 
 
 IMPERIAL GERMANY. A Critical Study of 
 Fact and Character. By SIDNEY WHITMAN. Crown Svo, 
 cloth, 2.?. 6d. ; paper 2S. 
 
 DENMARK : Its History, Topography, Language, 
 Literature, Fine Arts, Social Life, and Finance. Edited 
 by H. WEITMEYER. With Coloured Map. In One 
 Volume, Svo, 12$. 6d. Dedicated by permission to H.R.H. 
 the Princess of Wales. 
 
 THE GENESIS OF THE UNITED 
 
 STATES. A Narrative of the Movement in England 1605- 
 1616, which resulted in the Plantation of North America by 
 Englishmen. By ALEXANDER BROWN, F.R.H.S., &c. &c. 
 In Two Volumeb, Svo, with numerous maps, plans, portraits, 
 autographs, &c., 3 13$. 6d. 
 
 THE GARDEN'S STORY; or, Pleasures and 
 Trials of an Amateur Gardener. By G. H. ELLWANGER. 
 With an Introduction by the Rev. C. WOLLEY DOD. 
 One Volume, fcap. Svo, illustrated, 5.?,
 
 8 MR. WILLIAM H RIM EM ANN'S LIST. 
 
 THE WORD OF THE LORD UPON THE 
 
 WATERS. Sermons read by His Imperial Majc.-,ty the 
 Emperor of Germany while at Sea, on his Voyages to the 
 Land of the Midnight Sun. Composed by Dr. KICHTER, 
 Army Chaplain, and Translated from the German by JOHN 
 K. MclLKAlTH. 410, cluth, zs. 6d. 
 
 THE PASSION PLAY AT OBERAM- 
 
 MERGAU, 1890. By F. W. FARRAR, D.D., F.R.S., 
 Archdeacon and Canon of Westminster. In One Volume, 
 410, cloth, 2s. dd. 
 
 THE LABOUR MOVEMENT IN 
 
 AMERICA. By RICHARD T. ELY, Ph.D., Associate in 
 Political Economy, Johns Hopkins University. In One 
 Volume, crown Svo, 5^. 
 
 Ibetnemann's Scientific 
 
 GEODESY. By J. HOWARD GORE. Small 
 
 crown Svo, illustrated, cloth, 5$. 
 
 MANUAL OF ASSAYING GOLD, SILVER, 
 
 COPPER, and LEAD ORES. By WALTER LEE BROWN, 
 B.Sc. With a Chapter on the ASSAYING OF FUEL, by 
 A. B. GRIFFITHS, Ph.D., F.R.S., F.C.S. Small crown 
 Svo, illustrated, cloth, 7$. bd. 
 
 Colliery Guardian. " A delightful and fascinating book." 
 
 THE PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF 
 
 GASES. By ARTHUR L. KIMBALL. Small crown Svo, 
 illustrated, cloth, 5$. 
 
 Cfamical News. " The man of culture who wishes for a 
 general and accurate acquaintance with the physical properties 
 of gases will find in Mr. Kimball's work just what he requires." 
 
 HEAT AS A FORM OF ENERGY. By 
 
 Professor R. H. THURSTON. Small crown Svo, illustrated, 
 cloth, ss. 
 
 Chemical News. This work will prove both welcome and 
 useful." 
 
 21 BEDFORD STREET, LONDON, W.C. 
 
 :
 
 University of California 
 
 SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 305 De Neve Drive - Parking Lot 17 Box 951388 
 
 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90095-1388 
 
 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. 
 
 OCT o 8 2007
 
 000 557 561 
 
 PR 
 
 ^037 
 
 SU2361